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Opera Browser AMA (Ask Me Anything) on reddit

59 points by katovatzschyn 16y ago

zzleeper 16y ago
I just came here to post about it.. there are a lot of Opera engineers there replying to questions, so this may get interesting =)
Osiris 16y ago
I've been using Opera for many years. I'm so used to its features that I have a really hard time using any other browser. Some people think it has site compatibility issues. That was certainly true back in versions 7, 8 and even 9, but with the latest 10.6 builds, I rarely, if ever, find a site that doesn't work. If it doesn't it's usually due to browser sniffing rather than actual functionality problems. My favorite features are: (screenshot: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/114028/OperaScreenshot.png http://dl.dropbox.com/u/114028/OperaScreenshot.png ) 1. Left-side tabs - I have a wide-screen monitor, why waste the vertical space on tabs? 2. Visual tabs - thumbnails of the pages on the tab. I can't get along without tab thumbnails! 3. Speed Dial - My top 20 sites sitting right on the new tab screen. If a site isn't on my speed dial, I probably don't visit it 4. Address bar - type in anything and it'll search bookmarks and previously visited sites, including the site's CONTENT, not just the URLs. 5. Custom searches - Just right-click in any search text box and create a new search. Assign the search a shortcut (g=google, i=google images, wi=wikipedia, tv=tv.com, etc) 6. Built-in IMAP/POP3 client - I use Opera's built-in email client exclusively for personal email. The email search engine is extremely fast. Type in any word and get a list of emails in less than a second, despite having 25,000 emails indexed. Also, whenever I get email I get a notification right in my browser window. The sidebas constantly shows me the number of unread emails, so no need to open Gmail in a tab to see if there's new mail. I can also click on mailto: links and they work =) 7. Mouse gestures - Although I only use one, I can browser with out it. I use right-click to left-click flip gesture to go back a page all the time. I find myself doing it in every other browser and it takes me time to figure out why it's not working 8. Opera Turbo - I travel a lot and use a lot of crappy hotel internet, so Turbo is great because it compresses all the pages before downloading them, making my browsing much faster on the slow connection 9. Built-in RSS reader - Any page that has an RSS feed shows an icon in the address bar. Click it to add the feed right into the Mail panel. I have a whole list of RSS feeds I read right in the browser every day 10. Built-in ad-blocker - Right-click on any site and choose "Block Content" then click on the content to block. Easy. I think most of these features are unique to Opera, and if not, many were copied or implemented by as extensions to other browsers. Does anyone else do visual tabs on the left?
- StavrosK 16y ago
  I agree with everything you say, except that Facebook, GMaps and a few other sites don't work very well for me. Hell, I just opened GMaps to see if they'd fixed it and the browser froze.
  - iron_ball 16y ago
    Ditto. I use Opera for almost everything, but I use Chrome for Facebook and Google Maps.
  - psadauskas 16y ago
    The JS on the Amazon AWS pages doesn't work very well, either. Can't open up the dialog that has my secret key, for example.
  - Osiris 16y ago
    Weird, I use Google Maps all the time in Opera, probably almost daily, and never have problems. It used to be a bit slow, but that's changed with the new JIT engine in 10.6/10.7 alpha.
    - StavrosK 16y ago
      Ah, I've had such problems before. I fixed them by deleting all my preferences files, which I shouldn't really have to do. I'll try a clean install and see if it fixes it, thanks. Good thing we have sync, at least.
  - chrislloyd 16y ago
    Hi! Full disclosure: I'm interning at Opera now. Site compatibility is a tricky issue, however it is one of our main goals. I'm personally working on OperaWatir, an Opera backend for Watir (duh). That means sites can take their existing Watir suite and run them in Opera. This should really help for sites like Facebook who have large Watir test suites and arn't currently targeting Opera compatibility. Official release date? When it's done :) However, you can read about it here: http://my.opera.com/core/blog/2009/03/06/test-automation-with-operawatir http://my.opera.com/core/blog/2009/03/06/test-automation-wit...
eli 16y ago
I met some of the Opera devs at a conference a while back. They seem like they have a lot of fun.
benjoffe 16y ago
I worked for Opera from the start of 2007 until the start of this year, (webapps team). It's really fun seeing the company from the outside again, great people, great place to work, great product; I just wish Norway suited me better. My main hope for Opera 11 is that they focus more on their Mac version.
csomar 16y ago
I have been doing massive Web Development targeting Chrome (Safari), Firefox and certainly IE. I also give Opera a shot from time to time. My review is: Their rendering engine is fine, though not perfect. They have some minor problems. However, the JavaScript engine is awful. It doesn't behave like FF or Chrome engines. It's stupidly slow and sometimes freeze the browser. Font rendering isn't optimal, still better than IE.
- yesimahuman 16y ago
  As a developer, I find it hard to care about Opera. Their business interests with their engine don't seem to fit with my interests as a developer.
- hoppipolla 16y ago
  I work as a core QA at Opera. Do you have examples of the javascript problems that you experienced? We rewrote the engine for 10.50 so it's possible that that has fixed the issues you saw. On the DOM side we are working hard with other vendors through W3C / WHATWG / etc. to make the web specs precise enough that we can all converge on the same behaviour. Any bugs that you report [1] would be much appreciated. [1] https://bugs.opera.com/wizard/ https://bugs.opera.com/wizard/
- pornel 16y ago
  Funny, I do web development mainly in Opera and find that other browsers are fine, though not perfect :) It's probably the same reason why people who develop mainly in IE find that Firefox/Chrome "is broken". Browser that you develop for is going to seem best, because during development you automatically adjust to its problems. Opera was one of the first to pass Acid2 and render Acid3 pixel-perfect. They've been a bit late to the rounded corners/shadows game, but done them well (e.g. can render border style and radius on same element properly). They have really solid layout engine. That "stupidly slow" JS engine is lately going head to head with V8. One thing we can probably agree on is that JS error reporting in Opera is awful.
metamemetics 16y ago
Reposting from: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1790843 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1790843 Why you should care about Opera: 1. More minimal interface than Chrome. New-tab Speed-dial can be a solid background [or image] with no extra cruft. Unlike Chrome which adds bookmarks, recently closed, help links etc. 2. Equivalent performance to Chrome including JavaScript. 3. Firefox-isms while offering chrome performance. Aka Pop-in sidebars for downloads and history rather than new tabs. 5. CTRL-Tabbing is similar to operating system alt-tabbing. You don't even need a tab bar occupying screen real estate. 6. Password manager light-up button is a superior user experience to saved password autocomplete in Chrome and Firefox. 7. Right click mouse gestures. [and fully navigable keyboard only] Also, it has a very good Firefox style "Awesome Bar" that can even search inside the text of pages in your history.
- Xurinos 16y ago
  You will tear noscript from my cold, dead hands.
  - metamemetics 16y ago
    Opera is getting extensions, in the mean time you can use the built-in functionality: Preferences > Advanced > Content. Uncheck Enable JavaScript to disable it globally. Then when you want to manually enable JS for a single site: Right-click anywhere on page> Site Preferences > Scripting. Check Enable JavaScript.
    - lmkg 16y ago
      It's worth pointing out, you don't need to go through all the menus. Most (all?) functionality accessible in menus can be put on a button on the status bar. I have my Enable JavaScript checkbox down at the bottom, next to disabling images and CSS (useful for SEO work).
      - maggit 16y ago
        While we're pointing out different ways to disable JS, the F12-menu is also nice to have. F12 pops up a menu with some handy settings, including "Enable plugins" and "Enable JavaScript".
Jkeg 16y ago
I've moved on from Opera. It took them forever to implement basic usability features such as text box spell-check, and inline password remember/find in page. They also removed great features such as one click bookmarking. Their widgets used to be great, one hot-key and they'd all pop-up on screen like on OSX. Now you have to basically manage each one individually with multiple clicks and they clutter your taskbar like crazy. Meanwhile they focus on low value features like Unite. In the default install, it takes several clicks just to get to your list of bookmarks (ignoring hotkeys or custimization, from a business perspective this is bad.) These aren't just flukes, it seems to be a pattern in their priorities that has shifted in the past few years. Away from low friction usability and innovative features to something a bit more convoluted. Opera used to be top of the pack in usability, even for non-power users. But now for some reason they lost their edge. And aside from this reddit AMA, it seems to be very difficult to have a discussion with them about changes to the browser. They have a suggestions forum but it seems to be mostly ignored, at least in terms of feedback. How about a UserVoice for Opera? (just my analysis/opinion)
yread 16y ago
wow nice configs there http://twitpic.com/2z0tdb http://twitpic.com/2z0tdb http://files.myopera.com/ruario/Pictures/eeepc_toolbar_config.png http://files.myopera.com/ruario/Pictures/eeepc_toolbar_confi... !!!
andre3k1 16y ago
Unrelated question: Is Opera paying Reddit for use of their website? Reddit should really look into this if not. There could be real money in this, plus the community loves it!

59 points by katovatzschyn 16y ago

I just came here to post about it.. there are a lot of Opera engineers there replying to questions, so this may get interesting =)

Osiris 16y ago

I've been using Opera for many years. I'm so used to its features that I have a really hard time using any other browser. Some people think it has site compatibility issues. That was certainly true back in versions 7, 8 and even 9, but with the latest 10.6 builds, I rarely, if ever, find a site that doesn't work. If it doesn't it's usually due to browser sniffing rather than actual functionality problems. My favorite features are: (screenshot: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/114028/OperaScreenshot.png http://dl.dropbox.com/u/114028/OperaScreenshot.png ) 1. Left-side tabs - I have a wide-screen monitor, why waste the vertical space on tabs? 2. Visual tabs - thumbnails of the pages on the tab. I can't get along without tab thumbnails! 3. Speed Dial - My top 20 sites sitting right on the new tab screen. If a site isn't on my speed dial, I probably don't visit it 4. Address bar - type in anything and it'll search bookmarks and previously visited sites, including the site's CONTENT, not just the URLs. 5. Custom searches - Just right-click in any search text box and create a new search. Assign the search a shortcut (g=google, i=google images, wi=wikipedia, tv=tv.com, etc) 6. Built-in IMAP/POP3 client - I use Opera's built-in email client exclusively for personal email. The email search engine is extremely fast. Type in any word and get a list of emails in less than a second, despite having 25,000 emails indexed. Also, whenever I get email I get a notification right in my browser window. The sidebas constantly shows me the number of unread emails, so no need to open Gmail in a tab to see if there's new mail. I can also click on mailto: links and they work =) 7. Mouse gestures - Although I only use one, I can browser with out it. I use right-click to left-click flip gesture to go back a page all the time. I find myself doing it in every other browser and it takes me time to figure out why it's not working 8. Opera Turbo - I travel a lot and use a lot of crappy hotel internet, so Turbo is great because it compresses all the pages before downloading them, making my browsing much faster on the slow connection 9. Built-in RSS reader - Any page that has an RSS feed shows an icon in the address bar. Click it to add the feed right into the Mail panel. I have a whole list of RSS feeds I read right in the browser every day 10. Built-in ad-blocker - Right-click on any site and choose "Block Content" then click on the content to block. Easy. I think most of these features are unique to Opera, and if not, many were copied or implemented by as extensions to other browsers. Does anyone else do visual tabs on the left?

StavrosK 16y ago
I agree with everything you say, except that Facebook, GMaps and a few other sites don't work very well for me. Hell, I just opened GMaps to see if they'd fixed it and the browser froze.
- iron_ball 16y ago
  Ditto. I use Opera for almost everything, but I use Chrome for Facebook and Google Maps.
- psadauskas 16y ago
  The JS on the Amazon AWS pages doesn't work very well, either. Can't open up the dialog that has my secret key, for example.
- Osiris 16y ago
  Weird, I use Google Maps all the time in Opera, probably almost daily, and never have problems. It used to be a bit slow, but that's changed with the new JIT engine in 10.6/10.7 alpha.
  - StavrosK 16y ago
    Ah, I've had such problems before. I fixed them by deleting all my preferences files, which I shouldn't really have to do. I'll try a clean install and see if it fixes it, thanks. Good thing we have sync, at least.
- chrislloyd 16y ago
  Hi! Full disclosure: I'm interning at Opera now. Site compatibility is a tricky issue, however it is one of our main goals. I'm personally working on OperaWatir, an Opera backend for Watir (duh). That means sites can take their existing Watir suite and run them in Opera. This should really help for sites like Facebook who have large Watir test suites and arn't currently targeting Opera compatibility. Official release date? When it's done :) However, you can read about it here: http://my.opera.com/core/blog/2009/03/06/test-automation-with-operawatir http://my.opera.com/core/blog/2009/03/06/test-automation-wit...

eli 16y ago

I met some of the Opera devs at a conference a while back. They seem like they have a lot of fun.

benjoffe 16y ago

I worked for Opera from the start of 2007 until the start of this year, (webapps team). It's really fun seeing the company from the outside again, great people, great place to work, great product; I just wish Norway suited me better. My main hope for Opera 11 is that they focus more on their Mac version.

csomar 16y ago

I have been doing massive Web Development targeting Chrome (Safari), Firefox and certainly IE. I also give Opera a shot from time to time. My review is: Their rendering engine is fine, though not perfect. They have some minor problems. However, the JavaScript engine is awful. It doesn't behave like FF or Chrome engines. It's stupidly slow and sometimes freeze the browser. Font rendering isn't optimal, still better than IE.

yesimahuman 16y ago
As a developer, I find it hard to care about Opera. Their business interests with their engine don't seem to fit with my interests as a developer.
hoppipolla 16y ago
I work as a core QA at Opera. Do you have examples of the javascript problems that you experienced? We rewrote the engine for 10.50 so it's possible that that has fixed the issues you saw. On the DOM side we are working hard with other vendors through W3C / WHATWG / etc. to make the web specs precise enough that we can all converge on the same behaviour. Any bugs that you report [1] would be much appreciated. [1] https://bugs.opera.com/wizard/ https://bugs.opera.com/wizard/
pornel 16y ago
Funny, I do web development mainly in Opera and find that other browsers are fine, though not perfect :) It's probably the same reason why people who develop mainly in IE find that Firefox/Chrome "is broken". Browser that you develop for is going to seem best, because during development you automatically adjust to its problems. Opera was one of the first to pass Acid2 and render Acid3 pixel-perfect. They've been a bit late to the rounded corners/shadows game, but done them well (e.g. can render border style and radius on same element properly). They have really solid layout engine. That "stupidly slow" JS engine is lately going head to head with V8. One thing we can probably agree on is that JS error reporting in Opera is awful.

metamemetics 16y ago

Reposting from: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1790843 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1790843 Why you should care about Opera: 1. More minimal interface than Chrome. New-tab Speed-dial can be a solid background [or image] with no extra cruft. Unlike Chrome which adds bookmarks, recently closed, help links etc. 2. Equivalent performance to Chrome including JavaScript. 3. Firefox-isms while offering chrome performance. Aka Pop-in sidebars for downloads and history rather than new tabs. 5. CTRL-Tabbing is similar to operating system alt-tabbing. You don't even need a tab bar occupying screen real estate. 6. Password manager light-up button is a superior user experience to saved password autocomplete in Chrome and Firefox. 7. Right click mouse gestures. [and fully navigable keyboard only] Also, it has a very good Firefox style "Awesome Bar" that can even search inside the text of pages in your history.

Xurinos 16y ago
You will tear noscript from my cold, dead hands.
- metamemetics 16y ago
  Opera is getting extensions, in the mean time you can use the built-in functionality: Preferences > Advanced > Content. Uncheck Enable JavaScript to disable it globally. Then when you want to manually enable JS for a single site: Right-click anywhere on page> Site Preferences > Scripting. Check Enable JavaScript.
  - lmkg 16y ago
    It's worth pointing out, you don't need to go through all the menus. Most (all?) functionality accessible in menus can be put on a button on the status bar. I have my Enable JavaScript checkbox down at the bottom, next to disabling images and CSS (useful for SEO work).
    - maggit 16y ago
      While we're pointing out different ways to disable JS, the F12-menu is also nice to have. F12 pops up a menu with some handy settings, including "Enable plugins" and "Enable JavaScript".

Jkeg 16y ago

I've moved on from Opera. It took them forever to implement basic usability features such as text box spell-check, and inline password remember/find in page. They also removed great features such as one click bookmarking. Their widgets used to be great, one hot-key and they'd all pop-up on screen like on OSX. Now you have to basically manage each one individually with multiple clicks and they clutter your taskbar like crazy. Meanwhile they focus on low value features like Unite. In the default install, it takes several clicks just to get to your list of bookmarks (ignoring hotkeys or custimization, from a business perspective this is bad.) These aren't just flukes, it seems to be a pattern in their priorities that has shifted in the past few years. Away from low friction usability and innovative features to something a bit more convoluted. Opera used to be top of the pack in usability, even for non-power users. But now for some reason they lost their edge. And aside from this reddit AMA, it seems to be very difficult to have a discussion with them about changes to the browser. They have a suggestions forum but it seems to be mostly ignored, at least in terms of feedback. How about a UserVoice for Opera? (just my analysis/opinion)

yread 16y ago

wow nice configs there http://twitpic.com/2z0tdb http://twitpic.com/2z0tdb http://files.myopera.com/ruario/Pictures/eeepc_toolbar_config.png http://files.myopera.com/ruario/Pictures/eeepc_toolbar_confi... !!!

andre3k1 16y ago

Unrelated question: Is Opera paying Reddit for use of their website? Reddit should really look into this if not. There could be real money in this, plus the community loves it!