I used opera when I carried it around on a 1.4mB floppy. I used it when it was in beta, and all the way up to today. Reddit Enhancement Suite won't support it any longer (Opera 12 that is), and switching to 15 or 20 with the webkit/blink, I just realized how horrible it was compared to my secondary browser Chrome. Youtube support through flash plugins has been horrible for the past couple years, and I figured it was time for a break. I can't tell you guys how saddening this is for me, but I guess not really. I'll just use Chrome 100% now. The new top-tab non-customizeable layouts rob the browser of all its soul, and the bookmark manager is horrible unlike the old side-tab one. I used to have no less than about 25-100 open tabs, and this just isn't possible in the new version. If I'm stuck with blink, I might as well just go full bore Chrome/Chromium. Thanks for the 10 years guys, I hope you rethink your strategy and perhaps I'll come back if you add in a lot of the old functionality that was stupidly removed. Peace!
Ah-MEN! I realize the possible enhancements that can be made by switching engines (WebKit), rather than maintaining your own (Presto), but in doing so we're basically all Next-Gen Opera beta testers all over again.
I tried going back to Opera 19/20 recently after raging from Opera 15 back during its release and very little seems to be improved and so, so much is missing. Too much that it isn't even a functional browser other than having a URL bar. The options are few, the settings and other menu items just look messy, and the Speed Dial/Discover/Stash thing-a-muh-jig is still annoying as ever (for those that find it useless). Removing the side bar with favorites and substituting for a top/folder/tab like design? What the hell? One of the things that brought me to Opera 6-7 years ago was everyone was doing away with Favorites or doing some obscure method (including IE) where Opera was the last one left still offering it. If you didn't like things about it you could modify it or switch the location to please your eyes. And you can easily hide it.
Of all things that is what makes it most useless to me. Post-It note style folders where I have to go back to scrolling again is not the future it's 20 years ago.
In a nutshell unrequited said everything better and more eloquently than I could word for word.