The State of Opera

[Som]

How do people feel about it? I've been using Opera since college.  That's about 15 years now and for the first time in those years I don't have it on my computer.  When they announced that they'd be switching to chromium from presto I thought it was a good thing as it would be more compatible with other sites but I've given them 2 years to restore some of the unique features that made opera special, for instance ...

The Wand - The best password manager that I've ever used.  It was simple, a little key next to the address bar to log into sites, worked great with sites where you would have multiple accounts and was even supported in Opera sync so you'd have all your passwords where ever you go.  When I asked about it on the Opera Blogs the devs didn't even know what it was.

The Speed Dial - The latest speed dial is bad, it's been default in Opera for a while now but there was always a way to revert to the old one, but now that option has been removed.  Simply put the speed-dial on Opera was the best.  You could add a site and it would show you a thumbnail of said site. What we get now is a thumbnail with the address of the site and a brightly lit metroish style colour.  Personally I just find it ugly.  I know a lot are complaining on the blogs but as usual the devs are ignoring them

Skins - In Opera 12 you could completely change the look of opera with a skin manager and creating a skin was relatively easy to do too, now all you can do is change the background. Every aspect the browser could be customised 

Download Manager - It had one, a proper one.  The one now is the same as chrome and i've never liked that

Stability - The current version of Opera is pretty stable I'll admit but the problem arises with the extensions.  In Opera 12 you didn't need extensions as it was so customisable.  Now you need extensions to get basic old features and they clearly aren't vetted and cause crashes.

Recently Closed pages - Once there was a trash can on the top right,  You could press it and reopen a page or windows you had closed early. They just brought that feature back but the button still focuses on the current open pages.  It also support sessions which was handy when you need a few certain pages to be reaccessible

other features such as fit to width, content blocker, pop-up blocker, notes, links, and a button to hide images (handy on slow internet) have yet to make a return.  The sync manager isn't great either.  There are more like Mail and Torrent manager but I never used them personally.  They where handy features though. I also like how private browsing opened on the same window but that's only a little thing 

Anywho after the last update and that awful looking speed dial I finally decided I had enough and switched to Vivaldi.  It's not even in beta but I find it a nice replacement.  

Anyone else made the switch or does anyone even use it any more?

 

 

[tompkin]

When I saw your post I thought you were going to say something about them putting it up for sale. I saw it yesterday.

http://thetechportal.in/2015/08/10/opera-software-looking-for-a-buyer-after-company-reports-poor-financial-numbers/

[Som]

Ya I saw that but who'd want it, they probably wouldn't be able to give it away. Trying to appeal to a wider audience has made them the same as existing browsers and redundant

[link6155]

Ya I saw that but who'd want it, they probably wouldn't be able to give it away. Trying to appeal to a wider audience has made them the same as existing browsers and redundant

Vivaldi Browser should buy Opera and rename themselves to Opera

After all, Vivaldi is suppose to be the spiritual successor to Opera before it became Chromium based.

[ncc50446]

I LOVED Opera 12. Then they went to Chrome, and I left to Firefox..I tried it a few times, but all the features that made Presto awesome are gone..

If someone buys them, I hope they release Presto Opera again... Or at least make Opera decent..

I tried Vivaldi when it was first announced..Didn't like it..Maybe I'll try it again..

[Anibal P]

As far as I'm concerned it's always been a crap browser with a few interesting gimmicks 

[:: Lyon ::]

I was loving Opera at some point but ever since Chrome and its extensions went alive, I pretty much had switched to Chrome (and Firefox once a while)

I think I got fed up with Opera cache at some point, I forgot what the problems were though (and I'm sure they've fixed it)

[RandPC]

Opera ceased to be relevant after V12.15, now it's just Chrome with the Google elements removed and some marginal feature changes.
I switched to Firefox, it takes a LOT of work and quite a few extensions but I've largely got it now to work like the old Opera did.

Vivaldi is being developed by Opera's old CEO, and is intended to eventually be an evolved version of Opera 12. Last I looked at it was 4-5mnths ago and it showed promise but was still a long way away from reaching it's goals.

[Boo Berry]

In my mind Vivaldi is (or will be) the true successor to Opera 12.x whereas I Chropera pointless to use over Chrome.

[Thrackerzod]

I don't like Opera at all since they switched to being a stripped down Chrome clone with almost no features or customization.

[4CxbqFxVnstmA Veteran]

I'm waiting for Vivaldi. I mean, I'll definitely give it a go when it's out in some sort of full form, though I may try the Tech Preview.... I loved Opera, but since they abandoned Linux for a long time and abandoned most of the great things about Opera, I've been using Chrome (and now Firefox). Vivaldi sounds like what I want.

[Coxlap]

It was a good browser feature wise, the best really for a while.  Site compatibility was an issue at that time though .  It was so good though I used it primarily for a couple years and dealt with those sites in IE separately.  Then they started doing major overhauls, and it died.  When they switched to Chromium, they never even got functionality back to before chromium.  Opera Link(the sync feature) never ever got back to full functionality, and the UI would have the checkbox and it just didnt work.  The only place to find that out was on their forums.  That should give you an idea of what a giant screwup Opera has been lately.  They probably still lame MS for their crappy dev cycle.  

[Som]

So i guess everyone agrees with me ha, anyone else think that we'll hear that Opera will be disbanded by this time next year

[DConnell Member]

Opera is still around? I used it years ago, after Netscape Navigator and before Firefox.

[j.r.l.]

I hadn't heard about Vivaldi... I'm not a fan of the name, but I'm fond of the screenshots!