Microsoft should buy Opera!

[progh]

IE9 stunning design + Opera speed and smooth scrolling will be amazing :)

...not to say that all bad coding websites will be gone very fast.

[bogas04]

:/

[Rudy]

Bad idea...as much as I don't like IE....it's better than Opera lol

[MR_Candyman]

hmmm... I haven't used IE9 yet, but I quite like the interface of Opera. Personally, I want opera to stay independant

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

No, they shouldn't. What value would it bring?

IE 9 beta is quite fast as it is.

[bogas04]

anyways , Microsoft never took browser wars seriously (even now , IE9 is only for Vista sp2 and W7 , what?)

[Phenom II]

No they shouldnt - they would ruin it

[Nagisan]

Bad idea...as much as I don't like IE....it's better than Opera lol

At least Opera's not as bad as FF or Chrome...

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

anyways , Microsoft never took browser wars seriously (even now , IE9 is only for Vista sp2 and W7 , what?)

How often do we have to go over this again? Windows XP is 9 years old. Why would MS even think of backporting half of Windows 7 to it just for IE 9?

XP is dying. Slowly but steadily.

[Singh400]

No, bad idea. Keep it as it is. Encourages competition between Chrome, Opera, Firefox & IE9.

[strotee]

At least Opera's not as bad as FF or Chrome...

Them's fightin words. :angry: :D

[+jamesyfx Subscriber²]

Microsoft shouldn't buy Opera, because it's a browser with a very small market share. Wouldn't be much point.

[Teebor]

I thought Opera was a free download? :whistle:

[Sethos]

Ah hell no, don't want that crappy browser crowbarred into my OS, let it stay standalone so I can avoid it.

[Phenom II]

I thought Opera was a free download? :whistle:

Naa... its ?49.99 now - but you get a free Google Chrome with every download

[Nagisan]

Them's fightin words. :angry: :D

Feel free. :p

Chrome is not bad, I use it at work, but I would never trade it for Opera on my main computer, FF, ugh......don't even get me started. Sure, extensions are nice, but when you need to use them to make a browser usable vs a browser that is usable out of the box (how I view FF compared to Opera), whats the point? Why not just keep it simple and use the browser thats better out of the box. Sort of the same reason I use Windows over Linux, Linux is great, but it doesn't do everything I need it to out of the box, therefore I use Windows instead.

[jakem1]

No they shouldnt - they would ruin it

It's a bit late for that :laugh:

Microsoft shouldn't buy Opera, because it's a browser with a very small market share. Wouldn't be much point.

It's small on the desktop but quite popular on phones.

[Nick H. Supervisor]

Microsoft should buy all the big browser developers. Then make an awesome browser that had Opera's speed, Chrome's light weight, Firefox's extensions, and Internet Explorer's...err...I'll think of something they should take from there.

No? Oh. Alright then.

[~Johnny]

I'd say no. That way they can both continue coming up with seperate ideas to speed up their browsers, and then later on steal them from each other to make them even faster =D

[+Gary7 Subscriber²]

At least Opera's not as bad as FF or Chrome...

You are not quite right, it is a great deal worse. At least with Firefox you have extensions that you can use plus you can customize it with CSS. Opera does have some good features and I sure would use it over IE 9.

[Nagisan]

You are not quite right, it is a great deal worse. At least with Firefox you have extensions that you can use plus you can customize it with CSS. Opera does have some good features and I sure would use it over IE 9.

Opera has all the features I have ever used built in, making extensions pointless for me (I understand that doesn't mean its pointless to everyone, but for my own personal use, Opera is better than FF, even including FF Extensions), and you can customize Opera quite a bit with UserJS and custom CSS, its just the smaller userbase means less resources for easily doing things via its CSS and UserJS capabilities, so you need to be a bit more knowledgeable and willing to do things for yourself with Opera than with FF.

For my own browser usage patterns, Opera is the best browser out there, I'm sure its different for others, but to me personally Chrome has too much of a lack of features to be better than Opera, and FF is too slow and has hardly any decent features at all without extensions (I have ran it before and it was junk IMHO, even worse than Chrome).

[+Gary7 Subscriber²]

Opera has all the features I have ever used built in, making extensions pointless for me (I understand that doesn't mean its pointless to everyone, but for my own personal use, Opera is better than FF, even including FF Extensions), and you can customize Opera quite a bit with UserJS and custom CSS, its just the smaller userbase means less resources for easily doing things via its CSS and UserJS capabilities, so you need to be a bit more knowledgeable and willing to do things for yourself with Opera than with FF.

For my own browser usage patterns, Opera is the best browser out there, I'm sure its different for others, but to me personally Chrome has too much of a lack of features to be better than Opera, and FF is too slow and has hardly any decent features at all without extensions (I have ran it before and it was junk IMHO, even worse than Chrome).

At the moment Opera is faster than Firefox by a tad. But with every modern browser the speed difference is minimal. AFAIK, Opera will not support HTML5 but that is not a big deal either. For me it is:

1. Firefox

2. Opera.

I do not even have IE installed and never will. I also do not trust Google so I would never use anything they produce, even the Google Car. LOL.

[Mr. Gibs]

You are not quite right, it is a great deal worse. At least with Firefox you have extensions that you can use plus you can customize it with CSS. Opera does have some good features and I sure would use it over IE 9.

Except I don't want to use any extensions? I don't see the point of them to be honest. Stuff I would use:

1. Download manager? Built right in

2. Ad/flash block? Built right in.

CSS customizations for themes? Not needed since you can select different theme colors, but you can also modify the theme files. And, like FF4, the default theme fits in quite nicely into Windows so I don't want any additional themes.

At the end of the day it really just comes down to what you prefer. If you want a billion extensions, then go with Firefox. If you don't, then go with something else.

AFAIK, Opera will not support HTML5 but that is not a big deal either.

Excuse me? HTML5 support is increasing with every build and in terms of Canvas support, Opera does it best.

I do not even have IE installed and never will. I also do not trust Google so I would never use anything they produce, even the Google Car. LOL.

:rolleyes:

[strotee]

Feel free. :p

Chrome is not bad, I use it at work, but I would never trade it for Opera on my main computer, FF, ugh......don't even get me started. Sure, extensions are nice, but when you need to use them to make a browser usable vs a browser that is usable out of the box (how I view FF compared to Opera), whats the point? Why not just keep it simple and use the browser thats better out of the box. Sort of the same reason I use Windows over Linux, Linux is great, but it doesn't do everything I need it to out of the box, therefore I use Windows instead.

I guess I don't understand this obsession with "out of the box". We here on Neowin are above average for knowledge of computers so what's the big deal about spending a few minutes to customize a piece of software to your liking? I cannot imagine you use your OS with every default option "out of the box", I'm sure you change a few things, disable one or two unnecessary services, change the Start Menu to look a certain way, etc. If a browser does everything you want out of the box, well, then congratulations. This is why I don't understand this bundling preference in a browser. I want a browser to browse, not have email included, in addition to not being a torrent client. Is there such thing as Opera Light? (without email, torrent, etc) If not, then I would never use that software. But more power to you.

This reminds me of the old Unix saying "Do one thing and do it well." Bloat = bad

[Neoauld]

At least Opera's not as bad as FF or Chrome...

At least those browsers load webpages properly without needing code for specific sites such as gmail. Opera is nice n all, but lack of extensions(only browser left really without em) and ad blocking makes it utterly worthless.

Why would MS dare buy something as uncompetitive as opera?