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"they are making Opera untenable" I disagree. Opera's desktop marketshare is making Opera untenable. Even though Google is a major corporation, I doubt they ca
by cleverjake 14y ago
"they are making Opera untenable"
I disagree. Opera's desktop marketshare is making Opera untenable. Even though Google is a major corporation, I doubt they can afford to spend the time fixing issues in a browser that gets lower single digit uses. Its not economically viable. No one will argue that Opera is a better browser than IE8, but IE8's marketshare dictates it should be supported.
Google is no more forcing users to use chrome than they are forcing them to use firefox or IE
- azakai 14y ago> Even though Google is a major corporation, I doubt they can afford to spend the time fixing issues in a browser that gets lower single digit uses. You're joking, I hope? Of course Google has the resources. It's one of the biggest companies in tech. Not only does Google have the money to do it, but it really looks bad by not supporting Opera and telling people to use Chrome. Just to prevent that bad publicity it would be worth the money to just support Opera. Furthermore, yes, Opera has low market share - a few percent globally. But it has very high market share in a few countries in Europe. Not supporting Opera is basically saying they don't support that country. Again, wouldn't it be worth the very small cost (in Google terms) to just support Opera?
- mtgx 14y agoDidn't Google give up on IE6 for some of their services when it had less than 20% market share? Opera has 1-2% market share. Granted, it should be a lot easier to tweak their code for Opera, but the difference in market share is pretty big, too.
- manojlds 14y agoEven MS wanted IE6 dead. In this case, it is all about Google trying to force a very good browser that has brought in great ideas and features, in addition to the performance and standards compliance, out of the market.
- azakai 14y ago> Even MS wanted IE6 dead. Exactly. So not supporting Opera like this sends the message that Google wants Opera dead.
- luchs 14y ago>Granted, it should be a lot easier to tweak their code for Opera In fact, most things would just work in Opera as they do in the other browser if there weren't any Opera-specific sniffing code in place locking Opera out.
- eli 14y agoIf that's literally true then isn't this not really a problem? Opera has a user agent switcher built in, no?
- ams6110 14y agoI think it was less the market share than the incredible pain that supporting IE6 had become.
- alexlitov 14y agoWhile Google has the resources to support Opera, it's not financially prudent to dedicate them to support a browser that barely has any market share.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- azakai 14y ago> While Google has the resources to support Opera, it's not financially prudent to dedicate them to support a browser that barely has any market share. Really? How much do you think it costs to make Blogger work on Opera?
- tomjen3 14y agoIncluding testing, support, development, translation into various languages, overhead, meetings when fixes conflicts? I would shoot at an average of 100k per feature. Plus more in the future to keep the support when they add new features.
- azakai 14y agoWhat do you call a "feature"? How many features does Blogger have in your definition?
- jarek 14y agoWhat would need translating for code improvements? They're forcing themselves to do more translating by showing a "not supported" message.
- Karunamon 14y agoConsidering that Opera is religiously standards compliant, anything that renders properly on Chrome should also render properly on Opera. (Assuming Google isn't invoking some kind of undocumented chrome-specific functions we don't know about for some reason). They can 'drop support', okay, fine, it's their choice what browsers they target. I just hope they don't start sniffing for the user agent and actively blocking it.
- cleverjake 14y ago>You're joking, I hope? No. No im not. >Of course Google has the resources. It's one of the biggest companies in tech. I didn't say they lacked the resources, I said it wouldn't be fiscally prudent. They are not purposively preventing opera from working, they are just not fixing bugs that only show up in Opera. >But it has very high market share in a few countries in Europe. Not supporting Opera is basically saying they don't support that country. I call bananas. That is like saying they should support IE 6 because its popular in Korea and China, and unlike IE in Korea, there is not something stopping most users in that country from using something other than Opera (including firefox, and IE). Besides, it doesn't matter if 100% of a country uses Opera if that 100% represents less than 1% of their marketshare. You are asking me if it is worth it, and I think they are basically telling you no, no it isn't.
- azakai 14y agoHow much - in actual dollars - do you think it costs them to support Opera, the most standards-compliant browser of them all?
- aidenn0 14y agoIf you're the only one that adheres to a standard, then there might as well not be a standard.
- cleverjake 14y agoNot a clue. However every minute spent fixing an issue for a browser with 1% or less usage is a minute not spent making it better for the 99%
- azakai 14y agoEven 1% being tens of millions of users, and when there is a clear conflict of interest here (Google having a product competing with Opera), and the relatively very small amount of work needed to make it work on Opera - not to mention the bad publicity here?
- sp332 14y agoTheir mobile browser accounts for 20%+ of all mobile traffic, which together with their desktop browser usage is about 300,000,000 active users (that's the population of the entire United States). So it would make sense for Google to support them.