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"The reason I felt it important to pass on this news to non-Opera users is that I’m wondering if Google are going to stop at Opera? I get the sense that this co

"The reason I felt it important to pass on this news to non-Opera users is that I’m wondering if Google are going to stop at Opera? I get the sense that this could be the thin end of a wedge, and that Opera may not be the only browser which ends up getting the cold shoulder." I doubt Google will give a cold shoulder to browsers with actual market share. I'm glad Opera exists to keep a check on the other browser makers... I'm also glad Opera only has 1% market share so I can ignore it when I make own websites.

tomjen3 14y ago
Agreed. I don't get why people like it so much. Something must be wrong with it to only have so few users -- it has been around for more than two years now, I think.
- mbrubeck 14y ago
  I'm not sure if this is a joke or not. Opera has been around for over fifteen years -- longer than Firefox, Safari, or Chrome. It's been around as long as Internet Explorer. But their main revenue source is mobile, where they have been the #1 browser vendor for a long time. Opera accounts for over 20% of mobile browser page views worldwide. The desktop market is less of a focus for Opera than for other vendors. Even so, while Opera accounts for only about 1% of desktop browser page views in the US, it's about 4% of desktop page views in Europe, and much much higher within certain countries (around 9% in Poland and 20% in Russia, for example). Market share depends highly on geography, and it's much harder for a global company to ignore any of the major browsers. Desktop map: http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-monthly-201206-201206-map http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-monthly-201206-201206-... Mobile map: http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_browser-ww-monthly-201206-201206-map http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_browser-ww-monthly-201206-...
  - tomjen3 14y ago
    I am still technically correct as 15 is more than 2. But that still leaves the question, why hasn't it been picked up?
    - luchs 14y ago
      Because it's neither bundled with any operating system (like IE or Safari) nor can they afford to do a lot of advertising (like Chrome). Firefox got popular because many sites advertised it as a 'better browser than IE' for free, I guess.
    - mbrubeck 14y ago
      I tried to explain that above. Opera's revenue, and therefore their development and marketing and sales strategy, is primarily in the mobile market, where it has been "picked up" quite successfully. They haven't focused as much on competing for usage share in the desktop browser market. (And even so, 2% of all computer users in the world is not exactly a failure; it's a very large number!) It's like a mirror image of Firefox , which focused almost exclusively (and successfully) on the desktop, but has not been picked up on mobile because it has not focused as much on development or strategy there.
    - cyclinghacker 14y ago
      Simple, back when the browser shake-up was going on (early 2000s) Opera was a paid browser, or a free browser with banner advertisements. It was also Windows only for a long time. I don't remember exactly when they came to their senses and admitted that no one pays for a web browser, but by that point it was too late.
- sp332 14y ago
  Nothing is wrong with Opera. It's not missing any major features. In fact it is competitive with the major web browsers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_browsers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_browsers including HTML5 support, accessibility, security, and speed. Many of the features that other browsers need extensions for (like image blocking, tab management, or "new tab" pages) are installed by default.
  - tomjen3 14y ago
    Then why does it have so few users?
    - ippisl 14y ago
      Browsers are a "winner take most" market because of website support and extensions. IE and chrome have rich parents, and firefox had much better extension community.
      - skrebbel 14y ago
        I doubt the extensions have much to do with it. Where Firefox had a vibrant community of people making extensions for their favourite website's search box, Opera added a way to access any site's search box from the address bar. This is just an example - a lot of things that Firefox extensions have been most used for are natively supported in Opera, though typically in a very different way. I don't think anybody but a particular kind of power user like you or me would chose a browser for its extension community. I think the free firefox ads all over many websites helped more. I mean, at some point, the Dutch Linux user group collected money to pay for a full-page colour Firefox ad in the Netherlands' largest newspaper. From their own pockets! The holy war to promote Firefox was really going strong for quite a while, and only got stilled when the many of the same people decided to switch to Google Chrome because they discovered that speed was more important to them than that whole open source principle they financed that ad for, and that really the ad was against Microsoft / IE and not so much for Firefox.
        14y ago
sp332 14y ago
A user base of 300,000,000 means they can't have less than 4.2% market share, even if the whole population of the earth were online.
- simonw 14y ago
  I'm pretty sure that number includes opera mini / opera mobile users. I don't know what the numbers for opera desktop are but I'm certain they're a fraction of opera's mobile offerings.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - mbrubeck 14y ago
    Yup. According to Statcounter data from last month, Opera accounts for about 2% of desktop page views and 21% of mobile page views worldwide.
    - recoiledsnake 14y ago
      It's still a significant number overall and has large shares in some countries. From the Wiki: As of December 2011 Opera has a 1.3% to 2.6% worldwide usage share of web browsers.[111] The browser has been more successful in Eastern Europe, including about 47% market share in 2009 in Georgia, 43% in Ukraine, 39% in Kazakhstan, 36% in Russia, and 8–11% in Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, and the Czech Republic.[112] In July 2011, Opera broke its previous download records when Opera 11.50 was released and was recorded to be downloaded 35 million times during the first week of release
  - skrebbel 14y ago
    And I bet they count me triple, with Opera on the desktop, Opera Mini on my phone and Opera Mobile on my tablet. Never believe the marketers, even when they work at awesome companies!
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

tomjen3 14y ago

Agreed. I don't get why people like it so much. Something must be wrong with it to only have so few users -- it has been around for more than two years now, I think.

mbrubeck 14y ago
I'm not sure if this is a joke or not. Opera has been around for over fifteen years -- longer than Firefox, Safari, or Chrome. It's been around as long as Internet Explorer. But their main revenue source is mobile, where they have been the #1 browser vendor for a long time. Opera accounts for over 20% of mobile browser page views worldwide. The desktop market is less of a focus for Opera than for other vendors. Even so, while Opera accounts for only about 1% of desktop browser page views in the US, it's about 4% of desktop page views in Europe, and much much higher within certain countries (around 9% in Poland and 20% in Russia, for example). Market share depends highly on geography, and it's much harder for a global company to ignore any of the major browsers. Desktop map: http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-monthly-201206-201206-map http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-monthly-201206-201206-... Mobile map: http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_browser-ww-monthly-201206-201206-map http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_browser-ww-monthly-201206-...
- tomjen3 14y ago
  I am still technically correct as 15 is more than 2. But that still leaves the question, why hasn't it been picked up?
  - luchs 14y ago
    Because it's neither bundled with any operating system (like IE or Safari) nor can they afford to do a lot of advertising (like Chrome). Firefox got popular because many sites advertised it as a 'better browser than IE' for free, I guess.
  - mbrubeck 14y ago
    I tried to explain that above. Opera's revenue, and therefore their development and marketing and sales strategy, is primarily in the mobile market, where it has been "picked up" quite successfully. They haven't focused as much on competing for usage share in the desktop browser market. (And even so, 2% of all computer users in the world is not exactly a failure; it's a very large number!) It's like a mirror image of Firefox , which focused almost exclusively (and successfully) on the desktop, but has not been picked up on mobile because it has not focused as much on development or strategy there.
  - cyclinghacker 14y ago
    Simple, back when the browser shake-up was going on (early 2000s) Opera was a paid browser, or a free browser with banner advertisements. It was also Windows only for a long time. I don't remember exactly when they came to their senses and admitted that no one pays for a web browser, but by that point it was too late.
sp332 14y ago
Nothing is wrong with Opera. It's not missing any major features. In fact it is competitive with the major web browsers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_browsers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_browsers including HTML5 support, accessibility, security, and speed. Many of the features that other browsers need extensions for (like image blocking, tab management, or "new tab" pages) are installed by default.
- tomjen3 14y ago
  Then why does it have so few users?
  - ippisl 14y ago
    Browsers are a "winner take most" market because of website support and extensions. IE and chrome have rich parents, and firefox had much better extension community.
    - skrebbel 14y ago
      I doubt the extensions have much to do with it. Where Firefox had a vibrant community of people making extensions for their favourite website's search box, Opera added a way to access any site's search box from the address bar. This is just an example - a lot of things that Firefox extensions have been most used for are natively supported in Opera, though typically in a very different way. I don't think anybody but a particular kind of power user like you or me would chose a browser for its extension community. I think the free firefox ads all over many websites helped more. I mean, at some point, the Dutch Linux user group collected money to pay for a full-page colour Firefox ad in the Netherlands' largest newspaper. From their own pockets! The holy war to promote Firefox was really going strong for quite a while, and only got stilled when the many of the same people decided to switch to Google Chrome because they discovered that speed was more important to them than that whole open source principle they financed that ad for, and that really the ad was against Microsoft / IE and not so much for Firefox.
      - 14y ago

sp332 14y ago

A user base of 300,000,000 means they can't have less than 4.2% market share, even if the whole population of the earth were online.

simonw 14y ago
I'm pretty sure that number includes opera mini / opera mobile users. I don't know what the numbers for opera desktop are but I'm certain they're a fraction of opera's mobile offerings.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- mbrubeck 14y ago
  Yup. According to Statcounter data from last month, Opera accounts for about 2% of desktop page views and 21% of mobile page views worldwide.
  - recoiledsnake 14y ago
    It's still a significant number overall and has large shares in some countries. From the Wiki: As of December 2011 Opera has a 1.3% to 2.6% worldwide usage share of web browsers.[111] The browser has been more successful in Eastern Europe, including about 47% market share in 2009 in Georgia, 43% in Ukraine, 39% in Kazakhstan, 36% in Russia, and 8–11% in Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, and the Czech Republic.[112] In July 2011, Opera broke its previous download records when Opera 11.50 was released and was recorded to be downloaded 35 million times during the first week of release
- skrebbel 14y ago
  And I bet they count me triple, with Opera on the desktop, Opera Mini on my phone and Opera Mobile on my tablet. Never believe the marketers, even when they work at awesome companies!
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]