I really like using Opera on Linux. It is the only full featured browser that has good, scalable UI and touch input support. And builtin adblocking + "battery saver mode" (developer version only) are really good additions. However, I do not trust Chinese companies with my data, I will need to switch to Firefox soon.
I typically don't have this instinctive bias against Chinese companies (they manufacture lots of great products), but I've actually heard of the leading buyer, Qihoo 360. I remember they used to release some "security software" for Windows that disabled the builtin Windows update and replaced it with their own mechanism. They also used to have their own "secure browser" that was nothing more than a shell over Trident and Webkit. I'm not sure I can find references for those claims as this was a very long time ago. But I just navigated to their official website (they seem to have two, http://www.360.com and http://www.360.cn ) and guess what. The year is 2016 and a security company's official website doesn't support HTTPS. It doesn't work on my computer and hopefully this isn't due to China's firewall.
The problem isn't necessarily the companies, it's that the government is in league with the companies and/or outright owns and runs them, so people are concerned about the Chinese government having their data. I am too, and I imagine most people here are as well.
Probably an unpopular opinion here, but for that matter, should I trust the American government? I'm not one of its citizens and deemed fine to spy on by American laws.
But Vivaldi == "We use JavaScript and React to create the user interface with the help of Node.js and a long list of NPM modules. Vivaldi is the web built with the web.". Which again equals: do I really want to trust that browser knowing how NPM modules are basically the least secure thing ever?
"Competitive advantage" most likely. They built their own HTML-based UI on top of Chromium. So, their browser engine is just Chrome/Chromium/Blink, not something unique. Vivaldi can't even sync your bookmarks between devices yet (at least the last time I checked).
I don't understand why people instantly go to the uninstall step when we are talking about the Chinese acquiring information, but the USG is fine. At least you most likely don't live in the country obtaining potentially incriminating information (if that is your worry).
The new Opera, i.e. every Opera after Version 15, is a Chromium fork.
That means it carries with it all the small and large behaviors like: Auto-updating. It also has literally no upside over using Opera v12, which still works fine for most things nowadays; and mostly no upsides over using just Chrome, or any other flavor of Chromium.
As such, getting rid of it after this acquisition gives only upside for the safety-conscious user.
5000 steps back and 3 forward as a token to convert the headlines from "Opera ASA throws away browser" to "Opera ASA releases new browser" is not an upside, it's still a dirty lie. And Opera 12 is fine, has even recently received an SSL upgrade.
Well, I do not use Chrome for the same reason. I am also in the process of migrating from Google to services in countries that respect privacy and do not share data with governments without a warrant.
I'm still waiting for Chromium builds to work on Android, personally.
I trust the security acumen of the 'many eyes' who work on that project much more than Opera or Firefox. And Google doesn't vacuum up any data unless you volunteer it in Chrome. That's been proven.
The Chinese company Kunqis failed to aquire Opera because it didn't get enough shareholder approval. Therefore this is the plan B, where Opera sells some assets, including the browser, to Kunqis.
Those controversies of Qihoo 360 (stated in Wikipedia for both the society and the product of "360 Secure Browser") and Haier (for their partnership in the mobile platform) can't lead to anything good for Opera (browser).
Also, the presence of a "consortium" for which I haven't read any other relevant name sound like a way to cover the direct acquisition…
What I can see here is:
- A Chinese company trying to both comfortably beat their (Chinese) competition while gaining (out of PRC) customers for their "services" (which will likely be integrated within the browser); Which is fine, except for their "controversies".
- An executive team (at Opera), that seams pretty all about finance and economics, trying to make the most (money) from an offer in a market (the web browsers one) that is (at least, I think so) hard to remunerate.
Obviously those shareholders will be happy; but are those shareholders really involved into the product that they own, or they are just silent speculators who made an investment for the sole purpose of profit when they realized the company's potential of being acquired ?
I'm also disappointed because I used to like the effort that Opera has put into their own browser in the latest months; the same effort that convinced me to adopt their browser (beta version) instead of Chrome and advocate them.
P.S.: Obviously, those are just my thoughts after having read the article; I hope for a more detailed statement from Opera…
> Obviously those shareholders will be happy; but are those shareholders really involved into the product that they own
The shareholders are ecstatic with joy. The browser has been nothing but an advertising front for what is factually an advertising company for years now.
The fact that you actually saw the abomination that was Opera 15 and beyond in a positive light, instead of the truth of abandoning browser development in favor of a token Chrome fork, speaks volumes to this strategy having worked for them.
I have to say that I haven't experienced* the 12 to 15 transition that you refer; to me Opera is just a browser that changed over the time and, because I'm not a long date user, I never ever seen it as the advertising medium that you say.
Of course they could have chose to better differentiate themselves, but the actual decision/strategy seems to have worked also for me.
BTW, as long as I know, they also pushed some code into Chromium so I see it as a solid step toward the consolidation of web standards by using a common and open base. Better achieved if performance exists as well.
[*]: Even if I occasionally tried some desktop versions of Opera during the years, I've always preferred Firefox and later Chrome as default browser.
It wasn't a transition. There is no other way to describe as this:
They threw away a perfectly functional software package with thousands of features, and replaced it with a fork of third-party software that didn't offer even a tenth of the features of the original package.
That said, yes, the strategy worked. The world at large swallowed their lie because it was mostly people like you, who weren't using Opera in the first place, and didn't know better about what really happened.
The people who suffered were their loyal users, people who had even bought Opera at some point.
You get my attention and curiosity; it is a browser, what were the "features" that you are talking about ?
At some point I've read that it had an e-mail client, later externalized; if those are the "feature", so I'm also ok with that, as I'm more into Vim than emacs. That's my point.
If you're referencing something else, I'm curious. :)
Well, the email client for one. Not only is it built in, it also functions better than any other i've seen. You know how many email clients have a spam folder that learns by what you drop in it and pull out of it? Opera mail allows you to enable that auto-learning for EVERY folder. It works great.
The mail client also doubles as an RSS reader client.
Aside from that, it also has mouse gestures that are core in the browser, not bolted on with JS addons, which means they work consistently, everywhere, and fast. Gestures i do a lot: Right-click + wheel to change tabs, hold right tap left to go back, hold left tap right to go forward, and various hold rought and move mouse gestures to open new tabs, close tabs, move up a level, etc.
Then there's the performance and memory efficiency. I have 100+ tabs open and the thing sits at 2 GB with my email story as well. Right-click + wheel scrolls me through tabs at basically display refresh rate, chrome can't even switch that fast.
A very powerful url blocker that can be configured per-domain is built in, and is faster than any kind of js-based addon could ever dream of.
I can actually manually edit menu and toolbar ini files and even add macros and javascript bits right there. For example i use that to add menu entries to right-click on links to open those links in other browsers.
I can edit text-based style descriptor files with additional image files to completely restyle the browser effortlessly.
Getting to the screen where i can view and edit cookies for the active page directly takes me 3 clicks.
I can configure activation, deactivation of js, plugins (flash, etc.), even animated images per site with 3 clicks, globally with 2 or a hotkey. I can tell plugins like flash to load on demand, i.e. only when i click on them or tell the page to start loading plugins by clicking in the adress bar.
I can add browser-wide custom css, or site-specific custom css, again, 3 clicks.
I can disable all CSS for the active page with one click.
It has a note-taking facility built-in that doubles as "richer" bookmark manager, and also serves to give strings for auto-complete suggesting when typing in input fields.
It has one-button keyboard shortcuts, e.g. "seach in page" is "." for me.
I can have a vertical tab bar and a horizontal one at the same time.
I can open a list of all links on the current page, filter it by various conditions, select the ones i want and hit "download these to a folder" in one action.
I can add custom panels in the side panel by adding urls there, which is where i keep a bunch of "translate this word" things.
And that's just scratching the surface. I could go on for a long time. And keep in mind: It has all this stuff in it, and excluding JS engine performance, still outperforms Chrome and Firefox. JS being slower and SSL compatibility slowly going kaput are the only actual downsides.
I really wish promising technology couldn’t be seriously damaged simply by being “bought”. Perhaps there should be a law that says something like: fine, you can buy this but you must permanently open-source a snapshot of that product from 2 years ago (ensuring some legacy regardless of your actions).
Yes, Opera might be fine. It might even end up better. If history tells us anything though, new management can cause a lot of problems. The term “consortium” doesn’t exactly scream “experts at moving technology forward”. One of the companies where I worked was bought by a “consortium”, and I saw some very…interesting decisions made back then.
Opera wasn’t special because of a dollar figure; it was special because of its attitude toward technology. If a consortium values return over anything else, they risk alienating too many of the people that made Opera successful.
Any power users that used Opera for that aspect are still using v12, which is unaffected by this, entirely; and no power user would use the chromium fork they put out with v15 and upwards, because all it offers is a dearth of features.
I became a huge fan of Opera Mobile in the last few months. It's the only browser that feels fast on my Android device and I'm actually a fan of the proxy as well as the possibility to block ads and omit images. It is a godsend for the notoriously small german data packages. I'm not checking my mail with it but it's great for a fast Google search here and there.
I use Opera regularly, but I think many of the 'power users' preferred Opera 12 to the WebKit/Blink versions, as there was a feature cull during this transition. Vivaldi is the spiritual successor to Presto-based Opera.
Spiritual successor in the sense that it is highly customizable with lots of shortcuts?
From a technological perspective, it seems quite different. One of Opera's great strengths was how "native" it felt on every platform, plus a full suite of Internet tools. This doesn't seem to do chat, email, bittorrent, etc.
It does email at least, and maybe bittorrent and chat.
The native feel seems largely to have been Opera 12's downfall; they just didn't have the resources/manpower to maintain their own (very brilliant) internals/rendering engine/etc. on top of the power-user UI + featureset.
Vivaldi looks to be attempting to recreate the latter (poweruser UI+features) and dropping the former (by relying on Chromium/ReactJS for internals), so it's very much a large compromise if you like Opera 12.
Overall, the main criticism I would have is not opensourcing it. This is an old tired argument, but in this specific case it's painfully relevant given the huge resources that went into creating Opera 12's internals which then couldn't be community-forked.
> The native feel seems largely to have been Opera 12's downfall; they just didn't have the resources/manpower to maintain their own
Nope.
What happened is that they started getting more and more into the ad business as a way to make real income, and they got very successful in the mobile area with that, to the point that they didn't need the browser anymore. All it took after that was a bunch of MBAs to have the smart idea to convert the browser to a token marketing effort, edge out the founders' ideas, and pivot towards the ad business full force.
I don't see email on their feature page, but I also am not going to download it to see.
But I agree, the lack of opensource seems very unfortunate in this case, since closed source is part of what got you stuck here. I guess I'm not power user enough to want to add what just seems to be more or less a different version of Chrome, but I'm glad it exists because I'm glad that some projects still dedicate themselves to a power user base.
> "Spiritual successor in the sense that it is highly customizable with lots of shortcuts?"
Spiritual successor in the sense it's targeted at power users, has aims to revive some of the classic Opera functionality, and because it's developed by ex-Opera personnel.
I'd recommend taking a look at the Vivaldi Wikipedia page for some of the background into how it came to be:
I'm sorry to tell you that your Opera Link (not to be confused with Opera Sync, the syncing platform for the new products) has already been deleted. Opera stopped providing the Opera Link service December last year.
The servers has been decommissioned, and according to Norwegian law, the user data has been deleted.
