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Comment by w1ntermute | Hacker News Reader

"We provide the browser for free, like Opera desktop and Mini, and then we generate revenue through our content partners."

Opera's been free for quite a while; does anyone know why it still hasn't gained popularity? I imagine a lot of Firefox users don't use extensions whose functionality isn't available on Opera, so they wouldn't really be losing anything. Is it something wrong with Opera's business model?

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IE comes bundled with 90% of computers. Safari comes bundled on a good portion of the other 10%. Firefox has massive support from the open source movement and the tech community in general. Chrome has free advertising on the front page of Google.com.

Opera has... a small group of loyal fans?

Not to mention memories of a price. I wonder if rebranding when they went free would have helped them.

I use Opera for my main browser, but I run firefox for app dev/debugging issues. FireBug is the best thing about firefox.

I believe Opera has the best dev team out there. Their pages render correctly more often than any other browser. If ever I wonder if something is working correctly, I check it in Opera. If IE looks like Opera, then IE is right. If Firefox looks like Opera, then Firefox is right. That's how it goes.

As I use Opera, I continue to find awesome features I really love, Their dev team is so creative. They are visionaries.

It's an amazing product. Unfortunately, a lot of websites will say, "You aren't using the right browser!" but it almost always renders correctly and sometimes they block me all together, so I just right click open in > whatever that site wants.

So awesome! I love Opera.

It's been a few years since I last used Opera (using Safari now since I switched to Macs). Rather than the browser, what I was most impressed about them was the M2 email client. Maybe others have caught up now, but back then, it was incredible. Good search, virtual folders (think Gmail labels), etc.

>I believe Opera has the best dev team out there. Their pages render correctly more often than any other browser. If ever I wonder if something is working correctly, I check it in Opera. If IE looks like Opera, then IE is right. If Firefox looks like Opera, then Firefox is right. That's how it goes.

I wish that were true, but my experience has often been otherwise. There are some sites that I just know won't work in Opera, either in stable or 10 alpha (which passes Acid3) or both. I'm still a die-hard Opera fan, though. It feels so much cleaner and faster than Firefox.

This reminds me of the recent Postgres vs. MySQL discussion in that the Postgres users/developers were so convinced of their superiority they didn't bother with all the little things like easy installs on windows and so lost to an inferior (in certain ways) foe.

I like Opera as a company but their desktop UI has always had a clunky, KDE-like feel to it. It's configurable enough that you can change it quite radically but they start with lots of stuff turned on.

Indeed, I've tried opera a few times. Usually no performance or core web-browsing improvements I can see over the stock one I use (firefox/chrome/safari, depending on platform). But there's plenty of ugly and clunky that goes with it, that quickly loses my interest.

I disagree with your point about the performance issues.

I've had increasing issues with Flash video stuttering (audio stays fine, but video freezes momentarily until it "catches up") on Firefox.

I recently switched to Opera and these issues have completely disappeared.

That's my experience too, except that I continue to use it. I like the fact I can configure the toolbars and the toolbar layout 100%.

I find it practical, personally. I've always used WinXP with the Win98 'classic' theme, and Opera with the Opera6 theme. Not particularly beautiful but very responsive and easy to navigate.

The default skin is kind of ugly. I used Christian Kreb's m 7 for a while, which is very clean, and lately I've been using c00.

m 7: http://my.cn.opera.com/community/customize/skins/info/?id=45... (doesn't seem to be on the US site anymore, no idea why)

c00: http://my.opera.com/community/customize/skins/info/?id=8692

I don't think there's anything wrong with Opera's business model.

Don't Firefox also get money through content partners (eg: Google Search?).

I'm aware that you have had to pay for Opera before - Wii points on the Wii, and also for the DS/DS Lite version of the browser.

Opera have always been at the cutting edge of web-standards. They're always good with the ACID tests.

There mobile versions are excellent and render stuff quickly and efficiently on all the mobile phones I've used and played with.

The fact that Opera does so well on Acid tests may actually be to its detriment.

I'm primarily an Opera user, and I can say with a great deal of confidence, that most websites are not built to render properly according to standards. If I were not a web developer, I wouldn't understand why every site I visit renders wrong and would switch to a browser that shows them "properly".

I appreciate it as a web developer, and because I like standards, but even then, the developer toolbar for firefox means that I do most of my work there and most of my personal browsing in Opera.

As an Opera user, I don't recognize this at all. Most sites work fine with Opera.

Only problem I have is Flash. But that actually works a lot better in Opera than in Firefox. At least when it crashes in Opera, only Flash dies. If it dies in Firefox, the browser dies.

Opera to me is similar to Chrome. They're both extremely nice at what they do, and just in general, yet I'm just too productive with Firefox to switch. I've grown used to Firefox's new tab behavior, having my bookmarks synced, having all the dev tools, etc. While I might be able to (at least eventually) recreate all the functionality in Opera or Chrome, it's just not worth the time or effort. Plus, one complaint I have with Opera is all the crap it has built in, torrent client and all that stuff I don't need or want in a browser.

Its hard to beat the marketing juggernaut that Firefox has become.

OTOH Opera Mini is simply a wonderful app, and its an app I see installed by users themselves on smart phones everywhere. (Too bad Apple rejected Opera Mini.)

IE has the backing of Microsoft. Firefox, until Chrome came out, had the backing of Google. Safari has the backing of Apple.

Marketing and marketing budgets has a lot to do with it. Opera supports most of the extensions that are popular on Firefox http://my.opera.com/Rijk/blog/2006/07/04/top-150-popular-fir...

I think Firefox also has the advantage of being Netscape Navigator's spiritual heir. Lot of people who used NN (when it was good), got used to it and were keen to keep on using it over alternatives.

Firefox's mantra of being lightweight also helped them as you could just install the plugins you wanted, not a load of stuff people thought you wanted or should have that could have got rolled in as standard.

"I think Firefox also has the advantage of being Netscape Navigator's spiritual heir. Lot of people who used NN (when it was good), got used to it and were keen to keep on using it over alternatives."

There were years between the last good Netscape Navigator and the first usable Mozilla, let alone Firefox 1. I really doubt there was that much loyalty during that long dark spell, especially since during much of that period, Internet Explorer was pretty good.

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