Is this a temporary deal?
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| dinotrac Sep 20, 2005 9:27 AM EDT |
OK, Opera fans... Somebody's got to wonder where these guys are going to make their money. I just hope nobody gets offended if, having increased usership, Opera goes back to charging for new releases. OR...whatever else they can come up with. Good guys making a good product gotta eat too. |
| sbergman27 Sep 20, 2005 10:51 AM EDT |
I wondered the same thing at first. I think the idea is to increase the general popularity of the browser and make the money on their embedded Opera products. (Not sure, but I suspect that the major portion of their revenue may already be from the embedded space.) There is really no way to make a living charging for a desktop browser these days, as Netscape discovered long ago. And Firefox has only made that business model more hopeless. |
| Tsela Sep 20, 2005 11:08 AM EDT |
dinotrac: as Steve said the embedded Opera products still cost money. Moreover they provide support for a fee. Finally I read that they have a deal with Google: when someone uses Opera to perform a Google search, Opera gets part of the revenue from the Google ads that appear there. They consider it a valuable alternative, as long as many people switch to Opera. It's a risky bet, but could be worth it. I've already been using Opera for a long time, so I hope it succeeds :) . If it fails, then I hope they will have the sense Netscape had and will open source the whole thing :) (actually, even if it succeeds I would very much like Opera to go Open Source. I am extremely curious to know how they manage to pack so much functionality with a fast and good HTML renderer in such small executables :) ). |
| sharkscott Sep 20, 2005 7:35 PM EDT |
As a longtime Netscape/Mozilla Suite/Firebird/Firefox user and supporter, I have stayed away from using Opera because of the banner ads. I did not want to have to put up with the very thing I wanted less of, just to get a "better experience". I never had a problem with anything else about Opera, they were honest about why the free version had banner ads, I just chose not to use it. I downloaded it yesterday and being that I did not have any experience to draw from I have given it complete run-through, as much as I know how anyway:) I must say that except for the different design and "way they do things" like settings and all that, I like it. It renders pages faster than Firefox without any "tune-ups" which I know how to do on my system. It is roughly neck and neck with Firefox in speed with the "tune-ups". I can see where Opera is ahead of Firefox with some features and where it is not ahead. I think that it will be good for Opera and Firefox, and not good for I.E. Firefox and Opera are ultimately about making the Internet safer and more in the control of the user on it. Which is something Microsoft does not want and knows nothing about. I do have to say that as a supporter of the Mozilla Foundation I do not see Opera and Firefox fighting each other for users. The slow awakening of all who use the Internet to the outright dangers of using I.E. make the idea of Firefox and Opera duking it out for users pointless. |
| Tsela Sep 21, 2005 5:57 AM EDT |
sharkscott: The funny part is that when you tune up Opera too, it becomes even faster! On my Linux box (a vanilla Debian unstable with GNOME desktop as default), Opera is faster than Firefox for everything except start-up. My only problem is that Opera doesn't integrate well with GNOME, unlike Firefox. But that it to be expected. Moreover, I find that tab browsing in Opera is a nicer experience than in Firefox (even with the tabbrowsing preferences extension, I still get pages which open in Firefox in a separate window, although I set it to *always* use tabs), and the mouse gestures "feel" nicer than the ones in the Mouse gestures extension (even after setting them to mimic Opera exactly, they don't work as nicely). The latest version (8.5, the first without banner) even enhanced its renderer a bit! But then I was already using Opera when Firefox was still called Firebird, so I may not be the most unbiased opinion ever :) . On the whole, I agree that it will be good for both Opera and Firefox if Opera gains some market share. Whatever makes alternatives to IE more popular is good, especially for Internet standards. We need some true competition there. |
| TxtEdMacs Sep 21, 2005 7:25 AM EDT |
Quoting:...I still get pages which open in Firefox in a separate window, although I set it to *always* use tabs I just tested this on the Deer Park Beta 1, under edit and preferences > Tabs there is an option "Force links that open in new windows to open in: " either "the same tab/window as the link" or "a new tab". I chose the latter and it worked. I too had been seeing odd occurrences of new windows, but not routinely. It appears if you had been running the regular distribution and this was not fixable it will no longer be a problem with FF 1.5 when it is released. |
| sharkscott Sep 21, 2005 9:19 AM EDT |
Tsela: I guess you could say that I am a little too used to Firefox, and so is my system. After two days of use I am still having connection issues with Opera. I know that it is something simple and I am not blaming Opera. I have an old(5 years) XP machine and as I have learned, it gets an attitude when I change stuff, it likes as little change as possible :) I have yet to get it on my Linux system though, I am still wet behind the ears on that thing :) But I'm trying to figure it out. I figure, as soon as I get where I want to be on my Linux system, I am going to say goodbye to M$ for good. We both agree though, Opera or Firefox or ANYTHING!! but IE, anything. |
| tadelste Sep 21, 2005 10:46 AM EDT |
sharkscott: enjoy your learning experience with Linux. Stay with it, ask questions, find good sites like http://linuxquestions.org. People I know that love technology eventually find Linux and realize it brings a rich experience to users. |
| sharkscott Sep 21, 2005 3:14 PM EDT |
Tadelste: Linux questions.org is one of the only sites where I can ask a question and get real, helpful responses. I love it. Like you said though, anyone into technology eventually goes to Linux :) |
| sbergman27 Sep 21, 2005 3:25 PM EDT |
Christophe, TextEd, You don't need 1.5 to do that. Go to about:config Set browser.tabs.showSingleWindowModePrefs to true Then go to Edit->Preferences->Advanced and you will have the "Force links..." option available. |
| Tsela Sep 21, 2005 10:33 PM EDT |
sbergman27: Thanks for the tip! I'll try it as soon as I'm back home. I had already googled for the problem, but hadn't found a solution. "about:config" is great but seriously underdocumented IMHO... |
| TxtEdMacs Sep 22, 2005 10:35 AM EDT |
Telsa - if you need some details about about:config check this page: http://kb.mozillazine.org/About:config_entries |
| Tsela Sep 22, 2005 11:57 AM EDT |
TxtEdMacs: thanks for the link. sbergman27: well, I was very enthusiastic and tried the tip you gave me, but it didn't work. Even after restarting Firefox, I still didn't get the new option that should have appeared, not anywhere... However, it put me to the right direction, and I found in about:config the key browser.tabs.opentabfor.windowopen. If you put it to true, it is supposed to force every link that would open in a separate window to open in a new tab. I suppose it's the key that would be toggled by the option that should have appeared, and so far it works. So thank you for directing me towards the solution, even though your tip didn't actually work... |
| TxtEdMacs Sep 22, 2005 4:30 PM EDT |
Tsela - (sorry for misspelling your alias last time). How about a mini crash course on Firefox? Glad you signed on, oh, what do mean not that quick? An easier approach first? Well this time do not exit Firefox, just go to another tab and your property will work as selected (don't remember this exactly, but it takes effect immediately). However, just hearing it's lost tells me you are going to have to create a user.js that reinserts that about:config setting back into prefs.js at startup. If it happens again, post and I will research what I did. |
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