

Face opera - robin_reala
http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2012/05/face_opera.html

======
cateye
The battle of the giants is really beginning: Apple, Microsoft, Facebook,
Google and Amazon will be trying to define the future of the internet and they
will have to attack each others core businesses to grow further.

On several levels of the internet they all try to get a foot in:

1\. Cloud: AWS, iCloud, Azure, Gdrive & App engine - Facebook hasn't got a
storage or computation sollution

2\. Social: Google+, Windows Live, Facebook - Amazon and Apple don't have real
social networks

3\. App stores: Apple app store, Play, Market Place, Amazon Appstore -
Facebook doesn't have a real app store.

4\. Operating system: OS X and iOS, Android, Windows - Facebook and Amazon
don't have a OS yet.

5\. Browser: Internet Explorer, Chrome, Safari, Amazon Silk - Facebook doesn't
have a browser yet.

I really think that all companies will battle each other on all the levels
because loosing one level will cause the collapse of the others.

So, Facebook definitely needs a browser.

~~~
jgroome
> So, Facebook definitely needs a browser.

Why?

~~~
cateye
This is off course a legitimate question. I tried to really summarize it by
saying: "loosing one level will cause the collapse of the others".

The browser is for the end user an important base because that is where they
get directed to surf and target ad spending etc. By inserting functionality
like a start page or search engine, the behavior is influenced a lot. You can
also push own services and products directly.

The current status of the browser is also that it can replace the OS. (See
Google Chrome OS)

------
bobsy
I still don't see the value in it. It made sense when Google did it. Chrome
came and shook things up introducing features no existing browsers had and
placing an emphasis on JavaScript speed. This was critical for Google as a
number of its apps make heavy use of it.

I don't use Chrome anymore, I switched back to Firefox but its undeniable that
it had a massive impact on the speed of browser development and probably the
progress of web standards.

Now.. if Facebook bagged Opera what would it add to Facebook or what benefit
would Facebook get? A bigger say in web standards. Does this matter much to
Facebook? They would have a mobile browser.. this still doesn't help them make
a mobile app which doesn't suck.

I just don't see the point. The most likely result of this would be alienating
existing Opera users. I would also expect Google to switch Opera to web-kit to
reduce development costs. I don't see how a company like Facebook will see a
return of investment by buying out Opera.

~~~
Tomis02
> introducing features no existing browsers had

Please, elaborate. The only feature I know is exclusive to Chrome is full page
translation (since they own Google Translate it makes sense).

What else?

~~~
bobsy
I thought that they introduced.

Sandboxing for individual tabs

Ability to drag tabs between windows

Isn't each tab a process or something so when you close it memory is freed?

I am sure there are some other things. This is all I can think of off the top
my head.

~~~
Tomis02
One process per tab is not a feature. It is (or should be) invisible for me,
the user, and from my experience it creates more problems than it's worth
(first time I tried Chrome it simply stopped my computer dead by running 10
heavy processes on a single-core CPU - so much for performance). It's a bad
design decision that will only pay off when I have a 20-core CPU. Sandboxing
for individual tabs? Just about the same.

My point is that saying "Chrome came and shook things up introducing features
no existing browsers had" is a bit of a stretch. When it came out Chrome was
basically not very different from Internet Explorer 6 (feature-wise), and it
seems to have stayed that way (I like full page translation but that's it).

We should be fair and say that Google Chrome has a large market share because
it has Google behind it. It doesn't have much else going for it.

~~~
cshenoy
Back when I switched from Firefox to Chrome, FF was a very heavy browser that
took up a lot of memory. Chrome was very light-weight and nimble. Clearly,
that has changed since then but it was a big competitive advantage.

One process per tab is a feature. If a tab crashed in FF, typically the whole
browser would need to restart whereas in Chrome the tab could be closed and
re-opened without affecting the other tabs. I think that's a pretty
significant feature.

Auto-updating every 6 weeks is another feature. As a developer, I don't have
to worry when an update comes out since I know 90%+ will be on the new
version.

While I think part of the reason Chrome has a large market share is clearly
because of Google, I don't think it's the main reason. There are many other
factors.

~~~
Tomis02
> I think that's a pretty significant feature.

The problem here is that you trade a lot of performance for stability that you
should have to begin with, so in the end you have worse overall performance
just so that a fringe case is covered. What's the worse that can happen if
Chrome crashed? You could lose all your tabs because the default setting is
"open homepage" instead of "reopen the pages that were open last", but that's
your fault.

But let's investigate this more deeply - browser crashes have two major causes
- internal bugs and plugins. What used to happen was that Flash (or Acrobat
Reader, or whatever) would crash and it would bring down the whole browser.
The solution is (of course) one separate process for the plugins. Problem
solved. Going beyond that and fitting every tab with its own process to
account for the fact that your business isn't really building browsers is of
little comfort to me; you shouldn't be dereferencing that NULL pointer to
begin with.

Opera has auto-update as well. I guess we'll have to disagree on the reason
Chrome has its market share.

------
Gustomaximus
The article also left out another major benefit to Facebook. If they buy Opera
they will get massive exposure in the CIS region where the browser products
are the strongest. This can give them a hand overtaking vKontate and could be
worth much to Facebook alone. Yandex / vKontate will know this and may want to
defend by a counter offer so it could be interesting.

[http://gs.statcounter.com/#social_media-RU-
monthly-201104-20...](http://gs.statcounter.com/#social_media-RU-
monthly-201104-201204)

Also worth noting is if the co-founder Jon and Geir's (the other co-founder)
widow don't want to sell their stakes, it will make things difficult for
anyone to take over and all this speculation is just academic.

------
chewxy
I'll stop using Opera (currently my default browser) if facebook acquires it.
Such is the level of trust I have over facebook.

~~~
sparkie
What makes you trust Opera any more already? They're already quite capable of
logging every domain you visit, via the fraud prevention mechanism (Enabled by
default). Whether Opera are recording this I don't know, but you can probably
be quite certain that Facebook will, if they acquire it.

~~~
rplnt
At least they say that they don't log it. Google's Chrome does send and log
every website you visit.

~~~
Drbble
Citation?

~~~
ZenPsycho
<http://www.google.com/history>

~~~
jamesgeck0
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that a Google Search thing, not a Chrome
thing? The Google toolbar in Firefox had the option to upload your browser's
entire history to the Search History site, but that's not built into Chrome,
afaik.

Chrome does have a sync service, but it requires user action to activate,
allows the user to pick what they want synced, and allows syncing omnibox
history, not the complete browser history.

~~~
ZenPsycho
you're not wrong

------
klausa
I'm really baffled by all those people saying that they will stop using Opera
if FB acquires them.

I mean - okay, If they start modifying it to send your data to Facebook
without way to opt-out - sure, do that.

If they start showing ads in fastmail and reading your mails - sure, that's
reasonable.

But I really think that doing that the moment FB acquires Opera would be quite
an overreaction.

~~~
ttt_
I don't know. I'm quite worried that the whole technology space is turning
into a big brand feud war arena.

We are begining to see the subverting of unrelated products into business
strategies. No, I don't want my browser/car/glasses/phone with any strings
attached. What are we looking forward to a decade from now? iBank? FB
insurence? G+ real state?

I for one will make efforts to avoid those products like the plague. If we do
not strenghten small brands, we accept the rule of the big ones.

Overreaction is okay for matters of principle.

~~~
j_col
If I could up-vote this a hundred times, I would. Welcome to the Internet:
sponsored (filtered!) by Apple/Google/Facebook/[take your pick].

Reinforces my belief that open standards and open source really, _really_
matter when it comes to a free and open Internet.

~~~
arkitaip
This is what RMS and others have been saying for decades. Free software, data
ownership and privacy aren't "nice" things to have or tinker with, they are
absolutely crucial freedoms.

------
Tomis02
The reason Opera users don't like the idea of Facebook buying their browser is
twofold.

1) Association - Facebook has a really bad image among many people, and I
believe Opera has a hugely better reputation than their potential buyer.

2) Fear that Opera will stray from it's declared course of supporting the open
web and creating the best browsing experience (which it currently delivers, by
far).

I will not be uninstalling Opera if the acquisition takes place but will keep
a very close eye on any developments.

Unfortunately Opera is the only choice for me in the current browser market -
other browser can't accommodate my browsing habits, so I would be very bitter
if anything were to go wrong. I think a lot of Opera users feel the same way.

------
rkwz
>Trident is not for sale, Gecko is irrelevant and possibly too heavy for
mobile use, and WebKit is interesting but rather crowded. Presto, Opera’s
engine, is the only one that’s available.

Why is Gecko irrelevant? It still has a good chunk of marketshare.

~~~
zxoq
Not on mobile, which is where Facebook wants a browser.

~~~
bad_user
I use Firefox on my Android. It's a little heavy but it's OK. I like it a lot
because I'm a desktop Firefox user and it knows how to sync my bookmarks and
my saved forms data and my history back and forth. The UI is also much better
than Android's built-in browser and it's been making a lot of progress.

I think people are not seeing the forest from the trees here. Firefox has a
lot of potential on mobile phones, because Firefox has a lot of desktop users
that would want the Firefox on their mobile devices, at least for the Sync
functionality.

Also, on mobile WebKit may be the most popular, but there are so many
incompatibilities and performance differences between Android's browser,
Blackberry's browser, the webkit-powered S60 browser, Chrome, Safari and
Mobile Safari that you might as well count those as different engines.

~~~
smashing
Gecko will NEVER render on a feature phone. The Mozilla team has repeated this
statement again and again.

~~~
dave1010uk
A year ago feature phones were being released with 1GHz processors [1]. I
wouldn't say never.

[1]
[http://www.gsmarena.com/1ghz_s40based_nokia_c3015_pictures_s...](http://www.gsmarena.com/1ghz_s40based_nokia_c3015_pictures_surface_is_the_first_of_many-
news-2902.php)

~~~
Drbble
What OS do they run? It's hard to imagine porting to another OS with insanely
tiny marketshare and weird APIs. What is the app publishing ecosystem on these
phones?

~~~
dave1010uk
This phone runs Nokia's Series 40, which is running 1.5 billion phones -
supposedly the largest mobile operating system. Perhaps this is a bad example
though as S40 only runs Java ME & HTML5 apps. Still, I can easily see these
feature phones running Firefox within a year. Firefox is, after all, open
source.

~~~
jarek
Firefox on mobile is the new Linux on desktop... It's open source and you can
see it being big next year, every year.

------
Tomis02
"Installable web apps".

The author doesn't seem to be up to speed. Opera has announced widget support
will be dropped, along with Unite applications.

[http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/2012/04/24/increased-
fo...](http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/2012/04/24/increased-focus-on-
opera-extensions-and-ending-support-for-unite-widgets-voice)

I guess this decision could be reversed if Facebook buys Opera.

~~~
jm4
Unite was awesome. The problem is hardly anyone used Opera. A company like
Facebook could actually do something with it. Imagine the possibilities for
apps and games if a big chunk of Facebook users had it.

~~~
Tomis02
Unite is really awesome and I'm sorry to see it go, I used it for quick
sharing with friends. Much more convenient than Dropbox when you just want
something right there and then.

~~~
sparkie
I think Unite suffered from not being open enough. You required an Opera
account to use it, and there's no open specification for building compatible
tools and services. What you could build into the browser itself was quite
limited. (Plus you had to leave the browser open all the time, which can be a
pain.)

There's some recent proposals for p2p web standards
([http://www.infotales.com/peer-to-peer-web-standards-by-
world...](http://www.infotales.com/peer-to-peer-web-standards-by-world-wide-
web-consortium/)) which may provide an alternative system to Unite with some
of the same goals. Opera appear to be involved in it.

------
sparkie
Opera really could set any price they want. The browser itself is worth far
more than some crap like instagram - and Facebook really need it quite badly.
I'll be disappointed if they don't get at least $2bn for it. :p

~~~
enneff
Why do they need it "quite badly"?

~~~
ZenPsycho
Facebook probably wants to do things with the web that are not currently
possible. Without their own browser they are dependant on other companies to
make those things happen.

------
wilhelm
I've spent seven years of my life at Opera, quitting just a few months ago.
I've reached the exact same conclusions as ppk.

Owning both a browser and the applications running in it is an immensely
powerful combination, as demonstrated by Google. It makes perfect sense for
Facebook to want to do the same.

And as much as I dislike Facebook, I believe a buyout like this is the only
way for Opera to survive long-term. They have a brilliant engineering team,
but it's dwarfed by its competitors. The Presto engine is maintained by a team
of just ~60 developers and ~30 testers. They're doing amazing work, but can't
keep up with the faster pace of Webkit or Trident development. Combine that
with the current level of mismanagement, and you're in trouble.

Without backing from a bigger player, Opera will dwindle to irrelevance as the
use of its proxy browser fades away.

~~~
Tomis02
Could you elaborate on the mismanagement part?

------
asmosoinio
Re Opera Mini and them having no competition in proxying browsers: Nokia's S40
Browser actually does proxying these days. This was released as a beta in late
2010, and is now the default in all S40 phones.
([http://betalabs.nokia.com/apps/nokia-browser-for-
series-40-b...](http://betalabs.nokia.com/apps/nokia-browser-for-
series-40-beta))

It's not a proper competitor of course, as one cannot install it to phones by
other manufacturers, but it does still cover a pretty big chunk of the low-end
devices.

~~~
Tomis02
There's a large quality gap between's Nokia browser and Opera Mini. Nokia
isn't famous for their browser, after all.

------
repoman
You guys are really making a big deal here. You guys are hackers / engineers
yourself. Companies need to make money. Almost every company "uses" your data
and make money/ How do you think Gmail has "relevant" ads next to your email
browser? No matter what fancy mechanism they put there, they are still using
your information. If you really hate people using your data, just build your
own mail service. Even small brands use your data. To what level do they use?
Who knows. I am pretty sure people would lie about how their products use your
information (oh yeah we don't store this and that...) BS. lol It's business.
Your credit card and bank information all has to reported to credit companies.
These companies make money off your information. So are you saying we should
stop using credit cards? Even as "trivial" as college admission - you receive
numerous stupid admission invitations, wtf is that? Apparently, College Board
or somehow someone decides that information are "shared" to colleges as
partnership....

------
JustNick
Add to Chrome mouse gestures, and i will change browser.

~~~
vetler
And single key shortcuts!

~~~
Tomis02
And vertical multi-column tabs! And good performance for 100+ tabs on single
core CPU-s! And speed dial! And integrated email/RSS client! And trash can!
And notes! And so many more.

Then I might switch.

~~~
deno
You can get very very close to Opera features with Firefox extensions. For
mouse gestures there’s an extensions called FireGestures. It’s actually more
configurable than Opera’s. Speed dial is in Aurora, but it’s very basic right
now.

The rest I didn’t use/care, but I can recall there being an extension for
every one of those things.

Not saying Firefox is better than Opera necessarily, it's just that Firefox is
quite powerful as well.

~~~
gnoupi
The problem is that by the time you reached the functionality of Opera with
extensions, your browser is bloated and takes ages to load, and a large chunk
of RAM.

~~~
deno
I’d have agreed with you just a year ago, but not anymore. Firefox made TONS
of performance improvements and Opera actually got significantly worse at
memory consumption.

At the end of the day, Aurora (with several addons) is usually below or around
300MB with my normal daily use, whereas Opera Next can easily go beyond 1GB of
virtual memory.

------
stefanve
I'm wondering what would happen to fastmail as this is currently owned by
opera.

~~~
Teapot
Then FastMail would instantly lose me as regular user. I'd just use it for
junk mail.

------
repoman
1\. Opera is really not useful. On mobile phone it uses more memory does my
built-in android browser, and it doesn't even run many of the websites
smoothly... damn 2\. Acquiring Opera doesn't really help Facebook. It
generates some revenues, but doesn't help FB to maintain its large operation
cost, and doesn't help its ads moving either.

------
kh812000
What people are looking at is the obvious= browser.

I surmise the real reason for Facebook to buy Opera is not that. Opera owns
the #1 mobile ad mediation platform : AdMarvel and has augmented it with
Mobile Theory and 4th Screen Advertising.

THAT IS THE KEY. MOBILE MONETIZATION VIA ANALYTICS OF FB DATA AND ADMARVEL.

------
framebench
This post might just be to push people to leave Opera probably. Opens up a
huge market for the other not-so-good browsers to prep up their marketing on
app stores!

