Opera 15 released | Hacker News Reader

Opera 15 released

my.opera.com

68 pointslordlarm48 comments

I'm downloading it right now. But based on first impression, and reason why I started using Opera in first place, it may alienate users.

I started using it because I was on a slow connection and back then, Opera was a 10 MB internet package. It had email, download manager, chat and everything.

I am not sure about these features but size is 29.7 MB! Curious, did it increase just because of brink?

It alienated me. I like Opera 12 very much. But the things I like are missing in 15. Tab-screenshots for example.

And the overall look and feel is just Chrome. So I think people will skip Opera 15 and download Chrome instead. Or they will stick to Opera 12 like I will.

Strange. The new mobile versions doesn't get a lot of positive reviews and now this one. I hope Opera didn't loose track.

regarding "tab-screenshots": Opera calls them visual Tabs. The linked article says "Right now, we are focusing on synchronization (aka Opera Link), enhanced tab management (visual tabs and so on) and support for themes – and these are just a few of the features you can expect to find soon in our next releases!"

these two things (better tab management and synchronization) are what restrain me from updating.

Also the kind of bookmarks "stash" is not searchable in search bar, which is not really handy

They can always get acquired by a big company, if this fails, I guess.

I've been an Opera user for a long time, mostly because opening new tabs always felt very fast, much faster than Chrome or Firefox, and because keyboard/mouse shortcuts were so configurable.

They've made tabs slower to open and have gotten rid of configurable keyboard/mouse shortcuts -- it's now just Chrome with a different skin.

Download manager is still included. Other features will follow, although email has been split into a separate product, Opera Mail (http://www.opera.com/computer/mail).

The size increase is due to a complete rewrite based on chromium.

I didn't expect them to release a stable build this fast. The current build is still lacking a lot of features which might alienate some users forever.

And while they didn't add native bookmark support (they really seem to want to push this) they have released an official bookmark extension which is also a work in progress. You can get it here: https://addons.opera.com/en/extensions/details/bookmarks-man...

> The current build is still lacking a lot of features which might alienate some users forever.

This is one of the things I severely dislike about HN - comments for the sake of commenting, or as someone else might put it - the "no sh*t Sherlock comments". Your point here is discussed in the original story, so there is no reason for you to state the obvious, wasting people's time when they read your comment. Don't worry, you're far from being the only one doing this around here.

"We have neither asked nor forced our 12.x users to upgrade to Opera 15, as we know that some features that are important to you are still to come. So, while you are very welcome to test and use Opera 15, Opera 12.x will still be alive for some time. You can expect that we will keep Opera 12.x up to date and secure. In the future, once we are comfortable with the feature set, we may ask you to upgrade."

The thing is, while they may bugfix 12, it is now a dead platform. There are a ton of features in 12 that it is looking likely will never come back but they won't say what is coming back.

Looking at every Opera threat it is clear they have alienated many users already and the way they are responding to those users it's clear they want them gone.

> which might alienate some users forever.

Said users will simply stick to 12.15, given that no other browser (apart from possibly the full-blown Mozilla Suite, which I didn’t test any further) provides a similar experience – including the JS breakage every now and then :)

More in-depth release message on their developer blog: http://my.opera.com/ODIN/blog/2013/07/02/introducing-opera-1...

I am unable to download version 15 for linux, probably it doesn't exist.

Linux version will follow, maybe not for opera 15 though but for the next release.

edit: Taken from official statements on the opera desktop blog, http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/

I wonder if they will still support freebsd with blink based opera.

All I have heard is "Linux will follow", no mention of FreeBSD so far.

Users who may be alienated from this new version will probably not ever hear of it. It's kind of a beta, you can play with it but it's not ready, I mean what did you expect so fast?

I think it shows the Opera team is motivated and tackles the engine switch fiercely.

They should definitely move this from their homepage. Right now it's the default download = BAD IDEA. Considering the font antialiasing problems and all the missing features, the should probably make it the default download around 16 or maybe even 17.

They're rushing it and it might hurt them badly. Reputation loss is hard to recover from :)

I was excited of the switch to WebKit, but I expected a straight under the covers replacement of just the rendering engine. As in if you didnt follow the news, you wouldnt be any wiser. The UI changes are unwelcome.

This is the initial, rough port to Blink. I'm quite sure that as development advances it will look a lot less like Chrome and a lot more like Opera.

The UI of Opera 12.5 on Linux is way faster than the UI of Chrome, Firefox. Tab opening for example is significantly faster. Back, Forward buttons also provide faster results. See it for yourself.

This has so many missing features that I would expect from an Opera browser. Lots of seemingly little things that add up (where's the mouse chording!)

Where is this bleeding edge Opera Developer version that they mention in the post available for download, so I can at least see if the little things that have kept me on Opera for 9 years are in the pipeline?

Bring back embedding folders in folders in the bookmarks (Speed Dial) and it's a winner. I was an Opera user for years but moved to Chrome when the odd site would break now and then.

I'd love to go back to Opera, I'm actually quite a fan of the new v15 but the lack of folders in folders in bookmarks is a dealbreaker for me.

Wow, this is fast! Then again so was Chrome when I didn't bog it down with all my preferences, extensions, etc. Off-Road looks like a rebranding of their Turbo feature, which was my main reason for using Opera in the first place.

Still no Love for Linux :(

"Although most users don't use bookmarks"

Wow. I'm sure they have the data to back that up. I guess most people now get the news from their Facebook stream perhaps.

I think they say that in the way of a left bookmark pannel.

The new stash feature is IMHO a better way to do bookmarks as you get a quick glance at the page and you can even search for words inside the pages.

However, I do not currently use this release because it lacks a lot of important features:

->ability to stack tabs in expandables groups

->no opera link (bookmark sync), even if they do it with stash

->stash is not searchable via the address bar (huge step backward in my opinion)

->I use opera turbo daily (now called off road mode) and I miss the F12 menu to switch it on (you can also disable JS, accept popups, etc in the same menu)

In an unrelated note they could improve custom search engines to display a logo of the site (like they did for google, wikipedia yahoo bing and amazon) I have a lot of "custom search engines" and they just appear the same way as a magnifying glass

for the plus side: think it's a good thing that they got rid of the search bar as you can search in the address bar anyway

EDIT: typo

Stash feature is only great if you have a small amount of bookmarks. If you say, have like 1000+ accumulated since first using Opera in 2003, then stash is not so desirable.

I hope IE realises like Opera and move to either Gecko or WebKit...All web devs will be happy :D

I was an Opera user for more than a decade. Opera 15 is unusable.

When are they planning to release Opera 15 for Humans?

Does it have Tab-Overflow?

is it webkit based??..

Yes, from the About Opera menu item:

Browser identification

... AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/28.0.1500.52 Safari/537.36 OPR/15.0.1147.130

I really like the "OPR" thing to subtly avoid UA sniffing :)

It is based on chromium including blink, which is a webkit fork, so yes, it is.

I don't get the point of Opera anymore.

Well, it's the only mainstream alternative Chromium-based browser for Windows and Mac at this point? Also, only half jokingly, it also comes non-NSA-approved (because it's Norwegian).

Considering this is the first version of a product seemingly built from scratch it features a LOT more than any other browser had on their first public releases. I expect a lot of innovation here in the coming months based on Opera's track record. It has the makings of being a great browser.

Me neither. And I don't even know whether the extension API for Chrome/Opera 15 allows me to recreate some of Opera's features like the bookmark manager, tab stacks, and many other.

Personally (and have seriously considered it), I'd fork Chromium to gain back the features versus using the crippled extension system. Some might think that's being inflammatory, but anyone that has used Opera's native features versus extensions that try to replicate the experience in other browsers, it's never the same either due to limitations or performance.

15 releases and still almost nobody uses it. Couple of years ago Opera was a solid browser and a great hope. Today it's on the verge of being forgotten.

Why nobody? Opera is quite popular in some communities/regions.

Right now Opera has 1.6% of market share. Safari - 4.1%. Back in 2011 - Opera had 2.5% and Safari 4.0%. You can actually see that Opera is in bad shape. And probably you're right - Opera might be popular in some communities. Globally though - it doesn't matter and its market share is actually shrinking.

Once again I find myself deeply unimpressed with those who would seek to portray achievement of a >1% share of a multi-billion-user market as some sort of failure. We'll also leave aside the fact that those statistics you're citing are likely biased against Opera, given the markets it's most common in.

(And I don't even like Opera...)

I bet if Opera will be default browser in OS X it will be more popular than Safari.

This is a great point to bring up. Safari and IE get a sort of default market share given that they ship with a mainstream OS.

I think you choose your browser in Windows before you use it (at least in Europe). // I'm not sure I agree with this law, but it for sure affects browser share.

After 15 it's going to shrink a whole lot more.

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