Questions about Opera 20.
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neoworm last edited by
Maybe if Opera team is so much against core features of Opera 12 being part of Opera 15+, they could develop their own extensions to ensure maximum compatibility and than pack it in a tidy "Opera 20 Pro" package. Because researching for extensions is worse than browsing on IE6.
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lem729 last edited by
@Neoworrm
Now you don't want to do any work at all. ;)) If Opera provided a product to meet everyone's needs with all of the extras, it would become slower and clunky. Many users would be stuck with features that don't want. With the extension model, people download the extras they want. The extras you take in the extension store will not affect the performance of my Opera unlee I take them too.
Anyway, you have a legitimate point of view. And I respect it. We just disagree on this one. I happen to like Opera's going the extension route, instead of bundling the extra features in the browser.
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A Former User last edited by
If Opera provided a product to meet everyone's needs with all of the extras, it would become slower and clunky.
We had this discussion at some length in the previous forum in the Opera Lite thread. Removing features that people do not use will not make the browser any faster. Removing features that people do use or moving them to a different part of the interface makes it much slower to use because users have to relearn new skills, or adopt completely new work-flows because the old ones cannot be done in the new version.
Users with visual impairments are excluded entirely, because there is no way to change the interface fonts, or the toolbar icons.
Opera could, if they wished, provide a browser to meet nearly everyone's needs without it become slow and clunky. They did it before, but it took ten years.The second time around it should not take more than one, or two years, at the most, but at the current rate it will never happen.
Just how hard can it be to provide skin choices, custom buttons, and editable menus and shortcuts?
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Deleted User last edited by
Anyway, you have a legitimate point of view. And I respect it. We just disagree on this one. I happen to like Opera's going the extension route, instead of bundling the extra features in the browser.
I really appreciate (and I know many others posters here do as well) your hard work in assisting questioners and dealing respectfully with those who really don't want help. I also want you to know I agree (and most users today agree) with the idea that extensions is the way to go for modern browsers. Whether it makes a browser faster or not is irrelevant. The point is the two most popular browsers worldwide (Chrome and Firefox) make extensive use of add-ons and THAT is the direction of the new Opera whether old timers like it or not. The truth is, Opera is trying (and succeeding) in attracting a new group of users much larger than the former. Hopefully many long-time users will remain but there are bound to be casualties.
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lem729 last edited by
You say you can add features and not slow performance, and/or make the performance a bit clunky. My understanding is that it does just that, but i leave that to the software deveolpers/experts, though I have an opinion. I think of it a bit like medicine. They have side effects. You can't have something for nothing. It's like a bargain with the devil, the more you take. Or maybe it's like building a house of cards. You can build and build and build, and it all seems stable, but in the end, people keep WANTING MORE -- some people want multiple rows of tabs, some want tabs running down the side of the computer, some want them on the bottom. Lol, some may even want them upside down (it's the nature of people to always want more, they will, indeed be dancing angels on the head of a pin in their quest for more) and the cards will Inevitably come crashing down.
I don't need or want all of the features that you do. Nor do I believe the vast majority of users would want those features. So why overload the basic browser with them. If there's need, let it be met via good developer extensions. And of course, I do mean good one. In fact I'd never use many of the features you want. I would prefer a simpler cleaner faster basic browser, and then add, only what I personally need or want via extension. If what you need isn't in the basic browser, ask for the developers to add extensions to meet the need. But I do repect your point of view. Publically, what you want is not the direction Opera is going. Privately, I don't know what they are working on. Maybe there will be a middle place. Compromise. And all will be right in the browser world. By the way, Pesala, thank you for your tremendous knowledge, and long help here in the Opera forum!
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jito463 last edited by
@pesala
You say you can add features and not slow performance, and/or make the performance a bit clunky. My understanding is that it does just that, but i leave that to the software deveolpers/experts, though I have an opinion. I think of it a bit like medicine. They have side effects. You can't have something for nothing. It's like a bargain with the devil, the more you take. Or maybe it's like building a house of cards. You can build and build and build, and it all seems stable, but in the end, people keep WANTING MORE -- some people want multiple rows of tabs, some want tabs running down the side of the computer, some want them on the bottom. Lol, some may even want them upside down (it's the nature of people to always want more, they will, indeed be dancing angels on the head of a pin in their quest for more) and the cards will Inevitably come crashing down.I don't need or want all of the features that you do. Nor do I believe the vast majority of users would want those features. So why overload the basic browser with them. If there's need, let it be met via good developer extensions. And of course, I do mean good one. In fact I'd never use many of the features you want. I would prefer a simpler cleaner faster basic browser, and then add, only what I personally need or want via extension. If what you need isn't in the basic browser, ask for the developers to add extensions to meet the need. But I do repect your point of view. Publically, what you want is not the direction Opera is going. Privately, I don't know what they are working on. Maybe there will be a middle place. Compromise. And all will be right in the browser world. By the way, Pesala, thank you for your tremendous knowledge, and long help here in the Opera forum!
The major issue I have with requiring extensions, is that they're usually third-party provided. So, if the browser updates and breaks the extension, and the extension developer is no longer working on it, then you're stuck without the functionality you've come to rely on. I'd much rather get it from one source. Maybe I've been spoiled by PrOpera, but I like having everything I need already built in, and whatever I don't need I simply don't use (mail, RSS, voice, unite, etc).
On the topic of customization, even if Opera ASA no longer intends to develop the same features from PrOpera into ChrOpera, that doesn't preclude them providing a fully customizable experience. Being able to customize the placement of toolbars, the keyboard/mouse layout, etc. These things are not going to "slow the browser", and will at least begin bridging the gap they created when they scrapped everything last year. It won't fully bridge it, but it would at least be a start.
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A Former User last edited by
I also use the old style menus option to witch has be left out of 20. Why was it left out?
This is a trend on PC's that I don't like (fortunately for me on OS X no such problem) but an option to switch on Opera would be good for the PC user.
Opera say they are going to be working on the front end. They have been concentrating on the back end so far. Obviously I have no timescale or idea what they have planned but we are going to have to sit tight and see what they have up their sleeves. All I could pretty much guarantee is the evolution of new Opera wont please everybody as it is very clear lots of Opera users have very specific requirements. Also don't forget Opera are forging ahead with many browsers in our ever expanding mobile world. Coast is very unique (yes it's a bit buggy and iPad only but it's early days in its evolution!) and innovative for example.
I do agre with lem729 an prefer a simpler browser. This new browser has fixed many of the issues with the back end that blighted Opera 12 for me so I find it much more useable and Speed Dial on Opera hasn't been bettered (natively) on any other browser!
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blackbird71 last edited byI've largely migrated to Firefox from Old Opera, not because FF offers "cool" extensions, but in spite of those. I've migrated because of the aging and increasing site-incompatibilities of Old Opera, and the inability to adequately recover needed (for me) browser features and configurability using Blink Opera even with its available extensions. I use FF extensions grudgingly, simply in order to achieve in Firefox at least some of the configurability and features that I used to have in Old Opera. But the combination of browser plus extensions, while recovering some basic functionality/configurability, remains universally inferior in quality to having those functions native within the browser as they were in Old Opera. Moreover, updates to the FF browser have already broken two of my original extensions, though I've found replacements or work-arounds which have unfortunately resulted in even more inferior behavior. Judging from the Opera release comments, version updates breaking extensions is also becoming a growing issue with Opera releases as well.
Bluntly put, reliance on independent extensions for features is a flawed business plan. When a company designs the features into its own browser, it "holds the keys" to those features in terms of assuring they work satisfactorily, are secure, and will remain so as the browser evolves. When a company relegates browser features to outside extensions, they "farm out" the responsibility for major chunks of performance and security to others, with no ongoing user assurance that the features will be there or safe after the next browser update. Browsing is an integrated "experience" for most users, and when something breaks or performs poorly or is hacked, the main blame will go directly upon the browser maker - at least to start with. Even if the problem eventually traces to an extension design, the impression made is finger-pointing by the browser maker... and that never reflects well on a company's own reputation.
There are two characteristics of Blink Opera that I firmly believe will come back to haunt Opera (or at least its users) in coming months and years: reliance on non-Opera extensions for basic features, and silent updating without an option to disble. Of course, these are Opera's decisions to make, but I do believe they will be the cause of a lot of user troubles ahead.
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Deleted User last edited by
Extensions may be a flawed "business" plan but it's the primary driving force behind popularizing Firefox and Chrome. Opera is simply following suit.
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blackbird71 last edited by
Extensions may be a flawed "business" plan but it's the primary driving force behind popularizing Firefox and Chrome. Opera is simply following suit.
True enough... I just long for the days when a few bold companies led, not followed.
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rainspa last edited by
@blackbird71
I agree with you. I too now have Firefox customised to look and behave as much like old Opera as I could have hoped or would have expected. I can't claim to have migrated, old Opera is still my preferred browser with a button for open in Firefox for problem sites. If extensions in Opera Blink could mimic old Opera perhaps all would have been well and good but that isn't the case.As to the original post I think its apparent that Opera Blink isn't intended as a replacement for old Opera, if it was Opera would have made that clear by now and if the old functions are to make a come back they won't work in the same way as they did.
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lem729 last edited by
A good business doesn't go against the market. It tries to divine the market. Sometimes it has to look more than a few years down the road. I think Opera has done that, as have Firefox and Chrome. At this point the market, and the model that the vast preponderance of people want, is clear.The effort now is to build a fast, attractive, bare bones browser with an emphasis on safety -- to keep it sufficiently insulated from the extensions so that if an extension is bad, it can be uninstalled without adversely affecting the architecture of the basic browser. All of the major browser developers have adopted the extension model as the way for a user to add extras that they need, rather than the software developer's lavishing the extras on the browser, even if many or most of their users have no need or desire for them. Now @jitto463 wants Opera to do more, because as he says: " being able to customize the placement of toolbars, the keyboard/mouse layout, etc. These things are not going to "slow the browser." I think he is "letting wish be father to the thought." If the litany of extras -- customizable toolbars, session managers, ways to deal with 50 or 100 tabs a la Tab Mixed Plus in Firefox -- that people bandy about in this forum were put in the Opera browser, it's hard to imagine that it could be done in a way that was cost-effective for Opera, and that didn't impact overall performance. I do think, though, that Opera ought to let its users decide whether they want to install updates. It seems to me that that should be no big deal, and a matter of common sense and basic fairness to the user.
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lem729 last edited by
No. It's a verb, though maybe not used that often, meaning: To guess , discover, or understand . . .
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/american-english/divine_3
though that verb has an echo of (the same word as adjective) which means godly or the god-like. I guess I was thinking that these big techno-players are above us, a force of sometimes huge creativity, etc. And also maybe one could say, only God knows the future. We, on the other hand, take what information we can and try to "divine" the future. If we can do that, in that limited sense, we're perhaps god-like. That may be where the verb divine comes from.
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blackbird71 last edited by
A good business doesn't go against the market. It tries to divine the market. Sometimes it has to look more than a few years down the road. I think Opera has done that, as have Firefox and Chrome. At this point the market, and the model that the vast preponderance of people want, is clear.The effort now is to build a fast, attractive, bare bones browser with an emphasis on safety -- to keep it sufficiently insulated from the extensions so that if an extension is bad, it can be uninstalled without adversely affecting the architecture of the basic browser. All of the major browser developers have adopted the extension model as the way for a user to add extras that they need, rather than the software developer's lavishing the extras on the browser, even if many or most of their users have no need or desire for them. ...
A better business shapes the market... and you don't shape the market by copying the market's leaders or their strategies. You shape the market by creating demonstrably better mousetraps and showing the marketplace they're actually far superior. The problem is that most businesses see the market as it is, and carefully extrapolate evident trends or competitors' strategies well down the road ("divining", as you term it). But the companies that actually shape the market see beyond where the market is and where it appears to be headed, leaping outside the box to create something truly new that itself causes the market to be drawn in that same direction. Case in point: there was nothing quite like Google when they started out... they created both an effective search-entity and the data-marketing business model that have since re-shaped the entire marketplace.
Perhaps Opera has such a level of innovation in mind... but thus far I haven't seen it. I initially had hopes that Stash might actually be the start of some new, revolutionary concept - but it now seems still-born. Usually market-shaping innovation comes from those not wedded to "market models" per se, but to a compelling vision of where the market might go if only it had a tool with thus-and-so capabilities... along with the capabilities to make it actually happen.
Mosaic created a browser that truly opened up the Internet. IE integrated the browser into the OS. Netscape made it user-friendly. Opera made it into a flexible, one-size-does-it-all tool filled with technical innovations. Chrome made it simple to use for non-technical users and guaranteed site compatibility by using all manner of paid tie-ins and favored placements. The next generation of successful browsers will be as distinct from its predecessors as these were from each other... and the company with a strong vision of that next generation will shape that market, not follow it.
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lem729 last edited by
Opera, the incredible innovator in so many things -- tabs, the magic wand, the trash box for unclosed tabs, the speed dial, the speed dial with folders, Discover, Stash, Off-Road Mode, and it goes on and on -- has no reason to feel bad, if someone else other than Opera came to the extension idea first. Is anyone right on everything all of the time? And by the bye,
might I suggest that sometimes market leaders have generally correct strategies! (Lol, what kind of a world would it be if the strategies were always defective). In looking two, three, four years down the road, it appears to be Opera's belief that the browsing public WILL STILL PREFER a fast, attractive, fun browser, one that is not cluttered and slowed by a range of features they have no desire or use for.As for extra features, the extension route is time-tested and has a strong popular appeal. Because Opera came to the extension idea late, in no way means it can't execute it better. The play is in how well the bare bones, fast, attractive browser can be set in an architecture insulated enough from the extensions, that if the latter fail -- or if a consumer decides he or she doesn't want a particular extension -- all is well with the browser through an uninstall of the extension or extensions. And the success in this strategy is also in how productive third party developers will be in providing a sound product to meet demand, not just now, but further down the road as needs become clearer.
In the end, we will lose people to other browsers (regrettably, you to Firefox, Mr Blackbird71), but we have new people coming here all the time too, who are fed up with those other browsers. Opera does need to do something better than in Opera 20 for importing bookmarks from other browsers, or these wannabe Opera users may not be willing to give us a close look (and I'm not sure there's time to wait for an extension to adequately do it). For the moment, that's rather pathetic, a weakness, that Opera needs to fix. Surely (smile) the Opera browser development team must know it. Finally, instead of fighting a rear-guard action to preserve the past when the metaphoric Opera horse is out of the barn, and like a thoroughbred, off and racing, the focus of our community ought to be much more with advocating for extensions that are safe, and which meets needs that the bare bones browser doesn't. I look at the Opera Add-On forum, and there is not much substantive discussion of the extensions/add-ons that are already out there (and there are some good ones) -- they're strengths and shortcomings, if any. If we help to encourage the development of more and better extensions, through articulating here in the forum why something works, and why it doesn't, we will ultimately -- one at least hopes -- benefit ourselves as Opera users.
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Deleted User last edited by
A question about Opera 20: how can I put only icons of the sites in speed dial?
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Deleted User last edited by
@sidneyneto: I don't believe it's possible at this stage.
@rainspa: Quote: " I think its apparent that Opera Blink isn't intended as a replacement for old Opera.."
I completely agree. Opera is not going to recreate the Presto browser suite so if there are users still clinging to that notion, I think you've been mislead. In my opinion, lem said it best when he posted: "A good business doesn't go against the market. It tries to divine the market. Sometimes it has to look more than a few years down the road. I think Opera has done that, as have Firefox and Chrome. At this point the market, and the model that the vast preponderance of people want, is clear."
There are reasons why Opera has remained under 2% for years and why Chrome and Firefox shot up to 20% almost instantly. This is where the market is and Opera realizes this. We can bemoan the loss of the unique suite but "we" are few in number and fast becoming an online oddity. Opera is looking towards the future and as I said earlier, there will inevitably be casualties and no doubt some of them are posting here in this thread and elsewhere on the Opera forums.
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Deleted User last edited by
Thanks. At least, some sites has the icon when it is added, example: when you add Facebook or Google.
