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Opera Software

Opera Founder Is Back, WIth a Feature-Heavy, Chromium-Based Browser 158

Posted by timothy from the sink-within-a-sink dept.
New submitter cdysthe writes Almost two years ago, the Norwegian browser firm Opera ripped out the guts of its product and adopted the more standard WebKit and Chromium technologies, essentially making it more like rivals Chrome and Safari. But it wasn't just Opera's innards that changed; the browser also became more streamlined and perhaps less geeky. Many Opera fans were deeply displeased at the loss of what they saw as key differentiating functionality. So now Jon von Tetzchner, the man who founded Opera and who would probably never have allowed those drastic feature changes, is back to serve this hard core with a new browser called Vivaldi. The project's front page links to downloads of a technical preview, available for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. Firefox users who likewise prefer a browser with more rather than fewer features (but otherwise want to stick with Firefox) might also consider SeaMonkey, which bundles not just a browser but email, newsgroup client and feed reader, HTML editor, IRC chat and web development tools.
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Opera Founder Is Back, WIth a Feature-Heavy, Chromium-Based Browser More

Opera Founder Is Back, WIth a Feature-Heavy, Chromium-Based Browser

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  • Yet another webkit-based browser (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Opera had a superb rendering engine. I wish they'd release it as open source, so we can have a bit of variety, instead of all these webkits and one gecko [1] and one trident.

    [1]: We used to have Camino but Mozilla in its great wisdom decided to make Gecko un-embeddable.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cinder6 ( 894572 )

      Presto may have been a quality engine, but so many sites didn't render properly on it (or simply refused, necessitating user-agent hacking) that it's hard for me to miss it.

      • Re:Yet another webkit-based browser (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Wootery ( 1087023 ) on Tuesday January 27, 2015 @03:06PM (#48917461)

        I disagree, Presto is (still today) quite usable. Opera Mobile Classic, the current name of the Presto-powered browser for Android (which is available alongside the 'real' WebKit-based Opera), breathes new life into ancient Android phones. It doesn't cope with all sites, but it's a lot better than the old Android browser. (And Chrome doesn't run on Android 2.)

        The column handling is awesome, which is a particular advantage on mobile devices.

        For whatever reason, the 'real' Opera browser for Android, is absolutely awful. You can't even add your own search-engines beyond the ones it ships with. (Seriously.) It's nothing more than Chrome-but-terrible.

        • Opera Mobile Classic, the current name of the Presto-powered browser for Android (which is available alongside the 'real' WebKit-based Opera), breathes new life into ancient Android phones. It doesn't cope with all sites, but it's a lot better than the old Android browser. (And Chrome doesn't run on Android 2.)

          Agreed 100%. I've got it running on a rooted Barnes And Noble Nook e-book reader. Opera Mobile Classic is the only half-way decent browser that will run on it, and it works fine.

      • Presto may have been a quality engine, but so many sites didn't render properly on it (or simply refused, necessitating user-agent hacking) that it's hard for me to miss it.

        Modern web is so broken that it doesn't render "properly" in any browser. There is no "proper" rendering. Not anymore.

        Since I still use Fx 3.6 as the main workhorse browser, I use Fx Alpha (aka the rolling release shit #2) and Chrome (another rolling releases crap #1) for the occasional pages which do not render properly.

        Funny thing. The sites which are most certainly broken on Fx 3.6 are often most certainly broken in the other browsers too.

        Even some high-profile web sites are quite broken in many pl

  • Really good news! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by megahurts.gr ( 1073654 ) on Tuesday January 27, 2015 @01:45PM (#48916613) Homepage

    Yep, Opera used to be the best, until they destroyed it. When they did, I stopped using it. Now this is really good news!

    • But will this be free? That really killed it list time around.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Opera has been totally free since 2005.

      • Posting from Vivaldi. :)

        the browser seems to generate revenue from affiliate sites - links on the homescreen and prepopulated with shitloads of bookmarks to online services.

        Which doesn't bother me in as much as the default theme is ugly but more importantly, page loading is dog slow.

    • Okay, what is available for download right now is a "technology preview" version, which is very basic, it really lacks features.

      Essentially, they are telling us that they are proficient enough to connect to the source code repository of chromium, download it, slap their name on it, build it, and ship it.

      Which, I guess will do at this point, it shows determination.

      What I am really looking forward to is something like Opera 10 or 12.

      • It doesn't appear to have a popup blocker and it shares proxy settings with the system it appears they have gotten just the most basic stuff in it, but it does get a 511 on the html5test not sure why chrome only get 501 and other browsers are even lower.

         

    • Yep, stopped using it after 12.17 became too crufty with new sites... the new versions had no reason to compel you to use them over Chrome. I mean, you're Chrome-based, and adopt what is essentially the Chrome interface, why would I go out and download you over Chrome?

      I hope it has mouse gestures by default and that lovely fit to window width feature of the old Opera.

      • Wow, it's nice.

        It's still missing a lot of features, but unlike the "new Opera," they seem to have the intent to add them. Many of the nicer interface touches are there... the nice sidebar layout, the view panel, the ability to put tabs on the bottom, show/hide images (no cached only mode yet) and a nice view panel with zoom slider that zooms all the page content.

        Shockingly stable for a tech preview release. I like :)

    • I used opera for years, was stuck with version 12, but now new Opera got most of the features of the old one, e.g. one key shortcuts, MRU tab switching, pinned tabs. The only thing that I miss in new Opera is "fit to width" feature.

  • While I applaud the founder for this move, I can't help but wonder what could have been if these efforts had been put toward producing a truly MS Office replacement.

    I mean, for every office product, there would be a true open standards [drop-in] product.

    But right now, all I see are what some may call "me too" browsers, all competing for the little attention they can get among so many [webdevelopersnotes.com]. Sad!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      LibreOffice isn't good enough for you?

    • Diversity of browser engines is a big loss for HTML standards. It encourages de-facto standards and "Best viewed in [majority browser]" statements.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Lack of diversity of browser engines is a big loss for decent browser choices. It encourages numerous "different" browsers that are little more than rebadged variants of the same base.

        We don't need one engine to rule them all to adhere to standards. We need developers to not disregard those standards, which for the most part hasn't been an issue since the early days of IE.

    • While I applaud the founder for this move, I can't help but wonder what could have been if these efforts had been put toward producing a truly MS Office replacement.

      It would lead to something like OpenOffice. Until Office 2007, working with MS-Office files meant working with the mess those binaries were. Look at this, [joelonsoftware.com] and this. [joelonsoftware.com]
      Even nowadays, it is not "a truly MS Office replacement" if it does not open (and edit) old files, so too much effort goes to legacy.

    • Are you kidding? They're based in Iceland and Iceland respects privacy and security to the point of putting bankers in jail . I'll definitely be getting an email address and specifically requesting encryption by default.
      I am a little confused though, I thought they were US based and got sold to Australia which was the main reason I quit using Opera. If they're based in Iceland I'm all over it.

      • Two things:
        First, this is about Vivaldi, not Opera. Vivaldi is a different company, just founded by the former founder of Opera.
        Second, Opera is a Norwegian company. They have offices in the US, amongst other countries.

        Maybe you got confused by Opera buying Australian company Fastmail.FM.

  • http://www.palemoon.org/ [palemoon.org]

    It feels "less quirky" than Seamonkey, and some of the Extensions that I have used for years ( Like Tree Style Tab) work with PaleMoon while they don't in Seamonkey.

    And with the "Firefox 3 Theme for Firefox 4+ Reloaded" I finally feel at home again on the Internet.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Gort65 ( 1464371 )

      It feels "less quirky" than Seamonkey, and some of the Extensions that I have used for years ( Like Tree Style Tab) work with PaleMoon while they don't in Seamonkey.

      You can get a few of the problematic extensions to install and work on SeaMonkey using the Firefox & Thunderbird Add-on Converter for SeaMonkey [mozillazine.org]. Not all of the Firefox and Thunderbird extensions can be converted, but it certainly expands the frontiers.

  • c'mon guys...we *have* to start coming up with better names for products...

    "Vivaldi"

    sounds like a lesser composer from Mozart's time

    or a corrupt Roman proconsul in the early CE

    vivaldi could definitely be the name of a new blood thinner drug from Pfizer

    damn it...seriously....'vivaldi'

    don't tell me what it means b/c i don't care and neither does anyone else...it's a Dumb Name

    • Re:"vivaldi" (Score:5, Funny)

      by OzPeter ( 195038 ) on Tuesday January 27, 2015 @01:53PM (#48916709)

      c'mon guys...we *have* to start coming up with better names for products...

      "Vivaldi"

      Hey .. don't you know that this is actually the first of a suite of 4 programs .. they'll be one for each season.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Sin2x ( 1189089 )
      If you base your choices on product names, I feel truly sorry for you. Not in darwinistic sense, though.

      • the name actually matters

        you base all kinds of choices based on product names...

        the name is part of the design...when you don't have any other information, design choices can indicate quality

        is Vivaldi intended for a small group of developers only? no? you want non-developers to use it?

        the name is not some completely abstract factor

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Then why is Windows so widely used despite windows being so easy to break?

          • Windows was the Federal Government's desktop OS of choice...for millions of desks...all over the world

            That level of automatic penetration of the market is absolutely invaluable.

            It's very easy to see how M$ leveraged their huge US contracts...it's much easier to have your home OS be the same as your work OS.

            That and bundling deals with major PC makers...if you were using computers in that era you should remember all this

        • is Vivaldi intended for a small group of developers only? no? you want non-developers to use it?

          I don't understand your gripe with that name in particular. It's not an obscure name, and it evokes some sense of classical grace (as well as being an extension of the Opera name in a sense). There are any number of other projects out there, both successful and otherwise, that have much more ridiculous names. Firefox is a great example. What does "Firefox" have to do with being a web browser? Or SeaMonkey, or Chrome for that matter? What about Twitter? Or Flickr? What about LibreOffice, which I have

          • I used the example of WiMax in a comment below.

            I don't claim to have all the answers, and I acknowledge that things with crappy names can get very popular.

            That said, i wanted to post about the name choice and in general soapbox a bit about how name choices matter and in tech they need to be better.

            My goal is to get /.'ers, (hopefully still) the kind of people who choose software names, to understand that it's important.

            It's not the most salient factor...but it's important.

            It is funny you mention GIMP...i kn

    • don't tell me what it means b/c i don't care and neither does anyone else...it's a Dumb Name

      Speak for yourself.

      I like the name. (And I know what it means, gosh!)

      Looking forward to this browser.

    • Re:"vivaldi" (Score:4, Insightful)

      by quax ( 19371 ) on Tuesday January 27, 2015 @02:25PM (#48917101)

      So let me get this straight, you seriously don't know who Vivaldi was, and you think everybody else is as proudly ignorant as you are.

      Obviously the name works perfectly. This browser is not for you.

      • you seriously don't know who Vivaldi was, and you think everybody else is as proudly ignorant as you are.

        even if you know who Vivaldi is, it's still a Dumb Name, that's my point...***most users will not get the reference***...just because it has an actual meaning, it doesn't mean it's a good name

        'Bluetooth' is a Dumb Name

        i sell handmade electronics in my spare time, which use 'bluetooth'...i have to explain *over and over* how 'bluetooth' is similar to wifi to my customers

        the bottom line is, even if people know Vivaldi wrote a a well known piece of music with 4 suites like the program (get it), just like Bluet

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by quax ( 19371 )

          What's in a name? I also thought Bluetooth was idiotic when it came out, but there are only so many short and descriptive names. Getting a trademark is actually not that easy, and in the end the only thing that matters is that it is unique, and that your competition can't take it away from you.

          Firefox, Chrome etc. aren't particular descriptive names but everybody now knows what they stand for.

          • in the end the only thing that matters is that it is unique, and that your competition can't take it away from you.

            that's where we disagree

            ask your non-tech friends...ask them if 'Firefox' is a good name for a computer program you use to view web pages

            choosing a good name matters...it's **one factor** in many, and yes, badly named things can become very popular, but **that doesn't mean it's not important to do right**

        • the bottom line is, even if people know Vivaldi wrote a a well known piece of music with 4 suites like the program (get it),

          More generally, Vivaldi [wikipedia.org] wrote more than forty operas. Which, I think is the actual reference - he founded/wrote Opera.

    • Yeah, and ain't Vivaldi also the name of a tablet that runs KDE Plasma?
    • It's a shame "Internet Explorer" was taken...

  • Great news! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Well keep a close watch on this one.
    From the looks of things, they bought back the side bar, bookmarks and even email client. If so, I might just switch to it after switching to firefox+lots of extensions to make it look and feel like the Opera of old, when Opera went to sh*t after going chronium.

    • I did the same thing (switched from Opera to FF+boatload of extension) and I STILL can't get the tabs to behave the way they normally did in the older versions of Opera

      I didn't have a problem with Opera switching to chromium for the rendering engine, but they didn't have to adopt the "our way or the highway" mentality that Chrome has. When they got rid of opera:config (about:config) it was the last straw.

      Firefox might be bloated and slow, but at least it's not trying to be a clone of Chrome like every other

  • Netscape is still the best browser by far, with a familiar look and everything. The page source viewer is wonderful. Even the web page composer isn't too shabby. It has always been that way.

  • Firefox users who likewise prefer a browser with more rather than fewer features (but otherwise want to stick with Firefox) might also consider SeaMonkey, which bundles not just a browser but email, newsgroup client and feed reader, HTML editor, IRC chat and web development tools.

    LOL ... 1997 called, they want their browser back.

    More seriously, where does Opera/this Vivaldi thing fall on the privacy end of the spectrum? Is it ad supported? Is it full of crapware?

    If it isn't secure or trustworthy, WTF is t

    • 1997.. For web browsers it was a vintage year. To this day nothing can hold a candle to Netscape.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by AvitarX ( 172628 )

        Is this a real statement?

        Netscape Navigator 4.x was so bad that I switched to Opera, even though it was less compatible.

        It was just so much better.

        • Navigator 4, the browser that, when you turned off JavaScript, also turned off CSS. Good riddance. I really liked Navigator 3, though.

        • I tried 'em all, and always came back. 4.7 worked perfectly well for me. 18 years later and still, nobody can catch up. I am very grateful that it's still available. Otherwise I still would be using Mosaic

        • Navigator 9 was FireFox - I really liked that one, before AOL pulled the plug

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by AvitarX ( 172628 )

            I must erroneously remember the navigator line based on gecko being closer to mozilla then.

            Because I remember it as being mozilla, plus AOL branding, pretty much the pits.

    • 1997 returned your call. This is almost, but not quite 1997's browser [wikipedia.org]. It's based on Mozilla Application Suite, which in turn is based on Netscape 6. That's from 2000. It's a complete rewrite of Netscape Communicator (1997) so it's not technically a '97 browser.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jez9999 ( 618189 )

        And it still has a way better UI than Firefox or Chrome for high resolution desktops (ie. desktops).

      • I hated Netscape in 1997... I kept picking up the phone to see if my modem was still connected before hitting ctrl-alt-delete.

  • I want to have to support another browser (Score:4, Funny)

    by pooh666 ( 624584 ) on Tuesday January 27, 2015 @02:13PM (#48916955)
    Webkit or not, about as much as I want TCP by pidgin.

    • Funny, and I want to have three open browsers so I can sandbox various activities from one another.

      Who said you had to support it? Are you the support guy for the entire interweb or something?

      Nobody is forcing you to use it or support it.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Nobody is forcing you to be a totally clueless dumbass.

      • Funny, and I want to have three open browsers so I can sandbox various activities from one another.

        One browser that supports multiple profiles should accomplish that just fine.

        Who said you had to support it? Are you the support guy for the entire interweb or something?

        Nobody is forcing you to use it or support it.

        You're not a web developer are you?

    • Legacy IE aside (and accidentally triggered quirks mode), there's not much to do to support another browser engine - not from the coding side or the design side.

    • Stop using browser-specific code and it wouldn't be a problem.

    • Webkit or not, about as much as I want TCP by pidgin.

      Why not SCP?

  • While this might eventually replace Firefox on Windows for me, it won't replace Safari on OS X. Once it has extensions support (hopefully supporting Chrome extensions), I'll give it a serious look. For now, I can't live without 1Password (not to mention Block and a couple others).

  • Downloading (Score:5, Informative)

    by jamstar7 ( 694492 ) on Tuesday January 27, 2015 @02:17PM (#48917017)
    Interesting that the Ubuntu/Debian .deb file is ONLY for 64 bit systems. No 32 bits for us dinosaurs.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by thogard ( 43403 )

      No support for 32 bit OS X either. Don't people know how to build fat binaries anymore?

  • Headline: Opera Founder Is Back, WIth a Feature-Heavy, Chromium-Based Browser

    But a few lines below, it goes on to say: "Many Opera fans were deeply displeased at the loss of what they saw as key differentiating functionality. So now Jon von Tetzchner, the man who founded Opera and who would probably never have allowed those drastic feature changes, is back to serve this hard core with a new browser called Vivaldi."

    So what is this new browser - a webkit based one like Chromium, or one based on Blink/V8?

    • My understanding is that move away from Presto and to webkit/blink was used as excuse for changing the overall Opera vision, either that or new Opera devs are too incompetent to properly re-implement the vision. Either way, Opera founder just returns to reassert his vision.

      • From what I remember of what one of the Devs said, part of Opera's layout engine was 16-bit and this caused a lot of rendering issues which had to be hand-fixed.

        Allegedly, it was too difficult to rewrite. Additionally, with Google et al writing new standards for the web, it was just too much work to use a non-Chrome rendering engine.

        I like uh... Opera 27. I'm not keen on the Look & Feel of Vivaldi so far but if they can make it flexible enough to do want I want (or support Chromium extensions), I'll s

  • I'm using it now, quick review (Score:4, Interesting)

    by iplayfast ( 166447 ) on Tuesday January 27, 2015 @02:59PM (#48917405)

    It feels like a fast version of Chome. But I don't have all the cache filled in the same way so probably not a fair test. But so far not a problem with it. Have used it on facebook game that requires flash 15, (won't work with firefox) was flawless.

    Not found a single gotcha so far

  • Already Better Than New Opera (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jazman_777 ( 44742 ) on Tuesday January 27, 2015 @03:03PM (#48917441) Homepage
    The original dream we hardcore Opera users had was replacing the Presto engine with Blink, but wrapping it with the feature-full Opera interface experience. That was more a pipe dream. Vivaldi already has more of the old Opera features than the new one does. It's a technology preview, so it's got a lot of rough edges, but the spirit of the old Opera is there.
    • Opera 12, is a 12MB download...__12__

      Once more, __12__. Nearly 1/5th the size of Mozilla's Firefox, about 1/3rd the size of Google's Chrome.
      Unfortunately, the dev's completely hosed the JS engine in Opera 12 (compared to pretty much any prior Opera version). Opera 12 is also the least stable of any Opera release to date, including the clusterfuck of Opera 10.11 - 10.6 --- it wasn't until nearly the final release of Opera 10.64 that you could give up Opera 10.10 without suffering major regressions.

      At
    • A goddamned side panel. So how was that too difficult eh Opera?
      Bookmarks are more functional than Opera 20-whatever. Side tabs are too big, but that will be fixed. Email client to come.

      I am thoroughly stoked! I saw mention of a browser about a year ago, but never heard anything since and never thought much more about it.

  • I'm quite puzzled about the plug for SeaMonkey because it's not a new project. SeaMonkey is the successor of the original Netscape/Mozilla browser suite and it was the flagship product of Mozilla then. Firefox (originally named Phoenix then Firebird) was created in response to the bloat of Mozilla.

    I'm relying only on my memory and didn't double check the facts so I may be wrong but I feel the OP seems to be too young to know this which is a bit shocking because I'm just 29.

  • Firefox users who likewise prefer a browser with more rather than fewer features (but otherwise want to stick with Firefox) might also consider SeaMonkey, which bundles not just a browser but email, newsgroup client and feed reader, HTML editor, IRC chat and web development tools.

    Either that's feature bloat for a Web browser or it's also missing an image editor. I'm not sure which.

  • I installed both the Windows and OS X version, and it looks pretty good (aside from having that disgusting "page flattened" look of every fad-chasing program ever since Windows Metro and OS X Yosemite). However, I tried to search for a specific word in text, and the prediction pre-empted user input (which violates the trust of user input always being respected). I tried to reproduce this a minute ago on the slashdot.org front page, and it couldn't find the word I was typing in, despite me looking straight

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