5 ms·

Opera Desktop 18 released, with support for WebRTC

45 points by dagingaa 13y ago

andyking 13y ago
I assume at this point that Opera have decided to quietly drop ongoing support for Linux. There have been no updates to the Linux browser since the last one based on their old rendering engine - none of the Chromium/Blink based versions have made it across, even in beta.
- Spittie 13y ago
  I really want to try and see what's the deal with Opera >15, but they just won't allow me. Oh well, I'm already happy with Firefox.
  - yareally 13y ago
    From trying it on Windows, you're not missing much. It's mostly Chrome with a different skin as most of the features users liked on Opera < 12 are gone or have lost functionality. I still use Opera 12 for that reason. Some of that functionality may return in the future, but they have said that things like bookmarks will never be like they were exactly on Opera < 12. If they had lived up to making it Opera 12, but with a Chromium Engine, it wouldn't be a problem, but as many long term users were afraid, someone at Opera is using it as an excuse to radically change what Opera is.
    - geoka9 13y ago
      Does Ctrl-F11 still work? I often found myself firing up Opera just for that one feature.
      - yareally 13y ago
        Fit to width? Nope. Keyboard shortcuts[1] are also not customizable yet. You can mod them with a hex editor, but it would probably break or be overwritten by updates. [1] http://help.opera.com/opera/Windows/1284/en/fasterBrowsing.html#keyboard http://help.opera.com/opera/Windows/1284/en/fasterBrowsing.h...
- sirius87 13y ago
  yeah, I really miss this. I gave up Opera 12.16 and switched to FF recently. Looking forward to the new UI customization features in Australis, but there was so much more to Opera. Maxthon is coming to Linux as well, so that'll be interesting
- cabbeer 13y ago
  Moving to blink must my draining all their resources, their linux market share probably doesn't justify it yet.
- SkyMarshal 13y ago
  I'm hoping that they'll bring it back eventually, and that right now they're just focusing all their resources on getting the Win and Mac clients back up to feature-parity with 12.x, plus whatever else webkit brings to the mix. They're basically in somewhat of a sprint right now, but /fingerscrossed that once they're out of it, they'll port it to Linux too. They're building on Chromium, which has a Linux version, so hopefully it's in the realm of possibility. That said, will be interesting to see how long Opera 12.x lasts on Linux. I'm on Ubuntu 12.04 now and it's fine, next OS upgrade will be to 14.04 next Spring (or some other Debian distro if I decide to ditch Ubuntu). I wonder if Opera 12.x will work on that.
- anopows 13y ago
  In their blog they mentioned that their will be a Linux version, but I don't think it's a priority for them
- JohnTHaller 13y ago
  It's still relatively early (they're on rapid release, so 15, 16, 17, 18 don't mean what they used to) and Linux is a tiny sliver of a market for the Opera folks. Opera seems more focused on achieving commercial success across modern mobile devices (as opposed to the dying feature phone business) as well as desktop browsers. Dropping the old rendering engine helps them towards that goal (for good or ill). Delivering on a Linux build at this point probably doesn't. They have a lot of development time to still put into the new Opera builds full stop. And making them work on the most popular platforms (with the most users and thus the most revenue from partnering) makes sense. Mac is about 1/12th the userbase of Windows. Linux is about 1/5th the market share of Mac. So, it would be the last in line to get work put into it.
wendel 13y ago
getUserMedia is not WebRTC support. Let us know when you have full support for PeerConnections and DataChannels.
- dagingaa 13y ago
  Actually, they do have that. Check it out on http://iswebrtcready.appear.in/ http://iswebrtcready.appear.in/, or try to create a room on https://appear.in/ https://appear.in/
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
asdasf 13y ago
But still no support for being opera instead of a crappy chrome clone? What happened to that whole "we're not going to make the webkit based releases the official releases until we've added back all the missing features from opera 12" thing?
- V-2 13y ago
  Bookmarks are older than Opera 12 and they're gone as well
- stinos 13y ago
  this. And the absence of the mail client, of course.
- oblio 13y ago
  Market pressure. Even so, the rate at which they're adding back the features is unbelievable - I think it 12 months they'll have all the old Opera features back sans IRC client and mail client (which they said they'd drop anyway). Opera's future looks really promising if they can survive this very bumpy ride.
- upthedale 13y ago
  Came to say the same thing. Bring back mouse chording damnit! (Not to mention all of the little things that made Opera, Opera).
- mrweasel 13y ago
  You still can't make a search engine like DuckDuckGo the default and DragnFly is still missing in action :-(
mtgx 13y ago
IE still has no support for WebRTC, right? Just checking.
- dagingaa 13y ago
  Not yet, neither does Safari. Maybe with IE12?
- angularly 13y ago
  No, I think they disagree with Google about how to implement it. I suppose having paid 8+ bill for Skype might have something to do with it.
WhitneyLand 13y ago
What does Opera offer that you don't already get with Chrome/FF + a couple plug-ins? I mean what is compelling enough to make you choose it over the above options?
- SkyMarshal 13y ago
  I haven't used the new one yet, but the old one had a superior tab interface to everything out there, which they called MDI (Multiple Document Interface). For serial tab abusers like myself, it was a noticeable difference that always had me scratching my head why the other browsers didn't copy the idea.
  - manojlds 13y ago
    Small things like clicking a tab again to go back to the previous tab are excellent settings in the older versions.
- rch 13y ago
  Beyond tab management (which was exceptional), the side panel was and is my favorite UI widget hands-down. In the same vein as hot-corners, being able to 'toss' the pointer into the edge of the screen to open mail, notes, etc. felt just plain better than other methods.
  - upthedale 13y ago
    Emphasis on was. Now tab management and the side panel are non-existent.
- anopows 13y ago
  For me the user interface was always snappier and felt just all around better. Now with webkit they have a faster render engine and feel like a lighter and faster version of Chrome (plus you can install all addons from Chrome with this extension: https://addons.opera.com/de/extensions/details/download-chrome-extension-9/?display=en https://addons.opera.com/de/extensions/details/download-chro... )
- 13y ago
tommoor 13y ago
Tested in our WebRTC app for remote teams, Sqwiggle (https://www.sqwiggle.com https://www.sqwiggle.com) - it works flawlessly. From a developer standpoint it's only good news that Opera has moved to webkit at this point.

45 points by dagingaa 13y ago

I assume at this point that Opera have decided to quietly drop ongoing support for Linux. There have been no updates to the Linux browser since the last one based on their old rendering engine - none of the Chromium/Blink based versions have made it across, even in beta.

Spittie 13y ago
I really want to try and see what's the deal with Opera >15, but they just won't allow me. Oh well, I'm already happy with Firefox.
- yareally 13y ago
  From trying it on Windows, you're not missing much. It's mostly Chrome with a different skin as most of the features users liked on Opera < 12 are gone or have lost functionality. I still use Opera 12 for that reason. Some of that functionality may return in the future, but they have said that things like bookmarks will never be like they were exactly on Opera < 12. If they had lived up to making it Opera 12, but with a Chromium Engine, it wouldn't be a problem, but as many long term users were afraid, someone at Opera is using it as an excuse to radically change what Opera is.
  - geoka9 13y ago
    Does Ctrl-F11 still work? I often found myself firing up Opera just for that one feature.
    - yareally 13y ago
      Fit to width? Nope. Keyboard shortcuts[1] are also not customizable yet. You can mod them with a hex editor, but it would probably break or be overwritten by updates. [1] http://help.opera.com/opera/Windows/1284/en/fasterBrowsing.html#keyboard http://help.opera.com/opera/Windows/1284/en/fasterBrowsing.h...
sirius87 13y ago
yeah, I really miss this. I gave up Opera 12.16 and switched to FF recently. Looking forward to the new UI customization features in Australis, but there was so much more to Opera. Maxthon is coming to Linux as well, so that'll be interesting
cabbeer 13y ago
Moving to blink must my draining all their resources, their linux market share probably doesn't justify it yet.
SkyMarshal 13y ago
I'm hoping that they'll bring it back eventually, and that right now they're just focusing all their resources on getting the Win and Mac clients back up to feature-parity with 12.x, plus whatever else webkit brings to the mix. They're basically in somewhat of a sprint right now, but /fingerscrossed that once they're out of it, they'll port it to Linux too. They're building on Chromium, which has a Linux version, so hopefully it's in the realm of possibility. That said, will be interesting to see how long Opera 12.x lasts on Linux. I'm on Ubuntu 12.04 now and it's fine, next OS upgrade will be to 14.04 next Spring (or some other Debian distro if I decide to ditch Ubuntu). I wonder if Opera 12.x will work on that.
anopows 13y ago
In their blog they mentioned that their will be a Linux version, but I don't think it's a priority for them
JohnTHaller 13y ago
It's still relatively early (they're on rapid release, so 15, 16, 17, 18 don't mean what they used to) and Linux is a tiny sliver of a market for the Opera folks. Opera seems more focused on achieving commercial success across modern mobile devices (as opposed to the dying feature phone business) as well as desktop browsers. Dropping the old rendering engine helps them towards that goal (for good or ill). Delivering on a Linux build at this point probably doesn't. They have a lot of development time to still put into the new Opera builds full stop. And making them work on the most popular platforms (with the most users and thus the most revenue from partnering) makes sense. Mac is about 1/12th the userbase of Windows. Linux is about 1/5th the market share of Mac. So, it would be the last in line to get work put into it.

wendel 13y ago

getUserMedia is not WebRTC support. Let us know when you have full support for PeerConnections and DataChannels.

dagingaa 13y ago
Actually, they do have that. Check it out on http://iswebrtcready.appear.in/ http://iswebrtcready.appear.in/, or try to create a room on https://appear.in/ https://appear.in/
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

asdasf 13y ago

But still no support for being opera instead of a crappy chrome clone? What happened to that whole "we're not going to make the webkit based releases the official releases until we've added back all the missing features from opera 12" thing?

V-2 13y ago
Bookmarks are older than Opera 12 and they're gone as well
stinos 13y ago
this. And the absence of the mail client, of course.
oblio 13y ago
Market pressure. Even so, the rate at which they're adding back the features is unbelievable - I think it 12 months they'll have all the old Opera features back sans IRC client and mail client (which they said they'd drop anyway). Opera's future looks really promising if they can survive this very bumpy ride.
upthedale 13y ago
Came to say the same thing. Bring back mouse chording damnit! (Not to mention all of the little things that made Opera, Opera).
mrweasel 13y ago
You still can't make a search engine like DuckDuckGo the default and DragnFly is still missing in action :-(

mtgx 13y ago

IE still has no support for WebRTC, right? Just checking.

dagingaa 13y ago
Not yet, neither does Safari. Maybe with IE12?
angularly 13y ago
No, I think they disagree with Google about how to implement it. I suppose having paid 8+ bill for Skype might have something to do with it.

WhitneyLand 13y ago

What does Opera offer that you don't already get with Chrome/FF + a couple plug-ins? I mean what is compelling enough to make you choose it over the above options?

SkyMarshal 13y ago
I haven't used the new one yet, but the old one had a superior tab interface to everything out there, which they called MDI (Multiple Document Interface). For serial tab abusers like myself, it was a noticeable difference that always had me scratching my head why the other browsers didn't copy the idea.
- manojlds 13y ago
  Small things like clicking a tab again to go back to the previous tab are excellent settings in the older versions.
rch 13y ago
Beyond tab management (which was exceptional), the side panel was and is my favorite UI widget hands-down. In the same vein as hot-corners, being able to 'toss' the pointer into the edge of the screen to open mail, notes, etc. felt just plain better than other methods.
- upthedale 13y ago
  Emphasis on was. Now tab management and the side panel are non-existent.
anopows 13y ago
For me the user interface was always snappier and felt just all around better. Now with webkit they have a faster render engine and feel like a lighter and faster version of Chrome (plus you can install all addons from Chrome with this extension: https://addons.opera.com/de/extensions/details/download-chrome-extension-9/?display=en https://addons.opera.com/de/extensions/details/download-chro... )
13y ago

tommoor 13y ago

Tested in our WebRTC app for remote teams, Sqwiggle (https://www.sqwiggle.com https://www.sqwiggle.com) - it works flawlessly. From a developer standpoint it's only good news that Opera has moved to webkit at this point.