Opera 10.0 Released, With Integrated Web Server Functionality 437
sherl0k writes "Opera 10.0, dubbed Opera Unite, has been released. Built into the Web browser is a full-fledged Web server, complete with nifty little gadgets such as a 'fridge' that people can post notes onto, a chat room, a widget to stream your music library anywhere, and a built-in file-sharing mechanism. It also scores 100/100 on the Acid3 test."
Readers fudreporter and TLS point to The Register's report on the new release and a
5-minute video demo, respectively. Update: 06/16 15:18 GMT by T: Roar Lauritzsen of Opera Software writes to point out that "release" isn't quite the right word here; though you can download it, version 10.0 is still in beta, and the version with Unite is a labs (experimental) release.
What? (Score:5, Funny)
No kitchen sink?
Re:What? (Score:4, Funny)
The sink will be available as an Opera Widget.
Re:What? (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone else seeing graphics appearing midcomment on about 1/4 of the comments?
Re:What? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What? (Score:5, Informative)
On every aspect the title and summary is just so wrong.
To begin with, Opera 10 has not been released. Its in Beta.
Opera Unite is not Opera 10, its a feature in Opera 10.
Opera Unite is not a webserver, its a system where functionality is provided by widgets and other users can access those aswell (kinda like Google Wave)
Opera provided some widgets to begin with, like File Sharing, Web Server, Media Player, Photo Sharing, The Lounge (chat), Fridge (post-a-note wall)
All of these can be separately enabled or disabled.
Atleast in the Opera 10 Beta, Unite and all the widgets were disabled by default.
It makes direct connections when possible, and if user is behind NAT Opera proxy servers will route it (afaik)
Its a great thing for an user who doesn't care or know how to install webservers, dont want to upload their private photos to imageshack or the like or chat via servers. The thing here is that instead of using websites, you can connect to your friends directly. Widgets provide the functionality then (theres API developers can use to make them)
Hopefully that clarifies some about that incredibly bad summary.
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On every aspect the title and summary is just so wrong.
It's getting so that Digg has better, more accurate summaries. Scary.
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Would the file sharing widget essentially set up a p2p network? One user would be connecting directly to the other user, correct, possibly going through one of Opera's proxies?
Yes, though you have to explicitly decide who you're connecting to, so it's not P2P in the way it came to be understood for file sharing. Now if someone writes an indexing service...
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Yes, the file sharing is basically like FTP, you pick a folder that has the files you want to share, anyone who browses your files or downloads on, downloads it from you directly. The browsing is some sort of auto-created webpage depending on which section you are sharing under (Images, Music, Generic, Web-Server). If you go offline, or disable it, then that's that no one can connect or download. I would assume the same for The Lounge chatroom although I haven't had a reason to use it, but the Fridge/PostIt
Re:What? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd say it is a BAD THING when someone who doesn't care or know how to install a web server winds up installing a web server just because it is part of his web browser. I'd say it is a massive hole through which bad guys can poke at someone's system without the victim knowing that he's installed it.
Why is it a massive hole? You know, its not apache or anything complicated. It doesn't run php scripts. It serves files and only does that. Seeing how secure Opera has been compared to IE/FF I'd say they know how to secure it aswell.
Personally, I don't want my VNC server also running an http demon to distribute widgets to anyone who comes by. I don't want my web browser doing the same thing.
Nor it does, it has a good access police thats easily noticed by the user. Opera's site has some pics in the press section if you dont want to install it to see.
As long as your friends are explicit in wanting you to be able to this, ok.
As said, user access controls and the services/widgets DONT run on by default.
If that were true, it's trivial to set up a real webserver to provide exactly what you want them to get, instead of it being a side-effect of browsing the morning's ration of pr0n.
Internet is not just us nerds anymore. Actually, we're quite minority like in teh real world. Not anyone has interest to learn how to install and configure apache and hell, I would be more worried about someone using apache instead of opera's very basic webserver, if they get it working they most likely dont know what they're doing.
Re:What? (Score:4, Informative)
Firefox 3.0.11
Konqueror 3.5.9
Very annoying
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The kitchen sink server will be released soon, as part of their client software, Cup 1.0.
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1. It looks like the latest version of Emacs [gnu.org] is more than 3 times the size of this latest Opera snapshot [opera.com], web server and everything! So, you know, Emacs is still worth complaining about. (I know, source code vs. compiled binary isn't fair, but I was just making a joke, and Emacs is still fat.)
2. Opera has always been a web suite, for longer than Firefox has even existed, and it's always come with an insane number of features out of the box, and yet it's also always been fast an
Excellent! (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sure all seven Opera users will be thrilled.
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Re:Excellent! (Score:4, Informative)
eh, how wrong is the summary. Opera 10 != Opera Unite. Its just a feature in it. Surprisingly, TechCrunch has a good summary http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/16/that-reinvention-of-the-web-thing-opera-was-talking-about-its-called-opera-unite/ [techcrunch.com]
Re:Excellent! (Score:5, Informative)
âoeCurrently, most of us contribute content to the Web (for example by putting our personal information on social networking sites, uploading photos to Flickr, or maybe publishing blog posts), but we donâ(TM)t contribute to its fabric â" the underlying infrastructure that defines the online landscape that we inhabit.
Our computers are only dumb terminals connected to other computers (meaning servers) owned by other people â" such as large corporations â" who we depend upon to host our words, thoughts, and images. We depend on them to do it well and with our best interests at heart. We place our trust in these third parties, and we hope for the best, but as long as our own computers are not first class citizens on the Web, we are merely tenants, and hosting companies are the landlords of the Internet.â
This is more of a way for people to communicate, share and do stuff together rather than using websites. You know, P2P. It has developer API so new stuff can be added, opera's own stuff currently include webserver, chat room, note board, streaming and file sharing.
Its quite nice system actually, and you dont need to share your stuff to all of the internet or upload your photos to facebook or similar.
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Dial down the drama. It is all funneled through Opera's servers, because if the users knew how to forward a port from their router to their computer, then they could have had their own server for ages. With Opera's help, they can now enjoy their new freedom in Opera's walled garden.
Re:Excellent! (Score:4, Informative)
You do actually make a direct connection if its possible. If not, then opera will proxy it so that it works for users behind nat aswell.
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geocities2.0
That's all well and good... (Score:2)
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So just dont enable it. Whole Unity feature isn't enabled by default, and even then you enable the separate features/widgets in it.
Btw, even Opera 10 beta seems incredibly fast.
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Sure, I don't want a web SERVER either (in the common parlance)- but maybe a server that just does some quick task for me: I find value in being able to easily share my photos with people with little to know real effort on my part. I currently have to FTP/batch to my webserver and "reindex" the site so thumbnails are generated. I would find value in having an EyeFi memory card dump pictures into a folder and they are immediately available to view- no work done at all on my part.
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How many ordinary non techie end users actually know what opera is?
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I mean seriously did we lean nothing with Windows 200o default install of IIS.
Yes, the server and all services are disabled by default.
Re:Excellent! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Slahdot uses charset=iso-8859-1. The page he copied from (probably this one [opera.com] using charset=utf-8) uses smartquotes, emdashes and so on which are mangled when you copy/paste them from a UTF-8 page.
Re:Excellent! (Score:5, Informative)
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I don't believe there is a 9.7 beta. The Opera 10 beta was released recently, and this builds upon it. They are definitely working towards a v10 release in the relatively near future.
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What are the big features of Opera you actually find useful?
(Genuinely asking, not being sarcastic)
Happy to oblidge. Before I go into it, though, I'd like to mention that I use three different computers on any given day. Workstation, laptop, desktop. For that reason, I value sync'age and NOT having to reinstall stuff. That's why FireFox is unnatractive to me as a primary browser. I don't like extension hunting and I especially don't like the constant nagging to update them. I can be on a brand new computer, go to Opera.com, and download the browser with everything ready to go.
Okay, so here's a few
Acid 3 test (Score:2, Interesting)
Pretend for a second that I don't know anything about Acid 3. Pretend I'm just a regular Joe-sixpack web user.
Why should I care that my browser scored 100/100 on the Acid 3 test?
Re:Acid 3 test (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretend for a second that I don't know anything about Acid 3. Pretend I'm just a regular Joe-sixpack web user.
Why should I care that my browser scored 100/100 on the Acid 3 test?
I would pitch Acid 3 compliance in this manner: This web browser is 100% compliant with the proper web rendering standards. The more compliant your web browser is, the less likely your web browser will break. You can take that to the bank. You spend less time with a broken browser, and more time enjoying a cold one.
Re:Acid 3 test (Score:4, Insightful)
The more compliant your web browser is, the less likely your web browser will break.
I love webstandards, and wish greatly that all browsers supported them well. But I just don't think that quote is factually true. If your browser adheres to webstandards that IE doesn't then it's quite possible/plausible that your browser will fail to deliver websites that look and function like you and the designer expected it to.
People "should" code to standards, but I just don't think that it's (yet) true that they DO.
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The more compliant your web browser is, the less likely your web browser will break.
I love webstandards, and wish greatly that all browsers supported them well. But I just don't think that quote is factually true. If your browser adheres to webstandards that IE doesn't then it's quite possible/plausible that your browser will fail to deliver websites that look and function like you and the designer expected it to.
People "should" code to standards, but I just don't think that it's (yet) true that they DO.
However Opera is known to also be subject to many IE bugs at will. Ever since the latest browser wars began with firefox 1.3 and early webkit Opera was best out there since it both adhered to standards and didn't break badly made websites. I don't know how they manage doing this, but they do.
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It's a matter of perspective. If your browser is 100% compliant and the site looks wrong, the site is broken, not your browser.
Agreed, that doesn't mean the sites will be fixed. Hopefully people will realize which is broken and appropriately look down upon the site until they get with the program and tell IE6 users to go get a real browser..
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Conversely, if 90% of people use a broken browser, and your perfectly standards compliant site looks broken to them, then the perception is that your site is broken. The users' perception is your reality since often the person paying you is also a user of the site ;)
This, is precisely why it's nearly impossible to code a perfectly standards compliant site that is anything but pure html. Mostly because the DOM standard is partially ignored or functionality included in the DOM was implemented by some browsers
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Agreed, there's a ways to go. Fortunatly with IE6 fading and IE as a whole losing market share, we can at least hope the days of the site that proudly proclaims itself to require IE and refuses to even try for anything else are over for good.
Next step is for IE to become the bastard stepchild browser that gets the reduced functionality page while the other browsers get the full capability (to the extent that they comply with standards).
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Talking of banks, will it work at https://www.nwolb.com/ [nwolb.com] or https://www.rbsdigital.com/ [rbsdigital.com] ? They are the world's largest bank, and don't have a good reputation for supporting alternative browsers.
Re:Acid 3 test (Score:5, Funny)
You spend less time with a broken browser, and more time enjoying a cold one.
Dude, necrophilia is wrong.
Re:Acid 3 test (Score:4, Insightful)
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why would it be diffrent then running apache.. or the millions of people with XP and iis installed?
the browser can just allow a simplistic interface for configureation and management to the people whom don't know how to do it other wise
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It's an accessibility thing.
The score refers to how usable a browser is to someone on acid, so 100/100 means someone on acid can use the browser fully. It came about as a realisation that some of the worlds greatest computer scientists were users of acid, particularly at Berkley and hence there was recognition that we needed to ensure that they too can use the internet.
No, seriously though that's bullshit, it's actually a standards compliance test. If you've used multiple browsers you may have come across s
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In general? Because it means more advanced features, that are fully standards compliant and targetable as a development platform.
In this case? Because it shows that Opera are working on getting some things right in their browser, even if they haven't managed to stop the thing displaying cached pages from sites that aren't even running any more.
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To paraphrase that to fit what Generic Joe will hear:
"You'll have to grin and bear it as you use an internet that wasn't written to use these standards, BUT, if you and lots of other people start using Opera then those websites will be written to comply with those standards and that'll be great!"
Not sure that's a terribly compelling argument to Generic Joe. Some will certainly go for it, willing to bite the bullet to advance humanity a little bit, but a lot of people just want to use the internet.
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then just tell Joe it will make his porn pages look better
Alpha! (Score:4, Informative)
Somewhere in the summary you REALLY should mention this is an ALPHA release, not a final release.
Thanks.
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Did you install it as an upgrade of your previous version, or as a separate install?
I believe the alpha/beta versions default to a separate install.
using it now. Very, very impressed. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:using it now. Very, very impressed. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:using it now. Very, very impressed. (Score:5, Funny)
Me too. Although I couldn't say /. looks very, very good :-(
But at least you can say it's rendered properly.
Re:using it now. Very, very impressed. (Score:4, Funny)
wait.. there is a "proper" way?
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Can you whitelist the IPs allowed to access your webservinginternetbrowser?
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So when was the last time you tried Opera? I still use Firefox for a few things, and even IE, but the vast majority of my web browsing is done in Opera. It's faster, it's cleaner, mouse gestures are installed by default, and I like the way they use tabs better. With 10, the speed-dial tool actually got to be slightly useful, which I hadn't expected. It's been ages since I found a site that just plain didn't work in Opera, except ones that require ActiveX, and those don't work all that well in Firefox, e
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Re: 'fanboy' ac. (Score:2)
If you're completely uninterested in this browser, why are you reading this thread? let alone posting. If you're truly bored, there's an ascii goatse link in an earlier thread above.
That goatse link, plus some tissues, should afford you at least an hour's relaxation and enjoyment. And if you're using Opera, you can go to the Tools -> "Delete Private Data" after you're done cleaning the floor and your screen. Nobody will ever know.
Sweet Zombie Exploit Jesus (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a botnet writer's wet dream; a victim that will host your exploit once you've pwned it.
We can only hope that it's secure, or else the two dozen people who actually use Opera will be very unpopular indeed, at least until the RIAA has then rounded up for sharing their tunes with (world + dog).
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Try reading the article.
The 'weird' urls are of the form "unite://computername.username.operaunite.com", and routed through Opera's own servers.
Re:Sweet Zombie Exploit Jesus (Score:4, Insightful)
You do realize that once upon a time the web was filled with "weird" URLs like darthvader.cs.uni.edu/userpages/~mijon96/, web5.hoster.com/m/mi/~mikaelj and the like, right? And that it wasn't unusual to find early web-based companies operating out of websites that could only be reached by typing in a URL like one of those?
I'm sorry but your post sounds a bit too "we need to clean up the web, only allow hosting by well-known corporate entities and require $500 website licenses for anyone who wants to publish a website!!11" for my tastes (yes, I've heard both these two suggestions being made in a very serious manner by people who I know to be knowledgeable enough about the internet to not make suggestions like that without a lobotomy or, more likely, their corporate masters telling them to in exchange for money).
/Mikael
10.0 still beta and Unite is alpha (Score:4, Informative)
Security (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Oblig (Score:3, Funny)
Yo dawg, I heard you like surfing, so we put a web server in your browser so you can surf while your surf!
Auto-updates? (Score:2)
What about auto-updates?
This is something what prevents me from even considering Opera as main web-browser.
IE (in a way) does it. Chrome does it. FireFox does it. Opera - doesn't.
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10.0 has auto updates, but as other commenters have pointed out- 10.0 is in beta and seperate from the "Opera Unite" stuff of the article. You can learn more about auto update and try it out on the beta page [opera.com]
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"Auto-update" is really in 10.x. Thanks for the link!
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No, I want it like in FireFox: "Help" > "Restart and install updates." (Or whatever it is called.)
Opera 9.x pretty much always tells "Oh! Update X.XX is available! Click here to download!!!". After clicking it sends you to generic download page where you have to download newer Opera version manually and install it manually. That sucks.
P.S. Sorry to be that spoiled by FireFox.
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Google Wave, anyone? (Score:2)
Despite the obvious differences the whole thing somehow reminded me of Google Wave. It seems when the time of an idea comes (distributed communication service, every user can run a server easily, something like that) then different teams come up with similar solutions independently without knowing about each other's work.
The apparent drawbacks of Opera Unite are bandwidth problems when running locally (e.g. ADSL upload speed) and the services being dependent on your computer being turned on.
Google Wave seem
Servers are always on, desktops / laptops are not (Score:2, Insightful)
i can just see it now... your mom calls from her vacation abroad: "Hey! How you doing? Can you turn your laptop on i want to show uncle henry your photos of the wedding", "mom, it's 3am... i wish i had put my photos on flckr!"
So many features... (Score:5, Funny)
*Runs away*
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Did they just slap a GUI on Emacs?
No, but I hear that Emacs is going to be one of Opera Unite widgets in the final release. Now you can truly run your OS inside your browser!
Better flash than AMD64 firefox (Score:2)
My unscientific tests of Opera 10 (i.e. about an hour, this afternoon) hasn't had any problems with vids, so far - even though FF is firmly screwed.
Personally I find it scary enough (Score:2)
Just one more thing to patch
I wrote this 9 years ago! (Score:5, Interesting)
The "Fishbowl" browser had an integrated web server.
http://web.archive.org/web/20010502014727/chronofish.com/FishBowl/ [archive.org]
-CF
Re:OMG! That bug is coming back! (Score:4, Insightful)
something sitting in the back of my head telling me that i would trust Opera to do it FAR more better than Netscape - if not for the reason that when Netscape did it.. no one thought people would be evil with it.. second Opera is by far one of the most secure browsers out there, let alone the fastest (although chrome is giving it a run for it's money on that front).
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Actually, no, Opera is not one of the fastest browsers out there as This, on Mac OS [kent.ac.uk], and this on windows [kent.ac.uk] show -- note, what is showing as opera 9.8 is 10.0 beta, I've yet to test the final release of 10.0, but you're of course welcome to try to duplicate my results.
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There isn't a final release of Opera 10 yet. The summary is just wrong. Unite is a "Labs" release. Think Google Labs, just from Opera.
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Indeed, I'll benchmark it again when it is actually released, but the beta I tested above really doesn't look hopeful.
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That's a very fancy and colourful benchmark, but what exactly does it measure? I tried it on hald a dozen different Linux browsers, and it came out with Firefox 3.0.11 on bottom, well below Iceweasel 3.0.11 (same codebase), with Opera 10 Beta and Konqueror 4.2.4 almost indistinguishable from each other and quite a bit faster, with some WebKit based browsers much faster than those. Problem is, Konqueror is slower than Firefox in all other benchmarks (WebKit's Sunspider, for instance) and in user experience a
Re:OMG! That bug is coming back! (Score:4, Informative)
Fractional horsepower web servers [scripting.com] are not a new idea, but baking them into the browser is
Not even remotely true, I'm afraid. The early WWW papers describe the browser and server being integrated, with the browser UI containing a simple editing tool for editing pages on your local server. It wasn't until later, when dial-up users became common that the two components were separated. The every-client-is-a-server model was at the core of the early Web.
Why does a web browser have FS access (Score:4, Insightful)
Building a firewall-piercing file server into a browser, a program which typically has full network and file system access, is going to cause many incidents of accidental file sharing.
Why does a web browser have full access to the file system, other than read-only access to its own "program" and "files to upload" folders and read-write access to "user profile", "cache", and "downloaded files" folders?
File chooser service; copy to shared folder (Score:3, Interesting)
Why does a web browser have full access to the file system, other than read-only access to its own "program" and "files to upload" folder[...]
It has filesystem access because, even without a file server component, users want to upload files
Uploading a file doesn't need file system access; it needs file chooser access. In the Sugar toolkit used by OLPC's XO laptops, for instance, apps that let the user select a file send a request to the file chooser service [laptop.org], which then opens the file and passes the equivalent of a file descriptor to the app. (In fact, a Sugar app's installer doesn't even let a single program request both directory listing and network connection privileges; the user has to apply them manually after the fact.) Another way to do
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If I run Opera I want Opera to talk to the network stack, form the packets, and send them. If I run Firefox I want Firefox to talk to the network stack, form the packets, and send them. If I run Safari then I want Safari to
(well, ok, I'd never run safari other then to test out how shitty it is on windows)
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This simply opens up one, quite specific, point of attack through an application which has a fairly good track record for security.
I can see how, on the face of it, getting entry level users to run web servers is opening you up to some attacks, but in a cost benefit analysis I still think it is a winning move. Besides, it is a web server specifically aimed at entry level users; if Opera have any sense security will have been their main focus.
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There's no need for a web connection to go over port 80.
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Meanwhile, it is completely reasonable to run Opera and Firefox simultaneously. I do it all the time, and for exactly the reasons you are mentioning above. In fact, I'm doing it right now on an XP system.
There are some websites that
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Now it seems that they are following MS lead by providing proprietary bloat instead cross platform functionality.
Huh? I run Opera on Windows, various Linux distros, Mac and Open Solaris, you can also find it in use on Wii, Symbian, FreeBSD, Windows Mobile, Nintendo DS. That's not enough platforms for you?
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This reminds me of Nero. Once a nice, light-weight CD burn software product, it is now so full of other cr*p that you have to spend 10 minutes going through the install menu pruning almost everything off.
Thumbs down Opera. Those that needed it, already installed IIS or Apache on their machines. Those that wanted to share sh*te already installed Limewire or some other evil P2P product.
Re:bloat (Score:5, Insightful)
Opera PPC OS X is just 12 MB, the actual executable is way below it.
In fact, if you dig deeper, you figure the amazing fact. Core renderer is below 1 MB. Yes, 1 MB of ultra portable pure C is the "Opera". Rest is done via the functionality it already has. E.g. lsof when you use the "bulky" IRC function of Opera, you will see the thing you see as "IRC" is actually a web page along with CSS!
Same with the "Web server". It must be amazingly tiny, even less than the rendering engine since it is clear that they are heading to mobile with this.
Opera and Firefox has different development models, concepts and even targets. Ask Firefox developers if they will remove 80% of code just because they want the exact same binary to run on my horribly outdated, OS dead UIQ3 Sony Ericsson P1i. That is what Opera does.
With Google, Google Backed Mozilla, MS Backed IE, Apple backed Webkit, I really don't think Opera dreams about "World Domination!". Look at these silly people, they want to boycott Opera because MS backed blogs called for it. Why? EU judicial system investigates MS (did you see IE icon's size on Win 7?) and MS pulled one of "I am taking my toys and going home" tricks again by not including IE in EU Windows. So, it is all Opera's fault now (as they can't mess with Google/Firefox) and they want to boycott Opera (as if they ever used!).
I mean, as ordinary user, I can see the stupidity but they can't? I bet they do and they never dreamed of being some 20-30% market share browser because of these facts which aren't really too technical.
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Re:Mac version (Score:4, Funny)
Unfortunately, it still looks completely out of place.
It's highly functional. Of course it looks out of place on a Mac.
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They are not going to kill the WAN if they are blocked by the firewall.
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I couldn't agree more. I understand that Unite is a P2P/Groove retread. Still, creating a massive new vector for a botnet doesn't strike me as a responsible thing to do for a software maker.
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With this release, they also wanted to take free software to the next level. Now anyone can own it.