That's OK. Not using Opera was my decision.
Their investors were lucky to get an exit.
The well-upholstered lady sung the swan song, I'm afraid... I hope those guys refocus on something that does change the world for the better rather duplicate what others are already did.
The reality is that they pre-date Chrome and Firefox, but never gained much traction.
Some of it maybe popularity/marketing of not having a huge org behind them, but odd rough-edges did more to sabotage stickiness. Plus, competing with deep pockets giving away something for free is an unnecessary competitive war of attrition, especially by not differentiating: most secure browser or best browser for X/Y/Z.
Unfortunately, technical prowess is not enough to gain traction. Being closed-source and costing money (until version 8) was a much bigger factor for their failure.
Still, back then there was simply nothing that was as fast or usable as Opera. Rest in Peace.
Because Jon von Tetzschner was and is passionate about building a good browser, and didn't really care that the odds were (are?) against him.
But when Opera is brought up, the focus is always on the Desktop browser. However, the money was always in devices - Opera has traditionally been really big on a plethora of devices.
Also, Opera both on desktop and mobile, has long been big in markets other than the US, especially eastern Europe.
At the time, Javascript speed wasn't important for non-showcase webpages. Good for benchmarks, and that was about it.
But times have changed.