Personally, I've always liked Opera, even better than FF.

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 7:00 pm (utc) on June 16, 2009]

When Opera rings these bells, it's usually worth listening to. Let's hope they don't disappoint.

what could they possibly do that "reinvents" the web? parse xhtml 3% faster? ;)

The Opera browser may have a 2.3% market share - but that's assuming that server log analytics measure it correctly (always in doubt because an Opera user can spoof the user agent so easily).

But Opera has long been a major innovator. A lot of browser features that are now adopted by other browser makers began with this innovator. This includes things like tabbed browsing, page zoom, saved browsing sessions, built-in BitTorrent support, mouse gestures and more.

And by the way, if you care about the mobile market and not just the desktop market, then you ignore Opera at your own risk.

I've been very happy using Opera as my main browser since version 3 - which I paid for. I've always said that all the embedded usability is like putting an extra hour in my day. I'm hoping their next innovations can make that an extra two hours.

I was just joking, I don't have a problem with Opera, it's a good browser. It just isn't used by very many people. It's the whole "if a tree falls in the forest..." question when it comes to Opera announcing something.

My idea to reinvent the web: Everyone wakes up tomorrow morning and says to themselves. "You know, the web worked very well with table based formatting, and we must have had a bout of dreangement to adopt an arcane system (CSS) apparently originally written in Mandarin by a native speaker of Dutch using a phrase book and an Enigma Machine."

Like tedster, I've been using Opera since the early days, and I paid for my copy of the browser for years. It was always the better choice for me, and it's still my primary browser.

This announcement intrigues me. "Clouds"; "Freedom"; This comment in the source of the page:

<!-- We start our little story with the invention of the modern day computer. Over the years, the computers grew in numbers, and the next natural step in the evolution was ... -->

My guess is that Opera 10 will be released next Tuesday.

Cheers to this fantastic browser, great to see them yet again going for more innovation. Reinventing the Web .... Might sound hollow for some others but nothing surprising for Opera.

I tried Opera several times. Worked okay. Was not a world beater but did a good job. I'm not an Opera fan these days because of their poor me to the EUC.

[webmasterworld.com...]

No sympathy or any desire to see they succeed. Of course if they actually reinvent the web I'll eat my hat... and yours... and yours..., too.

Meant to add that Al Gore invented the web. I hope Opera consulted him in their activity...

tangor: Opera is just one of the parties in this complaint, along with Google, Mozilla and others. If that's the reason to not like Opera, then I guess you don't like Google or Mozilla either?

As for the coming news, remember there is a certain amount of marketing involved here, but it is something exciting :)

Mitchman: Opera was the key to the complaint. All the others piled on when EUC elected to hear it. And that's plenty of reason to not support Opera. The others are gaggles, including google and Mozilla joined because they hope MS will have to offer updates to their browser on M$'s dime. There's more to the topic than "reinventing the web". It is called reinventing how we do business.

And I freely admit I'm not one of the happy campers in all this.

Opera really had best reinvent the web to get me back on their team. And it better not be Java or Javascript since I block those already.

mattglet

When Opera rings these bells, it's usually worth listening to.

When was the last time Opera rang such bells?

Tabbed browsing, Speed Dial, Acid3 perfection, Opera Link, etc.

tangor: Opera just asked the EU to investigate of MS has broken European anti-trust laws, the same way they got sentenced for breaking US antitrust laws and are still under surveillance in the US for this by the DoJ. DoJ in the US even extended their surveillance of MS for another 2 years just recently.
Companies in a monopoly situation aren't allowed to do as they please or exploit monopoly in one area to gain monopoly in a different area, as they are charged for doing here.

Is Norway part of the EU? If not, how did this all get started? Off topic here... there's several other threads on that subject on-going already. There's enough web re-inventing already with the upcoming release of Win7 E...

The DoJ is satisfied that MS did not accrue their monopoly criminally (would have happened through consumer choice anyway), but did recognize that middleware seemed to have a problem... that's what is under tabs, not the OS...

A little bit more of an update/hint...

We start our little story with the invention of the modern day computer.
Over the years, the computers grew in numbers, and the next natural step in the evolution was to connect them together. To share things.
But as these little networks grew, some computers gained more power than the rest and called themselves servers.
Today, millions of people are connected together in a great web ...

Hey! It's 9:03. Where's my Freedom?
Ahhh there it is. Opera Unite

Wee, the 1.9%* of people who use Opera will be ecstatic :)

New pocket protectors all round!

I used from V3.5 Opera until the lack of a decent spellchecker drove me to FF. Now it has an inline checker, but its too late.

* Stats from my site

[edited by: netchicken1 at 7:27 am (utc) on June 16, 2009]

Good Guess bill ;)

Opera Unite [unite.opera.com]

Opera Unite: a Web server on the Web browser

With Opera 10, we are introducing a new technology called Opera Unite, radically extending what you are able to do online. Opera Unite harnesses the power of today's fast connections and hardware, allowing all of us to help define the future landscape of the Web, one computer at a time. Read about how Opera Unite is going to change the way we interact on the Web on labs.opera.com.

You can even run chat rooms and host entire Web sites with Opera Unite. It puts the power of a Web server in your browser

Using such features would put myself and millions of other internet subscribers in violations of their terms of service that strictly forbid hosting web services locally.

Good luck with the liability issues if someone gets booted off their service provider.

You know, I've never given Opera the credit it's really due. After half an hour looking into this and briefly playing with the beta, I like it.

I'm always a fan of anyone who tries something new (as long as it's good), especially if it's conceptually different. Whether it takes off or not is not the point, I just like the slightly different look at the web as a whole. Good effort, guys.

I just need to know some people who use it too. My fridge is quite quiet at the mo...

This is "reinventing the web"? Give me a break.

Flies about as well as Google Squared. (Meaning I've already got all that and don't need a fancy name for it and can do it better myself.).

One more reason why I like rock and roll instead of Opera. (and I started as a violinist at age 4 playing the classics until 1962 then took up guitar, keyboards, percussion and woodwinds). I am not impressed.

This is pretty interesting. Obviously it's only going to go as far as people take it, but it looks like it has early promise.

Also, regardless if you think it's useful or not... you have to admit it's definitely an innovative idea.

It's innovative, and it's great. A central place to put my malicious app, people download them with a mouseclick and since Opera has to be allowed to access the web, it penetrates their firewalls quite easily. a cracker's wet dream?

From following mattglet's link:

Host your Web sites running from your own computer.

So we will more that ever be exposed to a plethora of useless sites.
Not to mention that ISP such as Comcast will be all over you if you run a site from your own machine.
What do they really mean by “running from your own computer”? Is it what I think it is?

>they hope MS will have to offer updates to their browser on M$'s dime.

To say something like this is to insult your entire audience for being total idiots, and Luddite to boot.

Nobody is asking Microsoft to pay for anything.

Everyone is asking Microsoft to NOT charge OEMs extra, just for daring to load a competing browser on new machines.

Which is what Microsoft was doing before.

And yes, that is unquestionably illegal behavior for a monopolist, as the DoJ and 19 states argued -- and the U.S. courts agreed.

And Opera performed a great public service, particularly as people who testify against organized crime cartels tend to end up spectacularly dead. Most people, including the OEMs, are afraid to testify. (one of the DAs involved in the U.S. antitrust trial who had experience with Mafia prosecutions said he was seeing exactly the same kind of reluctance to testify against Microsoft.)

I personally don't use IE except under duress. In my experience (admittedly limited--reviewing a hundred thousand or so random sites for the Open Directory, besides casual browsing), under my rather heavy use, the IE invariably explodes within 1/2 - 2 hours, while even Netscape 4 could run for 50-100 hours or so without a crash. And, of course, Netscape didn't lock up the whole computer when it crashed, because it wasn't integrated into the 'Operating System' with staples and baling wire.

And, as already mentioned, Opera has been a strong competitor, constantly shrinking the resources-required envelope, while aggressively supporting standards AND adding new, USEFUL, user interface features. This is a picture of what the word "innovation" meant before Microsoft prostituted it. And Firefox wouldn't be what it is, without Opera's alternative perspective on the path to better software. And without Firefox, Microsoft would be content to still be shipping IE 4, or maybe 5 -- probably without security patches. (There's probably be a third-party market in security front ends for the IE, like Norton Antivirus for Windows, that cost every internet user another $50.00 a year.)

Add it up. Opera's worth a lot to the world. We could live without Microsoft, no problem, but a world without the little companies with bright people who care about good software, would be a bleak place indeed.

[edited by: hutcheson at 6:46 pm (utc) on June 16, 2009]

its about time we started to use the power of our own desktop instead of just throwing everything at online services.

I like it.

> if you run a site from your own machine.

It is *not* just like p2p. It is a proxy cache. Opera's proxy cache, keeps a copy of the object until it is replaced or updated on your machine. Your machine only fesses up one copy of it to the proxy cache. Everyone else pulls from the cached copy. Thus, it is not a true "web server". You could serve a picture a million times off your feed, and all you do is send one copy to the proxy cache server. This is *really* what Opera Turbo was testing in the beta tests (the proxy caching mechs).

It has been 12hours since the feature was introduced. Has mozilla ripped it off yet? ;-)

> any developers

You think? Just look at the huge numbers opera has attracted to it's widgets: [widgets.opera.com...] . that is an awesome developer base.

Once again an interesting Opera innovation. Now let's see whether I can it to use my NAS so I don't need to leave the PC running all night...