11 ms·
Opera is beyond rescue. As someone who spent a decade working there it saddens me to say so, but please don't use it. Actual, executive day-to-day control over
by tpmx 6y ago
Opera is beyond rescue. As someone who spent a decade working there it saddens me to say so, but please don't use it.
Actual, executive day-to-day control over the browser tech has progressed sort of like this:
1995: Oslo, Norway
2008: Linköping, Sweden
2014: Wrocław, Poland
2020: Beijing, PRC (the sale happened in 2016, but they were hands-off for quite some time; I think they were being busy with shady fintech stuff in Africa enabled by the Opera Mini work we did mostly in Sweden a decade earlier: https://www.engadget.com/2020-01-19-opera-accused-of-predatory-loan-apps.html https://www.engadget.com/2020-01-19-opera-accused-of-predato...)
- artursapek 6y agoAre you saying it's beyond rescue because it's controlled by China?
- tpmx 6y agoYes.
- takeda 6y agoOpera died to me after version 12 (the moment it essentially became Chrome with a different skin). I was their user since version 5 or 6 (this was before everyone started the crazy version system, back them they released a major version about once a year). The biggest things that I loved about the browser you couldn't get by extension, they could do many things because they could directly update the engine. Now learning that they are owned by PRC there's even less reasons for me to use it. Opera could have done a lot of good if they would open sourced their old browser (kind of line what Netscape did). Someone leaked the original source code, but because it was leaked and not officially published, no one wants to touch it. Anyway now it's too late, because it's way behind the current browsers.
- mxcrossb 6y agoNo I think he’s saying it’s beyond rescue because first it went from a “good” country like Norway, to a “worse” country like Sweden, to an “even worse” country like Poland, to an “even more Wiesel country like China, and racist crap like this is popular on this website.
- pfraze 6y agoThere are in fact reasons to distrust the Chinese state which have nothing to do with race.
- mxcrossb 6y agoIf that were the case he would have simply said “don’t use it because you can’t trust that the Chinese government won’t do something nefarious” and I’d have no complaint. But instead he wrote this progression wherein apparently Polish people are a step down the ladder of enlightened peoples just above the Chinese.
- Black101 6y agoWhat are those reasons?
- Sevastopol 6y agoThe Chinese government cannot be trusted. PRC-based companies are required to cooperate with the state intelligence apparatus. Not that much different in the US and the US-aligned world, but at least there is more transparency, open discussion, and defiance. All the reasons (privacy/spying, government unaccountability, etc.) that would make basing a tech company in the US bad are worse in China. It does seem, though, many are (seemingly in bad faith) increasingly conflating criticism and scepticism of the Chinese government with racial or ethnic animosity. It is almost identical to how discussions surrounding the Israeli government are conflated (seemingly in bad faith) with anti-Semitism. E: spelling and placement
- Black101 6y agobut is Opera operated by the Chinese Government? looks like it is from what you are saying but dang I have no clue.
- Sevastopol 6y ago> but is Opera operated by the Chinese Government? I said _cooperate_ (which means to assist someone or comply with their requests). I did not say Opera was operated by the Chinese government. > looks like it is from what you are saying but dang I have no clue. What I wrote might be confusing if someone did not know the definition of "cooperate", no fault. An example of what "cooperation" with a state might look like: https://www.wired.com/2014/09/feds-yahoo-fine-prism/ https://www.wired.com/2014/09/feds-yahoo-fine-prism/ -- https://archive.is/PsVTH https://archive.is/PsVTH . Or it might look like the various party cells within PRC-based companies.
- Black101 6y agoyes, he is racist ... nobody flagged me yet? I am surprised.
- nly 6y agoIt was dead to me the moment they switched to chromium
- tpmx 6y agoI still think that was a necessary decision. Jon Von Tetzchner (one of the two Opera founders, and a previous long time CEO) strongly disagreed, then from the outside, but later did the exact same thing with Vivaldi. (Jon is a fantastic mensch, btw. One of the best CEOs I've ever had.) Google had very purposely raised the bar by putting like 5x-8x more competent engineers than the Opera core (non-platform/UI-specific stuff) team had, working on inventing and implementing random new web standards that they then promptly started using on google.com properties. Think e.g. 500-800 engineers compared to 100. We simply couldn't do the same. Then this ratio started growing until it was obvious that it would eventually become an existential threat. They used their financial success in one business area (search ads) to become dominant in another area (browsers) in a clever and perhaps not entirely legal way.
- nonbirithm 6y agoThe irony was how ages ago everyone was waiting for a browser to come along and unseat IE, which was not a good browser. Now Chrome works well enough as a browser and has so much market share that it exerts too much control over its users and the Web, and it's unlikely that anything will be capable of obsoleting it in the near future.
- fiddlerwoaroof 6y agoI think the trick might be to make a browser that supports a reasonable subset of html/css/js + some killer feature. (Much easier said than done, though: but some kind of mobile app platform like WeChat might be a good way to get a foothold) Or just fork webkit/blink and aggressively refactor.
- 6510 6y agoThe killer feature could be a file type named after the kinds of websites people make. Say .blog or .forum or .store or .social perhaps even .aggregator or .hn (lol) each would work like a straight jacket or like a website on a platform (.blog like blogger, .store like shopify etc) it could be distributed and insanely fast. Every other link just opens in the normal browser.
- xxxxxxx12 6y agoYou realize Vivaldi is essentially the modern replacement for Opera.
- zepearl 6y agoI like a lot Opera on my phone & tablet. (but not on my notebooks & PCs - using there Firefox & Chrome)
- johtso 6y agoSame, it's the only mobile browser I've found that has decent dark mode..
- cbarrick 6y agoAny specific reasons to not use Opera? I actually just switched this week, being fed up with Firefox. So far so good. I very much like the UI/UX. I hope this isn't just another case of "China bad". Edit: Ah, I see the link you added. So the new owners seem shady.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- livre 6y agoIf you miss the old Opera UI/UX then Otter may be a decent replacement. If you want what would have been the actual continuation of the old Opera then go for Vivaldi (made by some of the old Opera team members).
- Osiris 6y agoVivaldi is made by an original Opera cofounder and looks and feels very much like Opera 12 including a built in mail client.
- livre 6y agoI didn't know they had a built in email client, they didn't have it last time I tried Vivaldi and that's why I eventually stopped using it. Thanks for that info.
- tpmx 6y agoI dunno, if Google was sold to a Chinese company (so, essentially controlled by the CCP), would that in your mind be grounds to avoid using their services, or just another case of "China bad"? I'm guessing you're perhaps conflating criticism of China/CCP with recent idiotic attacks on random asian people in the US?
- cbarrick 6y agoMerely being owned by a Chinese investment group is not enough for me to distrust a company. The allegations of predatory lending are cause for concern. Still, the browser has been solid in my 7 days of use so far.
- imiric 6y agoOpera in the late 90s / early 00s was such a great browser though. It was one of the first to adopt tabs, had a very responsive and slick UI compared to the competition, and the rendering engine was fast and fluid, though sadly not well supported or compatible. Even the built-in email client was decent, and much better than the one in Netscape Communicator from what I remember. Being share/adware was always a problem, but it was my main browser for a couple of years back then. Opera Mini was also excellent on pre-iPhone devices. Nowadays I wouldn't come near it, mostly because it's proprietary software owned by a company with shady business practices. Still, this is great news and should be applauded FWIW.
- forgotmypw17 6y agoOpera 3.62 and 12.14-12.16 are still great browsers and I still use them sometimes.
- uncoder0 6y agoMaybe I'm being naive but why would you use such an old browser? There seem to be many vulnerabilities. https://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2012-6470/ https://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2012-6470/
- forgotmypw17 6y agoI would use them because they are nice and a pleasure to use. I don't care about the vulns when I'm only browsing my own or trusted websites or localhost.
- f15h 6y agoCVE-2012-6470 should have been patched (in some of the last Presto builds) if I remember correctly.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Shorel 6y agoI share your pain. I also used to work for Opera. Please people, don't use Opera any more.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- interestica 6y agoDid anything come of this? All links I've found are from January 2020, and it seems that OPay is still available in the Google Play store.
- Galanwe 6y agoI don't quite understand your point. You are basically implying that opera is beyond rescue because the governance moved from a country you value to countries you value less?
- 88840-8855 6y agoI can only assume that he is implying that any involvement of/by Chinese people is a very bad thing per se.
- 3np 6y agoNot by Chinese people, by the CCP. Which it becomes as effect of being controlled by a legal entity in PRC. This has nothing to do with ethnicity or culture and everything to do with the current political situation in China.
- unicornporn 6y agoShouldn't a company in a country with these[1] practices rightfully be met with distrust in these contexts? Spoiler alert: I'm not a culture (or politics) relativist. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_China
- kelnos 6y agoIt seems a little weird that you'd trust a web browser developed by a company that resides in a country famous for massive, systemic internet censorship, as well as habitual government interference in and control over domestic companies' operations. That doesn't mean that today's Opera is definitely an untrustworthy piece of software, but it does raise the probability quite a bit.
- tpmx 6y agoI'm saying that the Opera browser is beyond rescue because it's now day-to-day controlled from Beijing.
- gsnedders 6y ago> 2008: Linköping, Sweden looks incredibly skeptical at this My memory of 2009–13 was very much the decisions about Presto being made by people in Oslo.
- tpmx 6y agoPresto, sure. And yes, it was a little cheeky, hence the "sort of".