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Opera has been light years beyond the other browsers in caching for so long it seems they'll never catch up. It did have a hard time recovering from the early

Opera has been light years beyond the other browsers in caching for so long it seems they'll never catch up. It did have a hard time recovering from the early backlash against it for not being open-source, belying the involvement and contributions of Opera engineers to the open standards web.

derleth 14y ago
And the ads. Don't forget how long it showed you ads.
- klibertp 14y ago
  How long? I never saw (edit: don't remember seeing - as it was showing ads then) ads in Opera and I was using it from about 2002(3?) to 2011 when I switched to Chrome. I seem to remember that back then Opera's main selling point was that it was insanely fast and had small memory footprint while having many new and useful features. So I think it showed the ads for about 6 years? Just curious.
  - derleth 14y ago
    According to Wikipedia: > Up to this point, Opera was trialware and had to be purchased after the trial period ended. Version 5.0 (released in 2000) saw the end of this requirement. Instead, Opera became ad-sponsored, displaying advertisements to users who had not paid for it.[25] Later versions of Opera gave the user the choice of seeing banner ads or targeted text advertisements from Google. With version 8.5 (released in 2005) the advertisements were removed entirely and primary financial support for the browser came through revenue from Google (which is by contract Opera's default search engine). So 2000 through 2005. This seems to be borne out by the more specialized History of the Opera web browser page: > Opera 5, released on December 6, 2000, was the first version which was ad-sponsored instead of having a trial period. [snip] > Version 8.5 was released on September 20, 2005, Opera announced that their browser would be available free of charge and without advertisements from then onwards, although the company still sells support contracts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Opera_web_browser http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Opera_web_browse... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_%28web_browser%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_%28web_browser%29
    - klibertp 14y ago
      Ok, so either I have forgotten or wasn't using Opera that early (but that seems improbable). This bit: > Later versions of Opera gave the user the choice of seeing banner ads or targeted text advertisements from Google is suspicious - I remember that when Opera was showing ads it had an ad bar above (or below) address bar. So maybe I got served ads but didn't consider them as such. Or maybe I just idealize my youth :)
- demetrius 14y ago
  Well, I seriously doubt anyone really bothered about these ads in Belarus. Most people back then bought software collections on pirate CDs that already included a keygen or a serial number. (In fact, some people still use these, but now it’s easier to download most software.)

derleth 14y ago

And the ads. Don't forget how long it showed you ads.

klibertp 14y ago
How long? I never saw (edit: don't remember seeing - as it was showing ads then) ads in Opera and I was using it from about 2002(3?) to 2011 when I switched to Chrome. I seem to remember that back then Opera's main selling point was that it was insanely fast and had small memory footprint while having many new and useful features. So I think it showed the ads for about 6 years? Just curious.
- derleth 14y ago
  According to Wikipedia: > Up to this point, Opera was trialware and had to be purchased after the trial period ended. Version 5.0 (released in 2000) saw the end of this requirement. Instead, Opera became ad-sponsored, displaying advertisements to users who had not paid for it.[25] Later versions of Opera gave the user the choice of seeing banner ads or targeted text advertisements from Google. With version 8.5 (released in 2005) the advertisements were removed entirely and primary financial support for the browser came through revenue from Google (which is by contract Opera's default search engine). So 2000 through 2005. This seems to be borne out by the more specialized History of the Opera web browser page: > Opera 5, released on December 6, 2000, was the first version which was ad-sponsored instead of having a trial period. [snip] > Version 8.5 was released on September 20, 2005, Opera announced that their browser would be available free of charge and without advertisements from then onwards, although the company still sells support contracts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Opera_web_browser http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Opera_web_browse... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_%28web_browser%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_%28web_browser%29
  - klibertp 14y ago
    Ok, so either I have forgotten or wasn't using Opera that early (but that seems improbable). This bit: > Later versions of Opera gave the user the choice of seeing banner ads or targeted text advertisements from Google is suspicious - I remember that when Opera was showing ads it had an ad bar above (or below) address bar. So maybe I got served ads but didn't consider them as such. Or maybe I just idealize my youth :)
demetrius 14y ago
Well, I seriously doubt anyone really bothered about these ads in Belarus. Most people back then bought software collections on pirate CDs that already included a keygen or a serial number. (In fact, some people still use these, but now it’s easier to download most software.)