Asa Dotzler: Firefox and more

It's Asa's upcomance! ;)

You're just so hilarious, Asa, did you know that :D

Good morning Mr. Dotzler.

Actually they are not "going to drop the adbar" they already had by the time you wrote this. ;-)

Oh dear, Asa, What are you going to bitch about now? ;)

guys let the Messiah speak:

Asa, you're just great. Really funny how predictable you are ;)

IE is not free!

Rickie, I'll continue to criticize browsers, Firefox included, when I see things that aren't good for users. In case it's not obvious from my writings here over the last few years, I care deeply about all of the people that are struggling with the Internet. I wouldn't be here working on Firefox if I wasn't passionate about making things better for those people. There's no other reason to be in this business except that.

- A

Just installed Opera 8.5 and played around a little bit.
The speed is OK, but the layout / style sheet are still far from accuracy -- not even close to Safari.

Asa,

May be this blockquote should be made a bit clearer to readers. It looks like it was your words about 'imitating success'. Of course we all aware that making something free is a ong-time practice even in such a young market as browsers and hardly has anything to do with imitating Firefox.

I can't possibly see how these news could be of interest to anyone.
We all know that Firefox will continue to lead the way, being the innovative browser whose revolutionary features everyone wants to duplicate.

Now if only Opera would remove the search bar that they ruthlessly stole from the creative minds of Mozilla developers, they might stop making any money from Google alltogether, like any good Corporation. Eh, sorry, Foundation.

I'm mildly amused.

- y

This is bad news. No more childish posts by Asa regarding Opera.

Heck, he is even going to look like a professional.

Not sure what is worse.

Asa,

Seeing as commentators aren't particularly supportive of your various browser/usability criticism here and there, I would just like to stand out of the shadows and voice my support. I usually do not comment a lot, and I suspect the bulk of "your supporters" follow the same pattern of behaviour. Rest assured, you're not going unheard, and I agree with 90% of what you have to say.

As a sidenote, I work with usability and interaction design for my day job, and I share your zeal to simplify things and "remove features" rather than just pile it all up. Keep doing what you do, the numbers speak for themselves.

Perfectly predictable :)

But fear not - the next installment in this series will be "Opera MUST Go Open-Source" :)

And, of course, the obligatory "Opera Has Copied Firefox 1.5 Features" :)

yitz wrote: "Now if only Opera would remove the search bar that they ruthlessly stole from the creative minds of Mozilla developers"

You mean just like how Mozilla (& Opera) 'ruthlessly stole' tabs from the creative minds of Netcaptor?

Its a two way street... and frankly who cares about who borrowed what?
The software industry simply wouldnt be as it is today without people borrowing ideas and basing standards off of them (XEROX & Apple anyone?)

Why is there an executable called "netscape" under the \program\? At least it is there on Windows anyway.

I mean under {OPERA_HOME}/program/. The comment system parsed out the < and > along with OPERA_HOME.

Kevin,

The "netscape" executable is (probably) a legacy from the Windows platform, placed there for ill-written plugins which demand a netscape.exe file in the "Program" directory in order to install to "Program/../Plugins". At least that's what I think.

You Opera trolls really suck. The Opera CEO is now saying exactly the same as Asa (that Opera's market share was limited by the price tag) and yet you turn up here to tell Asa that he's predictable?

I think an apology is in order from all the Opera fanboys who suggested that the $39 would never go away and that it's required to sustain Opera development. But that won't happen.

Just because Opera removes their ad-banner does not mean that they're "following firefox's lead." Who said Firefox was "leading" anything, anyway?

I feel that both Mozilla and Opera software have come up with innovative features, but saying that other browsers "follow Firefox's lead" seems a bit too arrogant.

Wow Asa, you have finally broken your own record for blatantly showing off your disregard for facts and impersonal anylitical effort in regards to Opera. Opera is not "following Firefox's lead" for ANYTHING. I mean really, do YOU know what went on inside Opera offices when this decision was made? No you do not. Therefore, the only thing you know about this decision was what is on the Opera homepage, which doesn't tell much. Are you trying to imply that just because Firefox is add-free free, that means Opera COPIED Firefox specifically in its act of going add-free free?

You couldn't have called this post "Opera goes free!", and posted how great a decision it was. No. You had to put the whole ordeal in the perspective that Opera is inferior to Firefox and is just following big-daddy-firefox's lead.

Now, I don't want any of your usual comment response nonsense where you go "I don't hate Opera I just think they have a long ways to go in terms of usability blah blah blah!!!!!11oneone". No Asa, it is clear from posts like this one that YOU DO have something against Opera. Of course you wouldn't say that, but your predictably childish attitude towards Opera all but proves it.

Just know this. Power Opera users SPIT on firefox, because it has nothing on Opera in terms of usability, ease-of-use, and useful tools and settings. And Opera is no harder to use for mom and dad either.

OPERA COPY FIREFOX WAH WAH WAH

It's getting old, howl something newer.

You Opera trolls are so predictable and repetitive... like a broken record. :)

Berger,

I suppose your post was a bit more extreme than mine ;-), but you've captured the idea I was trying to present: Asa could have just as easily titled this post "Opera goes free", or "Opera become ad- and -license free", et cetra, et cetra (something a little more informative), but the way it was titled suggested that Firefox is the leading authority on all things browser, and Opera was "smart" to "follow".

Opera and Firefox are both great products, and I hope this announcement will allow many more people to see how great a product Opera is. :-)

I think it's good news that Opera is now free, as it'll push standardization into the fore much more than it has been (CSS, DOM, JS Method handling and support). It only hurts the "alternatives" to have so little alternative than: 1 [IE] or (maybe) 2 [Netscape].

As the Opera share grows, it will become increasingly important for web coders to use standard, cross-platform methods and markup, and increasingly obvious that IE often is disabled or broken in many regards or need such special treatment or handling that it's almost comical to the degree it needs workarounds to function "correctly."

I am a better web coder due to checking and error correcting in FF and Opera.

I can only see this as being good for all browsers, IE included. Monopolies breed ignorance and stagnation. :D

Thanks God, now I can dump Firefox and use free Opera.

Thanks God, now I can dump Firefox and use free Opera.

I think we all know what went on in Opera offices. Stagnant market share opened their eyes to what really matters, price. In the desktop market, Opera could not afford to stay at or about 1%. Nomatter how good Opera may be, with that kind of market share, your never going to make money.

well, it is gonna slowdown FF growth for sure :(

Gah, that's funny man. Keep it coming ;-) Keep 'em bitching. (The Operanauts)

His title is no more misleading than when Opera "A Winning Streak: Opera once again wins PC World's World Class Award for best Web browser". Grow up.

"Gah, that's funny man."

No more than you. You can bet on it. ;-)

"well, it is gonna slowdown FF growth for sure :(" - Firefox fan

Nice sock puppet.

Yeah, competiton is really cool. It makes all browser advance. Even IE7 would be better than expected. And all thanks to Mozilla Foundation initiative. Finally, I hope that competition backfire will make motivation to make revolution with Firefox 2.0 even bigger :).

I think Asa really likes his opera's trolls. He always incites them to see their angry reaction. You are a bad boy Asa, a bad boy.

Opera was free up until version 4, which is when they added the ads. (Or was it 5? Somewhere around there, anyway.) Mozilla wasn't even released then, let alone Firefox. So wouldn't Firefox be, yet again, following Opera's lead by offering a free browser?

I'm not an Opera fanboy. I like and use both Opera and Firefox. My point is, why claim that every move by other browsers is "following Firefox's lead?" Just accept the fact that every browser is going to eventually change, and wether or not Firefox made that change first is completely meaningless. Better browsers are better for everyone, wether you use them or not. The point is open standards, is it not? Well Opera's doing a good job at it, as is Firefox, so quit your damn bitching.

Mo wrote;

> You mean just like how Mozilla (& Opera) 'ruthlessly stole' tabs from the
> creative minds of Netcaptor?

No, that's not what I mean.
Netcaptor had tabs in 1997, Opera had tabs (MDI) in 1996.
But that's really irrelevant, InternetWorks had tabs in 1994.

> Its a two way street... and frankly who cares about who borrowed what?
> The software industry simply wouldnt be as it is today without people
> borrowing ideas and basing standards off of them (XEROX & Apple anyone?)

Again, this wasn't my point. My point was how interesting it is that Opera supposedly "continues to follow Firefox's lead".

Opera is a company, Mozilla is a company. Opera makes money through searches and support, Mozilla makes money through searches and support. Opera has paid devoted employees, Mozilla has paid devoted employees.
Opera sells their engine to other companies, Mozilla is sponsored by other companies that use their engine.

The only difference here is that if you for some reason should feel an urge to, you can look at Firefox' source code. That doesn't mean you can impact the development of it in any way, or have any more of a say as to what direction it should be moving.

They disregards all official numbers, be it from Secunia or Symantec (see the in-depth report released today), and proclaims Firefox the most secure browser. Just because they say so, not because it's an actual fact or anything.
They claim to lead the way, apparently by means of implementing other browser's features and conveniently ignoring they were ever offered by anyone else. Or have unrelated developers try to clone the features as third-party addon extensions.

And yet, supposedly, the company that has been developing browsers and making money since years before the Mozilla Foundation|Corporation was ever founded is doing nothing but trying to be Mozilla.

Who knew, huh?

- y

> I think Asa really likes his opera's trolls. He always incites them to see their angry reaction.

If Asa was deliberately trying to get them to troll, the really sad part is they're all dumb enough to fall for it, each and every single time. Like I said above.

D'oh! I hope no one noticed the typo in my first comment. "upcomance" should read "comeuppance" :)

By the way, I want to point out that the title of this post of Asa's is really not that inflammatory. Opera's competition is IE and Firefox. It seems fairly evident that they realized they need to go free in order to compete at the same level, thus it's not inaccurate to say they followed Firefox's lead.

Maybe Opera is the better browser, but at least now they can compete in the space for that title (as the mass market will choose the winner).

Hahah, Opera is still a niche browser according to asa, what about refund I mean there's alot of weirdos who paid $40 bucks to remove the ad... oh boy somthing is a-brewing

@ant

His reasons could be intentional or unintentional. Maybe, Asa is addicted to provoke them, or he is studying the troll social phenomenon, who knows? who cares?

But trolls are trolls, in anywhere they have a very simple and predictable behavior.

Maybe Opera is the better browser, but at least now they can compete in the space for that title (as the mass market will choose the winner)

It is a good decision for opera to go free. Now they probably wont be the 0.1% with gecko by 16.8% followed by IE with a whopping amount of idiot users.

I believe that the reason Asa titled his article as such is simply because of the article he quotes. Boston.com said that Opera was trying to imitate the success of Firefox. Based on that, Asa's title is simply a reword of his quote.

"But trolls are trolls, in anywhere they have a very simple and predictable behavior."

You mean just like Asa himself, right?.

I, too, just want to voice my support for the issues Asa brings up here in his blog. He can be critical of any browser that crosses his path but, out of respect, we should all avoid personal attacks and slander. It's really not constructive to making access to the web better for all. Competition is a good thing and healthy debate about competition is even better. Let's do this right, people. We all want the same thing here.

~ Kevin

Jude,

While I would agree with you about the rewording, Asa has on more than several occassions mentioned about how Opera is "moving in the Firefox direction." Your point is valid, but after reading other weblog entries of Asa's I am lead to believe that this was meant beyond a simple rewording.

Ha - I hope no-one was hurt in the rush to the toilets when this news broke at Mozilla HQ. They must really be sh*tting themselves now!

W.

Spin how you want ... Opera was free and continues to be free. If you want to pay for support, you can still do that. Not much has changed, actually. You just don't have the option of a narrow Google ad bar, anymore, which was hardly obtrusive, I thought, anyway. No big deal. If you love Opera like I do, nothing has changed. If you're on the fence, so to speak, and had an aversion to ads no matter how unimposing they may be, this may be impetus to check out a great piece of software. If you think "open source" is the only religion for you, you will stay away from Opera, even it is officially "free" according to those who argued that it was not and therefore not worth looking at.

So, again, not much has changed --- except for the "open-minded" who are simply looking for the best Internet Experience.

We waited for Asa, we got Asa. We laught at Asa.

@Billy McPhereson: "Opera was free up until version 4, which is when they added the ads. (Or was it 5? Somewhere around there, anyway.)"

Actually, no. Opera was commercial software with a 30-day free trial up until version 5. After 30 days, you could only access local files and Opera's own website (so you could buy it and register). With 5.0, they replaced the 30-day free trial with an unlimited free ad-supported version.

This is the first release of Opera that has been free without ads (not counting the 1-day license giveaway last month).

The web browser space is going to get really interesting in the next few months. I think we can expect a huge increase in Opera's marketshare now that the major barrier to adoption is gone. Here's hoping Opera and Firefox both continue to convert users from IE!

You better start fixing this issue: http://secunia.com/advisories/16869/

This is good and bad news. Good news for the web as a whole as Opera is a truly great browser, and its promoting web standards, and modern browsers and browsing as a whole. Its good then for Firefox too considering that, but also bad because of course some people will go with Opera rather than Firefox. But thats competition, the best product deserves to succeed, and better the web and web experience to users.

The Opera following Firefox title it wrong, its a bad remark and misleading. What lead, products do there thing. Sure other products actions can affect others products decisions etc. to an extent, but thats true of anything, simply to an extent. Was there any articles at Opera.com or anywhere else saying "Firefox follows Opera's lead by copying fast back and forward" or anything of the sort? Not to my knowledge.

There's an accumilation of reasons as to why this has happened, they should be presumed, and overall its a good decision, and we all hope to see Opera gain usage and remain as a good, stable browser.

I would quite like for Asa and others to test version 8.5 and publish overall the pro's and con's of Opera over Firefox (or the other way around) as they see it today overall. I gotta say, I love it, but cant quite get used to it. Below is my take:

Opera pro's over Firefox:

*It is in many respects easier to use out of the box
*Tabs especially work work well out of the box with no need for tweaking
*Closing inactive tabs can be done with the clear, easy click of a button
*Its clear, quick and easy to open new pages (tabs)
*Adding bookmarks and its details is easier
*TOOLS > LINKS gives a kind of clear history, better than Firefox's GO menu
*Good and easy form filling out of the box
*Approx 3MB download (2 less than Firefox) but with email client, and many other features built in but not in the users face at all until needed
*Less RAM usage (Firefox & TB together alone use far more)
*Options in some respects clearer and easier
*Browser generally more intuitive, even to novice users
*More Website, less browser
*Fit to Window (no horizontal scrolling)
*Better looking - icons and more out of the box
*Can import and Export from more browsers
*Most plugins installed and working out of the box
*Sidebar easier and clearer for more functionalities than Fx
*Can view cache, plugins, history and more in main browser window

Firefox pro's over Opera:
*Better and more search engines, at start and available
*Extensions so even more features than Opera can be applied as and where user wants, so many features like CustomizeGoogle, Bettersearch, BBCode, Page Update *Checker and more just so valuable
*Themes - Far more UI changes open to Firefox
*Clearer, simpler Options box
*Go Button for webpages
*Go button for history
*Customize toolbars box easier to use
*Can tweak settings, apperance and behaviour with add ons, and other hacks, tweaks more

All I can think of at moment. Have to say I'm increasingly impressed with Opera, and have to say the personal 20 or so people I've showed Firefox too, I feel they would pick up Opera even quicker, and get it working how they want quicker. Lessons to be learnt on both sides, work to be done on both sides. Hopefully both products will improve, I hope Fx more though ;p

Kelson,

Honestly, it's quite difficult to predict how much market share Opera will gain now. However, with all those Firefox security flaws recently (which aren't THAT dangerous, but when people read about Fx being a safe browser, and then having to download a new version that fixes 2-3 holes each month, they start wondering), Opera does have a chance of getting a few percent extra.

And there's still the question of marketing; there's hush-hush talk that Opera will get VERY marketing-agressive, so who knows... I, for one, would like that every single % that Opera gains, be taken away from IE, not from Firefox.

Just imagine:

Firefox 30%
Opera 30%
IE 30%
Other 10%

Asa, you're rediculous. Following Firefox? HA! How did I know that you were gonna post saying Opera was following Firefox? Oh yeah, because you always do! I've been looking forward to this entry for over a month now (since I knew Opera was removing the ads)

Opera was free since version 5, they just recently removed the ads. It's been in the works for over a year now, though.

Firefox is the "new guy" not Opera. Opera has been around for almost 10 years, and Firefox is the one "imitating" Opera, the only thing Opera did was get rid of the ads. Big whoop.

Kris,

Your Fx pros are maybe a bit misleading.

Opera's UI can be customized in a zillion ways. Firefox just lets you with the defaults, sans a button or a toolbar or two. If you want to rearrange some UI elements, you need - you guessed it - more extensions. And there are hundreds, if not thousands of Opera skins available. Anyone can find their favourite.

Opera can also use more than 10 search engines by default, covering most of the ones people would likely use. Adding more can be done manually, or with an external program.

Opera's Preferences dialog has a number of available options. Yes, Firefox's are cleaner and simpler, but lacking; to do tweaking, you need - whoa! - extensions, or you need to spend ages googling about obscure about:config settings.

Opera has the dreaded Go button available, in both the main window, and the history, though it's conveniently called "Open" there because it makes more sense. The History also sports very nifty filtering and page popularity.

As for toolbar customization, you right-click a toolbar, choose "Customize" and have dozens of buttons available to be placed by drag & drop at your wish. How many does Firefox have?

> Firefox pro's over Opera:

You forgot the most important one.

and,

How exactly does having access to code you don't understand nor care about have much relevance?

Opera is now completely free to use. So what if there's no source code available?

Sorry, "ant" :)

1. Opera still has a terrible user interface. I dropped it after trying it for a few minutes this morning, frustrated by the millions of options available to the poor user.

2. Opera is merely a good product. It may be a superior one on mobile phones, but I won't be using that for quite a while. Some numbers don't lie, such as statistics from several web-tracking firms. Firefox is great.

3. Opera's move won't hurt Firefox. To the contrary, it will increase Opera's user base, which will move web developers further away from IE's proprietary protocols. This will help pave the way for interoperability of webpages with different browsers, and just like Safari, is going to help push standards. And there's no better standard-compliant browser than Firefox.

Best,
Tsee

Tsee,

Opera's UI can be customized to the smallest detail. Firefox's can't.

Opera is, as shown in various browser speed tests, superiour to Firefox when it comes to speed of rendering and JS execution. It also has a web-standards support that is equivalent to that of Fx, lacking in some areas (like CSS3 selectors, due to be remedied in Opera 9.0 coming in a few months), leading in others (like aural support and generated content, which I personally find extremely useful).

Yes, Firefox is great, but so is Opera, and anything that's not IE.

Firefox's lead: http://secunia.com/advisories/16869/

> Opera is now completely free to use. So what if there's no source code available?

It has an ugly user interface that doesn't match my desktop and I can't fix that, despite having the time and skills to do so. Firefox works properly in both Gnome and KDE.
Secondly, how many derivatives of Opera are there? None.

ROTFL,

Having source code makes it possible to make software better. Extensions make FF more usable for alot of people. Same could be said of opera, if they implemented and extension system,or were open source. Theres ALOT of things Opera users want, but developers will not readily add. Your own wish list forum will tell you that much. But with FF anyone can create an extension, and with tutorials out there, thats not a hard thing to do or understand.

ant, both Dreamweaver and an adobe program.. uh.. GoLive, was it? use Opera's rendering engine, Presto, but niether are really derivatives. Why would you want an Opera derivative anyway? All a derivitive means is that someone didn't like the original program enough, so they had to make a better one.

And also, it doesn't have an ugly user interface here, and I'm also on linux. It's all opinion. If you want, you could get a different skin or something. The entire browser is skinnable, save for the menus which stupidly use the qt button color (you can change that in qtconfig). And no, I don't use, nor like KDE. I use XFCE and try to stay as far away from Qt as possible, but sometimes I have to use Qt apps like Opera (because I really dislike Firefox), and Skype (which I don't use much anymore, and will slowly fade away since Gizmo's out now, even though it's still horrible)

> All a derivitive means is that someone didn't like the original program enough, so they had to make a better one.

That's exactly what got Mozilla.org a 10% marketshare.

> Opera is now completely free to use. So what if there's no source code available?

Well, there are people for whom, philosophically, Free Software* (with a capital F) is better and/or necessary. The way I see it, the group that will only use free-as-in-speech software isn't Opera's target audience, because they'll never accept it. The pragmatic "I'll use whatever works best for my purposes, even if it's not open" crowd may choose Firefox or Opera depending on personal preference, specific needs, etc.

*There's a subtle distinction between "open source software" and "Free software" -- the former just means you have the ability to see the source code; the latter means that it's licensed in such a way that you can use it more or less as you see fit, including creating your own fork of the product (or hiring someone else to do it, if you can't program it yourself). The latter term leads to confusion, since "free" can mean either free-of-restrictions or free-of-charge, so a lot of people use "open source" to refer to the both categories.

Hey, is this the internet?

Hey Asa, do you know that you selected a title and content theme similar to what the Elite Media selects when they want to demote something? The similarity is remarkable. You're doing everything possible to deny Opera credit for this by saying words along the lines of, "they're following Firefox's lead."

Would it be possible to use more factual titles in the future, as it remains to be discovered whether they're actually following firefox or simply making their day to day business decisions?

I don't care which browser is "better, as long as it's not IE. Both Opera and Firefox have their good parts and their bad parts, but can't we stop fighting each other and start fighting IE?! It's like the saying goes: The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Instead of fighting each other and giving Microsoft enough time to gain back its market share, how about we team up and fight the mutual enemy? All of the alternative browser makers could team up and run an anti-IE campaign. With their combined funds and minds, we could really take down IE.

@A Person

Agreed!

So now we have a gratis browser alternative with less known open security holes than Firefox? That's pretty cool actually. :)

Btw, referring to Secunia and Opera's track record of zero open holes. :)

I hope this will whip the Mozilla devs a bit, and this competition will be healthy.

A Person,

Thats very nice idea but of course Opera won't release their source code dues to their greed (or making living or whatever you call it). To work together, Opera have to share their source code to Mozilla.

If you think giving Opera for free only happens when Hell frozen over, then imagne what will take for Opera to release their source code...

Jug,

Opera's "track record of zero open holes" is because 99.99999% of hackers don't care about Opera. As a matter of fact, most of them don't even know Opera exist! Now that Opera been released for free, then just wait until Opera's marketshare increase (if it does), then oh boy... let the Opera hackfest begin.

Firefox's record on holes are very impressive compared to IE dues to the seriousness of the holes and the speed of the fixes. Compared to IE, Mozilla is very secured in terms of speedy fixes and the seriousness of the bugs.

"Opera's "track record of zero open holes" is because 99.99999% of hackers don't care about Opera."

They do, actually. Security firms are actively looking for holes in Opera. Notice how most security flaws in IE/Firefox/Opera are reported by security researchers? That's because they are looking at all of these browsers.

As for greed... Yeah, I guess the Mozilla employees who are paid for working on the browser are greedy too. Can't have any money making, can we! It is better to go bankrupt than to stay alive and provide another alternative!

Yes indeed.

> Would it be possible to use more factual titles in the future, as it remains to be discovered whether they're actually following firefox or simply making their day to day business decisions?

@ Shining Arcanine: I think if Firefox wasn't a free alternative to IE, and if IE wasn't free in the first place, Opera never would have chosen to make their browser free. They are reacting to market conditions, including the availability of Firefox for free.

Much of what went on in their office in making the decision probably had to do with looking at how Firefox had done so well with a free browser and considering how to make it a viable business strategy while mimicking Firefox's track to increased browser-share.

It's funny that Asa mentioned it so close before their decision to actually do it. I checked back here knowing he'd have a troll-pr...er, thought-provoking response.

i guess it hurts to have such a superior browser with so many seamlessly integrated features for free, when all you offer is a clumsy, big in size, featureless browser that depends on thousands of often buggy or just generally worthless extensions that never integrate quite so well.

and now to have such a superior browser for free...well, mozilla crew certainly is shitting their pants, like someone already suggested. blog posts like this one just confirm that. poor desparate asa.

Opera, Mozilla, Safari all draw marketshare away from IE, forcing faster innovation, more widespread adoption of web standards, and reducing Microsoft's stranglehold on the desktop / web.

Rather than competing against each other, they should collaborating by putting their heads together and applying their obvious coding and design creativity towards creative partnerships / joint ventures to co-promote and increase their distribution, reach, and use.

When it comes to market share, distribution is king. Period.

At the very least, Mozilla should be taking some of their Google cash and investing with Acer or other 2nd tier OEMs to get placement on all their Windows boxes. Increase the reach, increase the use, increase the revenue. Repeat.

i agree with asa. of course opera is going free to catch up with firefox, cause it is smoking opera at the moment. however, i dont have a problem with opera imitating firefox. i dont have a problem with ie copying tabs from firefox. remember: copyright infringment is the sincerist form of flattery. (to all the angry people, its called satire. i know that firefox is open source). i say the closer opera gets to firefox, the better. eventually people will realize that theyre exactly alike except opera has a bunch of stuff that junks it up and makes it hard to use. then 90% of opera users switch to firefox. then we have a barbeque honoring their self-driven destruction.

firefox- american made
opera- norwegian made
download american.

Buzz: Why would Opera need to share their source code in order to work with Mozilla on marketing campaigns or standards evangelism?

Actually, your other post is extremely funny to see written by someone who is advocating Mozilla and Firefox:

Opera's "track record of zero open holes" is because 99.99999% of hackers don't care about Opera. As a matter of fact, most of them don't even know Opera exist! Now that Opera been released for free, then just wait until Opera's marketshare increase (if it does), then oh boy... let the Opera hackfest begin.

Back up two years. Replace the word "Opera" with "Mozilla." Look up the appropriate number. And that's what Microsoft supporters were saying about Mozilla's track record.

We didn't like the argument back then when it was used against Mozilla, so why use it now?

> Thats very nice idea but of course Opera
> won't release their source code dues to
> their greed (or making living or whatever
> you call it). To work together, Opera have
> to share their source code to Mozilla.

Bullshit, do you need to know someones cholesterol-, insulin- and blood-pressure levels and her body-mass index to be able to cooperate building a house, running a race, whatever?

WHAT WG, WASP. WHATEVER.

Opera's default skin sucks, though. ANY skinning sucks, BTW.

"Download American" is very much racist. I don't think anyone appreciates such a line of thinking.

i, for one, hope opera and mozilla are never going to "merge", "put their heads together", "collaborate", or anything like that. they need to stay separate and each do their own thing. diversity is good.

firefoxish opera and operaish firefox would be abominations - i'd despise both of them.

J: When it comes to market share, distribution is king. Period.

Agreed. In fact, I put up a website to promote that idea: The Alternative Browser Alliance. (Sorry for the blatant self-promotion.)

[blockquote]firefox- american made
opera- norwegian made
download american.[/blockquote]
Most contributors are non-American. Check bugzilla.

Firefox- Communism
Opera- Capitalism

ROTFL: "Download American" is very much racist. I don't think anyone appreciates such a line of thinking.

Sorry to nitpick, but it's nationalist, not racist.

Opera spokesperson:

"We think the market is ready for another competitor to Internet Explorer," said Tor Odland, Opera spokesperson.

"Firefox has demonstrated that an alternative browser can succeed, and we're looking forward to seeing greater adoption through this strategy shift," he added.

- A

Keep it constructive people, blatant bashing and pointless comments doesnt help anyone. ColdFusion, download the American rather than the Norweigen made product, that has to be one of the most ignorant, rude, and racist comments ever, how ridiculous and what a horrid level to take it to. Good software is good software full stop, and people have the choice, to use it if they prefer it.

Please stop bashing oneother, and oneanothers favourite products just because its not our favourite. I have semi skimmed milk delivered whilst my neighbour skimmed, we dont diss eachothers preference or abuse eachother and eachothers products, if we did we'd probably end up with no milk because the milkman would be fedup. There's a message in there. Live and let live and all succeed, or fight and we all die.

As has been said, we all want to better the web with choice, web standards, and better browsing, Opera and Firefox are both working towards that and we must all work together, and truly promote choice and better browsers, not fight one another and create un-necessary tension, whilst leaving IE to get ahead.

Be open, accepting of others and other products, constructive with words, and constructive with actions and web standards, better browsing, and choice will all prevail, with everyone happy. Every second spent doing the exact opposite is a second wasted, pushing that goal further and further away.

hmmmm, what's the actual point of latest asa post here? i don't see how that is related to the original meaning of this blog entry (firefox the big daddy kicks opera's ass, but opera the good puppy is following our badass innovative browser). nobody buys that the meaning of this blog entry was to discuss opera's new business model and its impact on opera's marketshare, asa. it's very obvious you are here to troll.

Yet another silly post by Asa that encourages flamefests.

Meanwhile, Q&A work in Mozilla seems to be better than ever...

Very sad, indeed.

I was never implying that all of the alternate browsers and their respective companies fuse, rather I was thinking of a temporary alliance. Each company/browser would still remain as they are. The CEOs (or whoever cares) of the various companies would talk about new ways to bring people from IE, and possibly plan joint adventising campaigns. By doing so we could draw more people away from IE than if we fight each other as well as IE. Our chief concern should be getting people away from the unsafety of IE. Once IE is demolished, then we can argue over who is the best. Until then fighting each other is just a waste of time.

ColdFusion650: Opera imitating Firefox?? IE copying tabs from Firefox? These comments from you are abit funny. Opera had tabs before Firefox and Opera is now imitating Firefox? Firefox has copied several of the features that has been popular in Opera and what hasn't been copied to the main browser has been made as a extension.. Well except for stuff like "fit to width" and full zoom.. I guess the mozilla developers aren't able to copy that one yet.

Oh and wether you have a problem or not with Opera removing the banner that is none of your business.. You kinda sound like they need your permition?
Mozilla didn't ask Opera for permition when they imitated some of Operas features and nor should they have to. This is how the software world works..

To the Opera fanboys calling Asa gay etc. Please stop that.. That is just childish.. Even if he likes to stire things up with his provocative comments doesn't mean you should forget your manners..It's his blog let him talk trash if he want's too.. Though I also wonder why you always have to try to make Opera appear "smaller" then they are. Asa why not rather focus on the real problem. Getting the rest of the IE users to know there are several alternatives.. I notice how you like to comment on when Firefox gets better user shares on pages etc, but how will you explain Opera going up 0.2 % on http://www.w3schools.com/ this month and Firefox going down the exact same percantage.. Just after one day where they gave away codes for free. Are you abit nervous your marketshare will shrink? Is that why you tend to bash Opera? And while preaching that Opera should remove the banner is that really what you wanted? You knew that if that happened Opera would take some users from Firefox ( thugh I personally hoped they would take from IE)...What about shifting focus?Well as i said this is Your blog and you write what you wan't even if some people including me think you sometimes should rethink what you preach..
I really hope that with Opera going free this means even more web pages wil have to adopt to standards..

My 5 cents :-)

Just to clarify: The joint advertising campaign would be a non-browser-specific anti-IE thing. Perhaps list the URLs of the companies involved and maybe a little bit about each browser in the fine print. I think this could actually work, if you idiots would stop flaming Asa/each other long enough to see it.

Kelson,

I meant exactly what I said. No need to nitpick :)

Already being partially worked on by someone: www.AlternativeBrowserAlliance.com Aherm, pro choice. How can we preech about choice to leave IE, if we then preech specifically which modern browser a user may prefer. Thats hypocritical, contradictory, and not helpful to anyones cause, least of all the webs.

ROTFL: I meant exactly what I said. No need to nitpick :)

There's an American race?

News to me.

Unless you mean Native Americans?

errrr, excuse me "a person", but isn't asa the one starting flamewars all the time? these are mere reactions.

and if you believe asa's intentions are something other than to throw childish insults at opera , well, read again. he never says anything because he has an opinion on something. he says it just to underline once more that firefox, the big daddy of all browsers, creative thinking and innovation is leading away and opera is "smart" enough to follow.

Kelson,

We're offtopic :)

Phi already pointed out that Fx's contributors come from all around the world. This means a plethora of different races. "Download American" doesn't fit there and insults the globality of the Fx movement, as much as the US may be a conglomerate of various races. I consider that very discriminative. But that's just my point of view, never mind.

ROTFL: "Download American" doesn't fit there and insults the globality of the Fx movement

Point taken! :-)

All this bitching over what? A little program designed to browse the web? I think i've tried every browser that I can find for my Mac and even built my own and nothing compares to Safari.

I don't get why everyone feels the need to attack eachother. And of course Asa is going to say that Opera is following Firefox's lead. It's his job. It's what he's paid to do.

Now wouldn't it be great if Opera *at least* supported overflow:visible like it should! In version 7, Opera has changed their mind and made their browser work like IE on a bunch of CSS properties, like overflow. It is still there.

And they wonder why their browser isn't as popular as Firefox?

I mean, for a browser to be popular, it must now have the support of web developers (see Firefox). As I can see, everyone wants standards compliance. So, Opera isn't making any friends by rejecting the standards they have themselves written to work in an IE-compatible way.

Back on topic:

Downloaded Opera 8.50 - posting from it with 5 open tabs.
Seems pretty slick. Works with Gmail and google.com/ig
I'm beginning to like address-bar-below-tab-bar, atleast for now.

Still need an equivalent to adblock (and no, crappy alternatives dont count) before I can use it 10% of the time. There's no substitute to a in-browser, regular expression based instant blocker. Outside the browser tricks, or things that require you to restart are passe.

mozilla is based out of california, which is a state in the united states. no matter the international effort, it is downloading american. what coldfusion said was factually correct, but it was mean spirited. i just thought id say that.

These posts always degenerate in the same way, and Asa is the biggest perpetrator.

I've supported Mozilla heavily with thousands of support posts, many hours of debugging, and several bug reports, but I'm getting sick of Asa's trolling. It's unprofessional and unbecoming. I'm tired of the attitude and I'm tired of being associated with it.

For what it's worth, this does have consequences. I'm no longer recommending Firefox, not only because of the attitude, but because it's not reliable with extensions.

I have been experimenting with Opera for some time now, and I've found it to be a delight to use. Within a few minutes you can rearrange the appearance to your liking. If you can't get it exactly the way you want, you can probably get it pretty close, and you won't make a second career out of customizing, updating, and repairing it. It actually does some things nicely that Fx doesn't do at all, like wrapping text and zooming images. So try it and give it enough time to see what you can do with it. You may like it. If not, you can always get your money back.

Anonymous said:
>I'm no longer recommending Firefox, not only because of the attitude, but because it's not reliable with extensions.

how does asa's _supposed_ trolling affect the merits of firefox? does his blog somehow create bugs or usability problems? no. and unless ur using a nightly/alpha/beta, extensions are pretty reliable. thats one of the reasons that they have alphas and betas, so that extension authors can update their extensions so they are ready for the final release.

and for those who are bashing on asa, if u dont like it, dont read it. no one is forcing u to. u only read it because u want to, and for some reason u like it, or u wouldnt do it.

Thousands of people contribute to Mozilla, no one person represents Mozilla, so why you feel Asa's attitude is so bad and represents you I dont know. Asa worded the title of this article badly and hopefully he realises that, but he means well and does care about Opera, Firefox, Netscape, IE, the web, and everything, just accept that.

Never has he said otherwise or been blatantly rude to, or just damn right dismissive of Opera or any product so leave the assumptions based on little more than the odd comment he too makes of Firefox, alone.

He has complimented Opera and wants it to succeed, so do we all, aswell as Firefox, but obviously a lot of people would rather see Firefox succeed as more people prefer that browser, and it goes without saying thats far truer for a Mozilla developers, workers, staff, contributors, key supporter, whatever.

So dont not use a program or not advise it for anything to do with that, if softwares good, its good. I really dont know where a lot of this stuff and accusations come from at Asa, on Linux or Opera, he applies the same critique to Firefox, and has done even recently, so whats the big deal, and all the presumptions about? Take it easy people. If were going to get funny then Opera have said and done far worse, and even claimed to have won awards that Mozilla have won, when they havent, and worse. Does anyone moan and create tensions? No, move on.

In anycase, none of it matters, people can compliment, and/or critique products as long as its constructive and not pointless banter. The original blog isnt in-constructive, pointless banter, but a lot of comments here are, and based on little more than presumptions and cynicism.

Everyone take a chill pill, let choice be, and live and let live, honestly, all this over nothing whilst Bill Gates makes actual in constructive comments about people using browsers like "80 million downloads, well everyone downloads software, but do they use it". Surprised he's not been shot in light of all this silly kafuffle.

This blog is called Asa Dotzler - Firefox and more. Asa works for Mozilla. You people complaining about him insinuating that Opera is worse than Firefox is rediclous. You expect him to say one of the products his company makes is worse than a direct competetor. Why not ask Bill Gates to tell you Windows is worse than Linux? If you guys want someone to say Opera is better than Firefox, go to the Opera website. Guess what, they are both great browsers, but everyone has their personal preference. Please guys, lay off. Besides, this is Asa's PERSONAL blog about his PERSONAL views. If you don't like it, go elsewhere.

[/flaming]

Opera employee's blogs are a lot more professional and don't sound condescending. While Asa always soudns very condescending over opera when it comes to an opera blog and very unprofessional looking...but hey! Who here can say they were surprised? they were all expecting it ;)

If I were to get all heated, my response would be just as predictable as Asa's original post.

That being said, though - it is refreshing. Now that Asa's #1 complaint about Opera - the thing he used to put it down, even as it improved consistently - is gone, whatever will he do? Will he go all CS-zealot ninja on us, and start blabbing predictable Church of Open Source dogma? Or will he find some new avenue to vent, and surprise us all?

Stay tuned to find out!!

..Personally, I can't wait to see what he comes up with next!

Damnit, I couldn't resist!

How to get Firefox to move in Opera's direction:

http://www.scss.com.au/family/andrew/opera/firefox/

(Warning: Your computer will probably crash after installing this many extensions.)

MwaHaha!

"(Warning: Your computer will probably crash after installing this many extensions.)"

Actually, it won't. I gave that a try just for the heck of it, and it wasn't far off (from the original).

...and not a crash in sight. (Forgot to mention that.)

OPERA FANBOYS, GIVE IT UP

I am pretty upalled that the same Opera fanboys who only a few weeks ago here saying how the paid model was so great and how Asa was ridiculous for suggesting it, and who now come in and with a straight face continue to bash Asa for pointing out the facts. Asa was right, and Opera's paid model was not working. These are the facts. Clear as daylight. Opera acknowledged as much in their actions, making Opera ad-free. Certainly the right thing to do.

I think the Opera Fanboys just can't stand the fact that Asa was right and they were wrong. It's almost as though they'd have Opera go back to costing $40 rather than to have to be proven wrong. The browser world doesn't matter for these fanboys. Even Opera doesn't matter. All that matters is their own egos.

"I am pretty upalled that the same Opera fanboys who only a few weeks ago here saying how the paid model was so great and how Asa was ridiculous for suggesting it, and who now come in and with a straight face continue to bash Asa for pointing out the facts. Asa was right, and Opera's paid model was not working. These are the facts. Clear as daylight. Opera acknowledged as much in their actions, making Opera ad-free. Certainly the right thing to do."

Well said.

"I think the Opera Fanboys just can't stand the fact that Asa was right and they were wrong."

Yes, it must be true pain.

@yfan, that's the point. ;-)

Anonymous wrote: "IE is not free!"

The standard disclaimer applies: IE is free*
*with purchase of MS Windows

But its not like the 'average user' noticed, since MS Windows is what they often associate as 'the computer' they bought with it preloaded.

vfwlkr wrote: "Still need an equivalent to adblock [for Opera]"

Would this help? http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=313779

I suspect that Opera, even free, won't put a large dent in Firefox (since 'average users' seem to prefer (or have become accustomed to) individual programs for individual tasks; e.g. IE for web, OE for e-mail). But an interesting question Opera's move raises is will it end up taking a good chunk of Mozilla Suite share?

Oh and an interesting potential twist on future browser wars... Wouldn't it be something if Apple decided to port Safari to Windows... Consider that Apple has picked up on the fact that by showing Windows users what Apple can do (e.g. iPod) that they can increase their computer sales (e.g. Mac mini). It just seems that MS is super-vulnerable on the apps front at the moment and Apple could take good advantage of that if they wanted to.

As usual yfan diverting and avoiding in order to defend his idol.

Ahh, Asa cheerleaders are really amusing.

As usual a bunch of cretins turned up to bash Asa for quoting someone else's writings about their favourite browser.

Ahh, Opera trolls are really amusing.

Ben Bansson, the guy who thinks that Internet Explorer 6 is a Modern Browser!.

http://www.cusser.net/

LOL.

Funniest site ever!!!

Yeah, that's totally hilarious and much worse than scaring people off by saying "browsers that support the W3 box model", for example.

Now you are even funnier!.

ROTFL

Asa, in case you need an image for this thread ^_-
http://members.shaw.ca/Limulus/pics/Opera_new_cost.png

For a commercial company it probably doesn't matter much how large its market share is exactly, as long as it's not declining and generates sufficient revenues. There were many people who believed there was nothing wrong with paying for a software product just like we pay for other products in everyday life, even with free alternatives around. For example, I wouldn't take a Landwind (http://landwind.bootnetworks.com/) even if they gave it away for free, if I could afford a Volvo.

Opera Software has now proven those people wrong. In my opinion, not because Opera couldn't survive with their business model, but because it couldn't *grow* with it. Too many users only consider using a free browser, which makes Opera unknown and/or unpopular with web designers, which in turn hurts website compatibility in Opera, which gives Opera a bad name, which will not convince people to try out Opera. This is where the growth stagnates. If you're an ambitious company, the status quo of browser discrimination is unacceptable. Let's hope this change will change things for the better. It may even be good for Firefox. :-)

"'Download American' is very much racist. I don't think anyone appreciates such a line of thinking."

ROTFL, you do realize that there is no American race. There is an American nation, but not an American race. Please go back to school and learn about things before you comment on them.

Thankyou.

This is ridiculous. Someone said I am diverting and avoiding. I would laugh if it weren't so pathetic. If you can refute a single one of the facts I presented, do so. Otherwise, stop talking out of your behinds.

Operazealots are even funnier than Maczealots.

1 Million Opera downloads in 2 days :) - http://opera.com/announcements/en/2005/09/22/

Thanks Asa. :D

I just hope Opera aren't screwing up. I'd be gutted if they folded because of this!

However I expect they've done their sums properly. The Opera fees and ad revenue probably doesn't come close to the money they make from their mobile and PDA offerings, and I bet they figure that increased desktop usage will make their portable products even more appealing to large manufacturers.

I've just upgraded to 8.5, and it's fab. Kinda ironic that Mozialla have just released another 1.0.x security fix - I'm so glad I don't have to bother with that stuff anymore!

FX NEEDS TO FOLLOW Opera's LEAD
Go to this Web site and read it: http://www.grc.com/sn/SN-003.txt . There actually is a way to read it with Fx, but it's an intelligence test to find it.

I've made one suggestion in the "Berkun switches..." blog. Opera has another, very useful way of doing it, which works wonders for other kinds of pages as well. I promised to tell how it's done in this blog, but I've changed my mind, and I've left it as an exercise for users.

View > Fit to window width in Opera, of course. Part of ERA

http://www.opera.com/pressreleases/en/2004/11/23/

"Go to this Web site and read it: http://www.grc.com/sn/SN-003.txt . There actually is a way to read it with Fx, but it's an intelligence test to find it."

Wow, smartass, you know Firefox is a webbrowser for html pages, but with View Source you can word wrap raw text files as well... All Operazealots are dumb like you?

"All Operazealots are dumb like you?"

*Are all Opera zealots dumb like you?" :)

"opera continues to follow firefox's lead" - You mean Firefox started the no-ad browser revolution?

2158 in-depth posts on the Firefox forums.

An "Operazealot" (sic), you say? No, just pointing out something well done, and in favor of decency and fair recognition.