Originally posted by moltencheese:
it doesn't look like it has helped marketshare on desktop: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
WTF
Did you even check the tables in the link you posted??
1.9 % -> 1.8 % -> 1.8 % -> 1.7 % -> 1.6 % -> 1.7 % -> Opera 15 final release 1.6 % -> 1.8 % -> 1.7 % -> 1.8 % -> 1.9 %
This is what you call "drastically dropping"?
If anything the change brought more new or returning users (according to the stats yourself posted).
Now click Opera to see the detailed breakdown of the current 1.9 %. You can check the versions:
0.5 % is on 17+18 and 0.5 % is on 12 and this is without distribution of the new browser via auto-update, half of the user base is already in the new Chromium-based versions. (0.7 % Mini and 0.2 % on mysterious "Other")
That's not to say those stats aren't skewed BTW. Just look at Haavard's blog posts about market share stats, a quick search there and you'll learn how those stats never reliably represent the real number of users.
Just look at different sources and they'll even invert the painted scenario completely (a recent article in ZDNet about browsers market share stats discrepancies).
If you want to know the real number of users, look for the Opera Software quarterly reports as they're clearly stated. If I recall correctly, the latest one shows a drop of 1 million desktop users since the previous one, but remember you must compare this data to much higher drops from 3 to 5 million in quarters (or year-on-year, I don't remember) when only Opera 12.x was available.
Of course that still won't show whether gains are new users, or old users returning, or old users going away, or new users going away, or Opera 12 users dropping at a faster rate than Opera 15+ users because they don't know about the new browser update and are suffering with the old version because of X reason not bothering to check the forums for a solution and uninstalling, <insert more hypothetical and impossible to be proven reasons here>.
