Why did Opera become Chrome?

[Suburban Errorist]

If you wonder whether it's only Opera that becomes Chrome:

 

 

 

 

Yep, when I started up Firefox after an update I must've stared at it for a good minute, went "meh," and did whatever I normally did.

[+Heartripper Subscriber¹]

If you wonder whether it's only Opera that becomes Chrome:

I don't care if it's getting like chrome, Australis brought a tons of UX enhancements and the only downside, to me, are curvy tabs which can be easily removed with a userstyle. If Chrome got something right I don't see why others shouldn't copy it, as Chrome took something from others as well.

Edit - quoted the wrong post

[Yogurth]

This may interest some people that thought Opera was the best thing ever happened to internet..including me :)

 

 

Otter Browser
Web browser controlled by the user, not vice-versa

About

Otter Browser, project aiming to recreate classic Opera (12.x) UI using Qt5.

Official forum at The DnD Sanctuary

IRC channels: #otter-browser (main, international) #otter-browser-pl (polski / Polish) at freenode.net

 

 

http://otter-browser.org/

[HawkMan]

Like all such projects, byt the time they get anywhere Opera will be back where it was and then some and they'll still be stuck in 2010...it's the unfortunate truth of such projects. To much work to make something like Opera for a small group of hobby coders to get anywhere. 

[Yogurth]

Like all such projects, byt the time they get anywhere Opera will be back where it was and then some and they'll still be stuck in 2010...it's the unfortunate truth of such projects. To much work to make something like Opera for a small group of hobby coders to get anywhere. 

 

You could be right, but they already made immense progress in four months since the browser's inception, so I will certainly be watching the development with eagerness.

[xpablo]

Well I think opera was not very popular compared to Firefox or IE and then Chome came along and basically pulled any share that Opera had out from under them, other than the diehard Presto Opera users, like me but eventually I found myself with compatibility issues with some websites using Opera, and with web developers not supporting Opera that much, I think they had no choice but to change to Chromium.

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

If you wonder whether it's only Opera that becomes Chrome:

 

Have you actually used the new Firefox theme? I have - I switched my default browser to Firefox 29 beta this weekend. And am pleasantly surprised - the UI works well (inspired by Chrome or not), and the browser itself is as fast as Chrome.

[snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member]

Like all such projects, byt the time they get anywhere Opera will be back where it was and then some and they'll still be stuck in 2010...it's the unfortunate truth of such projects. To much work to make something like Opera for a small group of hobby coders to get anywhere. 

I think that's the real reason they moved to make Opera a blink based browser. They no longer have to divert their development effort into developing a rendering or javascript engine, can leave huge chunks of the development effort behind, and instead focus strictly on the features that differentiate Opera from other browsers. In many ways, it is a smart move when you realize that most users of Opera probably weren't there for the Presto engine anyway.

[MikeChipshop Member]

Opera's not Chrome as much as Safari isn't Chrome. 

 

The same engine !== The same browser

[HawkMan]

Well I think opera was not very popular compared to Firefox or IE and then Chome came along and basically pulled any share that Opera had out from under them, other than the diehard Presto Opera users, like me but eventually I found myself with compatibility issues with some websites using Opera, and with web developers not supporting Opera that much, I think they had no choice but to change to Chromium.

Chrome never took Opera users, opera users have been stead and growing in numbers, even it's marketshare was fairly stable in the ever growing browser market. 

I think that's the real reason they moved to make Opera a blink based browser. They no longer have to divert their development effort into developing a rendering or javascript engine, can leave huge chunks of the development effort behind, and instead focus strictly on the features that differentiate Opera from other browsers. In many ways, it is a smart move when you realize that most users of Opera probably weren't there for the Presto engine anyway.

 

Well focusing on just the browser and not the engine frees up a lot of resources. 

[George P Global Moderator]

I always used Opera as my second browser after IE, with IE11 though I have been using Opera less and less.  The version of Opera I have installed right now is even pretty old, v12 iirc, so it's before the engine switch.  I guess it's a shame as far as competition goes, now we're just down to 3 engines, trident, webkit and blink.   Sure blink is a offshoot of webkit but it's forked off into it's own thing from what I understand.

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

I always used Opera as my second browser after IE, with IE11 though I have been using Opera less and less.  The version of Opera I have installed right now is even pretty old, v12 iirc, so it's before the engine switch.  I guess it's a shame as far as competition goes, now we're just down to 3 engines, trident, webkit and blink.   Sure blink is a offshoot of webkit but it's forked off into it's own thing from what I understand.

I'm counting four web browser engines - Trident, Gecko, WebKit and Blink. Mozilla isn't dead yet...

[George P Global Moderator]

I'm counting four web browser engines - Trident, Gecko, WebKit and Blink. Mozilla isn't dead yet...

 

Oh, you're right, lolz, I could never get used to FF, I've tried it at times and always go back to IE.  It just feels off to me and I don't care about extensions and so on, never used them and have no need to.

[cork1958]

I so hate Opera for using chrome engine for their browser. Goddamn do i hate the new password management system, the bookmark system and everything about it. Nice way to ruin something so original and imitate crappiness. No offense to chrome users but i was never fan of it and never will. Presto engine had me since the day i first used it.

 

The only reason i am using it now is because i am so used to Opera, have like hundreds of bookmarks and so much data stored in it and for nostalgia of it. I am gonna write my own browser based on internet explorer and call it stnowser, at least i won't claim originality which opera so proudly claim now. It is basically chrome remodeled.

 

PS: You won't understand my frustration if you haven't been a fan of opera, i used it since version 8 and that was eternity ago and it truly was unique back then.

 

PS2: If anyone know of another awesome browser that isn't chrome/firefox, fire away.

 

Couldn't agree with you more! :)

I also so hate Opera for the treasonous act they pulled! Absolutely and totally a POS now! :x

 

I had been a very loyal fan of it since it was an ad based browser even, which was way back on version 5.04!

 

They took what I always considered to be the fastest, most stable and most secure browser (out of the box) and are totally trying to turn into just another fanboy based browser, which obviously that is being a total flop too.

 

I was also using version 12.16 for a while after their change, but that version is so old and who knows how insecure now, it is junk.

 

Have totally abandoned it and have actually been using Firefox, which I never could stand before, on 1 computer and either pcxfirefox or Cyberfox on all other (6) machines. Still not a real fan of Firefox but this computer is an older machine with an AMD Athlon processor that I can't install Cyberfox on. I could use pcxfirefox on it, but thought I would try using just plain Firefox on at least 1 machine.

[HawkMan]

Couldn't agree with you more! :)

I also so hate Opera for the treasonous act they pulled! Absolutely and totally a POS now! :x

 

I had been a very loyal fan of it since it was an ad based browser even, which was way back on version 5.04!

 

They took what I always considered to be the fastest, most stable and most secure browser (out of the box) and are totally trying to turn into just another fanboy based browser, which obviously that is being a total flop too.

 

I was also using version 12.16 for a while after their change, but that version is so old and who knows how insecure now, it is junk.

 

Have totally abandoned it and have actually been using Firefox, which I never could stand before, on 1 computer and either pcxfirefox or Cyberfox on all other (6) machines. Still not a real fan of Firefox but this computer is an older machine with an AMD Athlon processor that I can't install Cyberfox on. I could use pcxfirefox on it, but thought I would try using just plain Firefox on at least 1 machine.

 

 

You have to understand something, Opera is a small company with a few developers. just to make the browser engine, companies like MS, Mozilla and Google have dev teams several times the size of ALL of Opera. as advanced as the engines were getting Opera had no chance to keep up. Their only option was to pick another engine and just to the browsers, and that's what they did. 

 

There's nothing "treasonous" about it, seeing as it's their browser it couldn't be either. They're still making the same Opera browser, but with a switch to a new engine they had to start nearly from scratch to rebuild the browser on top of that, and they're doing that, and it's getting there, but it takes some time. 

[STNN]

To answer the OP: the upside of borrowing the bookmarks API from Chrome is that the existing bookmarks extensions from Chrome will work in Opera, such as Xmarks - Xmarks was supposed to provide an extension for Presto-based Opera but eventually gave up somewhere along the line. Now it works just fine. As for password management, recently I've switched out all password managers on my browsers to Lastpass (plus I've never liked how say a friend could go on my browser and with a few clicks view all passwords saved for my frequented sites).

 

No thanks, i feel much safer keeping passwords on my own computer. I wouldn't trust a third party site to handle my total online presence and even if they don't spy on it, if they were to get hacked (which is not that impossible if you consider Google and even steam have been hacked) you have to hope they really did what they said and your passwords are in encrpyted form in their database. I don't trust Google even or any of the big name companies.

 

And to the guy that said using same engine doesn't mean its the same browser, you apparently don't know what a browser engine is and what makes a browser different from another. I could make a quick browser myself (call it stnowser) using windows API but it will be nothing more than a redesigned internet explorer unless i render the html/css code using my own engine/code. So please do some research before you claim something. Go open a site with chrome/opera, firefox and internet explorer and you will see completely different loading times and loading style for each one of them except opera and chrome. How a browser looks has nothing to do with what it actually is.

 

Which is what has angered most of Opera fans because now it is chrome with different graphics and features and always will be, i hate chrome engine...chrome browser actually looks pretty nice but that rendering engine...arghhh. I actually wish Opera good luck grabbing new user-base and holding on to their current user-base. Why not goto the source (Chrome) and use a browser made and updated by the internet giant than a mock-up by a bunch of hobbyists who change their mind so erratically, what if they don't like the limitations with chromium after a while and decide to switch to Gecko(FF) engine. Its apparent opera devs don't like their own browser so how can they expect us to.

 

Which is why after moving my huge bookmarks list and other settings slowly to FF, i am gonna make a switch to FF and delete Opera altogether. IE is lacking a lot of features otherwise the new version isn't that bad and i actually liked it more than chrome/ff.

 

 

PS: After trying out Maxthon, i didn't like it that much. Its dev tools are just meh and add-ons are seriously lacking. It is ages behind FF and chrome. I don't want to keep loading FF to use the add-ons and features it doesn't have, it looks an amazing and i am sure in a few years it might be but its not for me now.

[snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member]

And to the guy that said using same engine doesn't mean its the same browser, you apparently don't know what a browser engine is and what makes a browser different from another. I could make a quick browser myself (call it stnowser) using windows API but it will be nothing more than a redesigned internet explorer unless i render the html/css code using my own engine/code. So please do some research before you claim something. Go open a site with chrome/opera, firefox and internet explorer and you will see completely different loading times and loading style for each one of them except opera and chrome. How a browser looks has nothing to do with what it actually is.

I would wage that feature-sets are probably the most important part of the browser to most people. I myself don't particularly care if the content is rendered slightly differently between different engines and I don't think the average consumer cares either. Outside of javascript benchmarking and such, can we realistically say that there is noticeable real-world difference in performance between rendering engines at this point? I personally don't think so for most cases. There have been various browsers that share rendering engines yet distinguish themselves. The most notable being Epiphany (Various engines), Safari (WebKit), Chrome (WebKit), and Netscape (Mozilla Based). 

[Denis W. Veteran]

I would wage that feature-sets are probably the most important part of the browser to most people. I myself don't particularly care if the content is rendered slightly differently between different engines and I don't think the average consumer cares either. Outside of javascript benchmarking and such, can we realistically say that there is noticeable real-world difference in performance between rendering engines at this point? I personally don't think so for most cases. There have been various browsers that share rendering engines yet distinguish themselves. The most notable being Epiphany (Various engines), Safari (WebKit), Chrome (WebKit), and Netscape (Mozilla Based). 

 

Indeed.

 

Once upon a time I probably cared about which engine got the highest CSS3 benchmark score or who had the least amount of security holes discovered. Nowadays I just care about whether the browser is stable, whether it's fast, and what it has to offer to speed up my workflow.

 

At an engine level, Trident, WebKit/Blink, and Gecko are fine engines. Rendering speed is another aspect, but I suspect down the road the engines will eventually converge on being approximately as fast as each other. Trident's the best for power efficiency on Windows, but on IE11 rendering speed on image heavy sites took a nose drive (on my laptop, not my desktop). WebKit/Blink is usually fast and snappy, but its scrolling performance isn't the best and it's stupidly CPU hungry. As for Gecko... my laptop doesn't like XUL. Its UI never felt as snappy as even Chrome/ium/Opera's internal pages.

 

As much as how I liked Presto's instant rewind and forward, the site glitches were indeed annoying. For many years I had a problem with Opera where page elements become inaccessible - for instance, Neowin editor boxes. Then since the switch to 10.50, things sped up which was nice, but the Vega drawing engine was prone to leaving artifacts on pages. And the crashes. The damn browser was so unstable since 10.50.

 

Nowadays, Opera may be based off Chromium but I like how they have their own twist on the UI and of course Speed Dial and Stash. Probably things you can obtain via Chrome extensions, but it won't be as smooth. But most importantly, I no longer care about a site falling apart or complaining to some developers on Neowin *cough cough* that bits of the site are broken in Opera :P

 

But yeah, back to the point. Engine wars are passe.

Oh, you're right, lolz, I could never get used to FF, I've tried it at times and always go back to IE.  It just feels off to me and I don't care about extensions and so on, never used them and have no need to.

 

Ah, how the mighty have fallen, when we forget about Gecko. :p

[snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member]

At an engine level, Trident, WebKit/Blink, and Gecko are fine engines. Rendering speed is another aspect, but I suspect down the road the engines will eventually converge on being approximately as fast as each other. Trident's the best for power efficiency on Windows, but on IE11 rendering speed on image heavy sites took a nose drive (on my laptop, not my desktop). WebKit/Blink is usually fast and snappy, but its scrolling performance isn't the best and it's stupidly CPU hungry. As for Gecko... my laptop doesn't like XUL. Its UI never felt as snappy as even Chrome/ium/Opera's internal pages.

Scrolling performance is the one difference I have personally notice between IE11 and Chrome in certain cases. That being said, that has never gotten me to move to IE11 because it has never been enough of an issue. I value the syncing and extensions far too much to let what amount to a small differences and temporary defects to take a front-seat. I imagine at some point these engines will improve and it will be a non-issue.

[Yogurth]

 IMHO Opera made a huge mistake by going to Webkit and Blink now. The reason they went with it in their words was a focus on developing features rather than focusing on the engine(as it currently stands Opera is severely lacking in those promised features), but how is that different than releasing Presto as an Open source and leaving the community to deal with the engine and Opera developing features as they claim they are doing now. The main problem Presto had was the lack of visibility, and making it Open Source would have solved that. I suspect there was much more to the switch than just the focus on browser features, money in form of Google payoff certainly comes to mind. Too bad..for now, as new Opera can't smell a hiney to the Presto Opera.

[ViperAFK]

I don't mind the new opera, I like its interface and its speed dial is still far better than the new tab pages found in all the other browsers, they just need to get their arses in gear when it comes to adding a proper bookmarks system and getting opera link working, those are the two reasons I'm not using it, otherwise I'd consider it. bookmark sync has become such a basic feature of a browser these days and I can't stand using a browser where I can't easily sync my bookmarks across platforms.

[Boo Berry]

One bookmark manager. Come on guys, just use the one from Chromium until you create your own, geez.

[HawkMan]

Which one, I have not found a satifsying working and good bookmark manager on the extensions, the ones that sort of work don't yet support folders... and I need to import hundreds of bookmarks from myOpera/Opera Sync.

[FloatingFatMan]

I so hate Opera for using chrome engine for their browser. Goddamn do i hate the new password management system, the bookmark system and everything about it. Nice way to ruin something so original and imitate crappiness. No offense to chrome users but i was never fan of it and never will. Presto engine had me since the day i first used it.

 

The only reason i am using it now is because i am so used to Opera, have like hundreds of bookmarks and so much data stored in it and for nostalgia of it. I am gonna write my own browser based on internet explorer and call it stnowser, at least i won't claim originality which opera so proudly claim now. It is basically chrome remodeled.

 

PS: You won't understand my frustration if you haven't been a fan of opera, i used it since version 8 and that was eternity ago and it truly was unique back then.

 

PS2: If anyone know of another awesome browser that isn't chrome/firefox, fire away.

 

They switched because people would rather have a browser that actually renders the modern web properly than one that has "unique features".

[HawkMan]

Presto in general didn't have a problem rendering pages, except pages that sent it garbage code on purpose. Ironiucally Google was one of the worst offenders of itnentionally adding code to it's webapps that caused bugs in Opera.