Opera 15/16/17/18/19/20+ - The Chrome Wars
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tradeofjane last edited by
Originally posted by blackbird71:
If the rendering engine is the foundational code of the browser (and it is), one might logically expect it to set many of the limits and boundaries of how the end result might look, regardless of the effort applied in designing a user interface. Whatever else, you have to build a round barn on a round foundation... you don't really build a square one on such a foundation. So there will be structural resemblances between all browsers based on the same rendering engine, no matter what else the developers might do or wish. However, over time and with enough creativity, features and forms of implementation can eventually be found that cross over or get around some of the limits and boundaries imposed by the rendering engine design. At that point, distinctive features can and will appear between different designs built on the same foundation.
That's not entirely true when it comes to the user interface, which has to be built before the browser can even be released. Opera could've added the ability to change it to suit a user's own personal preference or at least have tried to make it less Chrome like. If I want Opera to look more like it did pre-9.50, then I should have the ability to do so since that's what I'm use to and have been able to do up to 12.16. I don't expect to have all the features back that were included in 12.16 since some features, like Opera Mail, are tied to Presto's code base. However, I do expect Opera's management to be at least smart enough to innovate and not do something stupid like leaving out bookmarks or basing their efforts on trying to be so much like Chrome.
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Deleted User last edited by
So... if I read you correctly you are saying that haavard is either very stupid or a liar. Which is it? Curious minds would like to know. :whistle:
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blackbird71 last edited byOriginally posted by Tradeofjane:
... Opera could've added the ability to change it to suit a user's own personal preference or at least have tried to make it less Chrome like. If I want Opera to look more like it did pre-9.50, then I should have the ability to do so since that's what I'm use to and have been able to do up to 12.16.
While I completely agree that I wish New Opera had far more advanced user configurability (one of the two or three major things that really block me from adopting it), nothing involving 'design, development, and testing' comes without a price - in money and in competition for scarce company resources with other key projects. And whether the price is deemed worth paying depends on how the creators evaluate the market they're designing into and their own inside knowledge of their ultimate cross-product relationships, their business strategies, and their internal costs of doing the work they anticipate would be needed. Providing configurability costs design and test effort, unavoidably. And in a corporation supplying multiple user-related products, those costs will be significantly different from those of two guys working in their garage on a part-time project or even some third-world startup operation. How much and whether it's "worth it" to add levels of configurability simply cannot accurately be evaluated outside the company itself. Of course, whether it would have been worth it will ultimately be determined by the general market's reaction to the product that doesn't have it; but until that verdict comes in, we on the outside can only guess.
Originally posted by Tradeofjane:
I don't expect to have all the features back that were included in 12.16 since some features, like Opera Mail, are tied to Presto's code base. However, I do expect Opera's management to be at least smart enough to innovate and not do something stupid like leaving out bookmarks or basing their efforts on trying to be so much like Chrome.
One more time: bookmarks weren't "left out"... bookmarks don't "come naturally" to code and have to be cut out. Instead, "bookmarks" weren't designed in. There is a design-cost difference between the two, perhaps significant. Whether we believe Opera's initial market 'survey' was accurate or not, they've stated they believed the market demand for bookmarks did not justify their knowledge of the resource costs involved in providing them. They may or may not have been wrong, but that does not make them stupid.
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tradeofjane last edited by
Originally posted by blackbird71:
While I completely agree that I wish New Opera had far more advanced user configurability (one of the two or three major things that really block me from adopting it), nothing involving 'design, development, and testing' comes without a price - in money and in competition for scarce company resources with other key projects. And whether the price is deemed worth paying depends on how the creators evaluate the market they're designing into and their own inside knowledge of their ultimate cross-product relationships, their business strategies, and their internal costs of doing the work they anticipate would be needed. Providing configurability costs design and test effort, unavoidably. And in a corporation supplying multiple user-related products, those costs will be significantly different from those of two guys working in their garage on a part-time project or even some third-world startup operation. How much and whether it's "worth it" to add levels of configurability simply cannot accurately be evaluated outside the company itself. Of course, whether it would have been worth it will ultimately be determined by the general market's reaction to the product that doesn't have it; but until that verdict comes in, we on the outside can only guess.
And yet...
In an interview with Digi.no, Opera's CEO Lars Boilesen notes that as a result of the WebKit transition, the company now has twice the resources working on the desktop as it previously did. Freed from having to expend effort on its engine, the company can focus on the interface and other software features.
Originally posted by blackbird71:
One more time: bookmarks weren't "left out"... bookmarks don't "come naturally" to code and have to be cut out. Instead, "bookmarks" weren't designed in. There is a design-cost difference between the two, perhaps significant. Whether we believe Opera's initial market 'survey' was accurate or not, they've stated they believed the market demand for bookmarks did not justify their knowledge of the resource costs involved in providing them. They may or may not have been wrong, but that does not make them stupid.
Bookmarks were left out of the design plan which is why 5 versions later they have yet to return. Opera never asked their users which features they would like to keep. Instead they collected usage data from 100,000+ randomly-selected people ( exact number unknown) and claimed that 90% of their 300 million+ users don't use bookmarks.
This isn't a resource issue, it's a problem with Opera not getting their priorities straight.
According to the latest blog post (and comments by Odin Hørthe Omdal), you shouldn’t expect native bookmark functionality in the near feature as Opera’s first priority is the quick access bar. Instead, they suggest relying on the third party extensions, which doesn’t sound like a good idea.
Source: http://www.favbrowser.com/opera-real-bookmarks-is-not-our-priority/
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blackbird71 last edited by
Originally posted by Tradeofjane:
...
And yet...In an interview with Digi.no, Opera's CEO Lars Boilesen notes that as a result of the WebKit transition, the company now has twice the resources working on the desktop as it previously did. Freed from having to expend effort on its engine, the company can focus on the interface and other software features.
And you perhaps don't think the resources to completely code a user-interface engine for a rendering engine you've never developed or seriously handled aren't significantly greater initially than those needed to maintain and occasionally add to an engine set you've been exclusively developing for many years? Whether they have (or are willing to) express it, there's got to be a gigantic learning curve for Opera just to get up to speed to crank out even a basic UI engine in such a situation. It's that belief that has kept me hoping that an Opera version will eventually come along that I can use much like I did Old Opera: eventually their learning curve will flatten out, and all those resources will become more truly productive.
Originally posted by Tradeofjan:
Bookmarks were left out of the design plan which is why 5 versions later they have yet to return. Opera never asked their users which features they would like to keep. Instead they collected usage data from 100,000+ randomly-selected people ( exact number unknown) and claimed that 90% of their 300 million+ users don't use bookmarks. This isn't a resource issue, it's a problem with Opera not getting their priorities straight.
Opera believes they did ask users, via their random survey. I believe there were major flaws in their survey assumptions; you may believe even worse about it. But none of that matters. Opera says they believed it, and they based their design priorities upon it. Priorities which drove program management, work assignments, staffing levels in various sub-projects, and schedules. All of which affected countless lower-level detail tasks and assignments. And when the bookmarks backlash hit, how was Opera to then gauge the depth and validity of that backlash with respect to their product planning which had been geared to fashioning a browser to compete for a larger, less-technically-inclined marketplace? Once Opera determined they needed to provide some kind of bookmarking, do you think all the bookmarkless planning and development underway to that point could just have all those other priorities and efforts suddenly re-directed without causing even more chaos? If Opera believes the answer to the bookmarking situation also involves a coherent form of integrated control of SpeedDial and Stash functionality, that certainly complicates the design solution.
Originally posted by Tradeofjan:
According to the latest blog post (and comments by Odin Hørthe Omdal), you shouldn’t expect native bookmark functionality in the near feature as Opera’s first priority is the quick access bar. Instead, they suggest relying on the third party extensions, which doesn’t sound like a good idea.
Source: http://www.favbrowser.com/opera-real-bookmarks-is-not-our-priority/
I strongly suspect Opera still believes the number of folks demanding bookmarks is much smaller than you or I believe... which means the priorities of developing features or browser aspects Opera does believe most of its potential users demand will remain higher than bookmarking.
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leocg Moderator Volunteer last edited by
Originally posted by blackbird71:
I strongly suspect Opera still believes the number of folks demanding bookmarks is much smaller than you or I believe... which means the priorities of developing features or browser aspects Opera does believe most of its potential users demand will remain higher than bookmarking.
I said it sometime ago and i still believe that bookmarks - at least in the way we know then today - will be past in a few years. Opera may be just starting it.
Bookmarks were very helpful in the beginning of the web when we had addresses like "www.somehostservice.com/somethingrandom/anotherrandom world/nowsomerandomnumber/pagename/8lettersname.html and search mechanisms were virtually nonexistent.
Now they may be still helpful for some people, specially the ones who have enought patience and methodism to categorize them, sometimes in more than one category. But, for people inpatient and disorganized like me, approaches like the page index on Opera Presto or a way to tag a page are many times better.
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Deleted User last edited by
I have to agree with you, Leo. Furthermore, most young people with whom I'm familiar simply do not use the internet or their computers the way we did back in the 90's and continue to do. My grandson and his 800+ friends visit FB many times a day, use Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter and of course texting... texting... texting. And when he wants to go somewhere, he just starts typing it into the address bar and the search engine finishes it for him. I believe this is the future whether we like it or not (and no, I don't like it).
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frenzie last edited by
Originally posted by LeoCG:
Now they may be still helpful for some people, specially the ones who have enought patience and methodism to categorize them, sometimes in more than one category. But, for people inpatient and disorganized like me, approaches like the page index on Opera Presto or a way to tag a page are many times better.
Tagging is bookmarks. That aside, bookmarks do not have to be the least bit categorized to be useful. If I type "Opera" in the addressbar, all of the bookmark suggestions are good suggestions, albeit worse than they could be because Opera keeps adding bookmarks to their own sites on upgrades. The search engine autocomplete meanwhile comes up with idiotic junk like "operation christmas child" and "operant airconditioning".
Originally posted by LeoCG:
Bookmarks were very helpful in the beginning of the web when we had addresses like "www.somehostservice.com/somethingrandom/anotherrandom world/nowsomerandomnumber/pagename/8lettersname.html and search mechanisms were virtually nonexistent.
So if you need a particular page in a book you don't use a bookmark, but you use the index to find the same page over and over again? Search mechanisms are a waste of time and effort.
Originally posted by leushino:
I have to agree with you, Leo. Furthermore, most young people with whom I'm familiar simply do not use the internet or their computers the way we did back in the 90's and continue to do. My grandson and his 800+ friends visit FB many times a day, use Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter and of course texting... texting... texting. And when he wants to go somewhere, he just starts typing it into the address bar and the search engine finishes it for him. I believe this is the future whether we like it or not (and no, I don't like it).
All the things you mention are something like the slightly more intellectually involved equivalent of watching TV. They have nothing to do with actually getting things done.
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A Former User last edited by
Originally posted by Frenzie:
So if you need a particular page in a book you don't use a bookmark, but you use the index to find the same page over and over again? Search mechanisms are a waste of time and effort.
In a book, I do use bookmarks instead of the index, but we're not talking about hard copies. How long does a Google Search take — about 3 seconds?
Even with the best bookmarks system, some stuff gets lost. I sometimes have to search the Bookmarks panel to find what I want. If it's not found because I used the wrong terms, an Internet search is often faster. If the webpage has since moved, an Internet search is always faster.
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frenzie last edited by
Originally posted by Pesala:
In a book, I do use bookmarks instead of the index, but we're not talking about hard copies. How long does a Google Search take — about 3 seconds?
If you know exactly what you are looking for and it's for some reason not in your typed history, sure.
Originally posted by Pesala:
Even with the best bookmarks system, some stuff gets lost. I sometimes have to search the Bookmarks panel to find what I want. If it's not found because I used the wrong terms, an Internet search is often faster. If the webpage has since moved, an Internet search is always faster.
On the contrary, if a webpage has moved the saved bookmarks are of the utmost importance to find the specific webpage. A few weeks ago I wanted to post some links to information about Unison. The URL for Philip Guo's site had changed, yet you think I would remember the name Philip Guo over five years after I initially bookmarked those pages? Finding those pages again would've quite probably been completely impossible, and finding different high-quality information would've taken a lot longer. I repeat: search mechanisms are a waste of time and effort. Whether it's for my personal use, like Unison, or something more important, my bookmarks represent the result of a process that most certainly did not take 3 seconds, nor would it take 3 seconds to replicate.
Oh, this link might be useful for my thesis, but I can't do anything with it yet. I'll just search for "John Hutchins" in a few months, shall I? Maybe I should replicate my search through physical books in the library so I can come across his name again while I'm at it?
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frenzie last edited by
Originally posted by Frenzie:
On the contrary, if a webpage has moved the saved bookmarks are of the utmost importance to find the specific webpage.
Or, if available, its copy at archive.org.
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Deleted User last edited by
Originally posted by Frenzie:
I repeat: search mechanisms are a waste of time and effort.
Not at all.
The search mechanism is a revenue stream for the search engine operator and for the browser maker!!!Wonder when the first browser without an address bar will be released?
Opera ASA known for its inovative spirit could be the first one
Who needs an address bar or bookmarks anymore if there is Google? -
Deleted User last edited by
Frenzie, I'm not disagreeing with the usefulness of bookmarks. I was simply stating an observation regarding young people today - for the most part they don't use them. My guess is that the vast majority of internet users "do" use bookmarks, albeit I would be very surprised if they used more than a few dozen on a regular basis. Those users here who tell us they have in excess of a thousand bookmarks are, in my estimation, the exception to the rule. Granted, there's nothing wrong with that but my guess is that Opera is designing for the masses rather than the exception. And given the nature of search engines today and the fact that many websites are not permanent anyway, Opera likely made the decision that both the QAB and the SD were sufficient for "most" needs.
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blackbird71 last edited by
Originally posted by leushino:
... Granted, there's nothing wrong with that but my guess is that Opera is designing for the masses rather than the exception....
I think that's part of the problem which many of us have tried to describe, though the problem's perhaps understandable given the scarcity of resources and the magnitude of the design task and costs. If one aims their design at the masses, they're really aiming at mediocrity (middle-ness)... and the danger in that is that one often hits what they aim for: a mediocre design not good for much beyond that. I believe it far better to aim higher, striving to design a versatile tool with rich and numerous capabilities and configurable for a wide array of usage patterns, but with the as-shipped defaults set such that the masses can use and enjoy it as-is. That way, those with the adequate skill can easily go on to tweak the browser to do all manner of creative tasks by configuring it in countless ways that might never occur to the masses. Kind of like Old Opera was, but without the website compatibility issues of Presto. I still harbor a hope that eventually out of the smoke and ashes, that's what will eventually arise and emerge. But as time passes, I am beginning to wonder if it will be Opera ASA from where it emerges...
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Deleted User last edited by
But at this point we don't know what their final design would entail. The old Opera never caught on with the masses for one reason or another in spite of its feature set and configurable nature. Who can say what discussions went on in the boardroom regarding the future design or the new browser. From a business standpoint, what they had been doing for the past 19 years didn't seem to be financially sound. I loved the old Presto browser but could not convince anyone in my family or m acquaintances to install it. My intuition tells me that Opera decided to take a gamble due to the increasing difficulty of making the older browser compatible with websites in addition to increasing their market share. They knew beforehand that many long-time users would be furious and abandon Opera (and perhaps they misjudged just how great the dissatisfaction would be) but they undoubtedly believed they would attract new users because of the popularity of Chrome-like browsers. And whether we hate such or not, they're extremely popular.
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frenzie last edited by
I think that just goes to show what power Google wields. It seems to have stopped now, but for a while there whenever I visited a Google website in Opera, Firefox, IE, or another non-Chrome browser, it displayed a notice about "upgrading" to Chrome. There's yet another flip-side to that popularity coin: there's already plenty of Chromium browsers a dime a dozen. I'm still hoping that Opera will be the Chromium browser I'll actually want to use, but it's not looking that way yet. Oh well, we'll see how it looks in half a year from now.
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Deleted User last edited by
That's pretty much my own feeling. There's just something about Google that has a "creep" factor. Maybe it's their cavalier attitude about our privacy... I don't know. But I'm reluctant to adopt Google's Chrome as my default browser. Who can say what Opera's offering will be.
