
Opera CEO: Sale to Chinese Consortium Wasn’t Our Decision - wslh
http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/25/opera-ceo-sale-to-chinese-consortium-wasnt-our-decision/
======
zhte415
I like Opera, and have used it since ~2003. It was so far ahead of the pack
then. It's not been my main browser for a long time, but I've always had it
there as a clean and fast alternative. That's mainly because I'm SSH tunneled
through Firefox, so when desiring to be untunneled, turn on Opera.

But Qihoo/360? This is a company with the exact opposite moral principles of
Opera. Of bloatware and spyware, of unexpected updates, backdoors, and spider-
like trojans that install on anything from USB sticks to mobile phones plugged
into an 'infected' device. It represents the worse of the worse of China's
software market, which can be really really excellent.

I'm uninstalling Opera right now.

~~~
frozenport
>>the worse of the worse of China's software market, which can be really
really excellent.

Do you have an examples of excellence?

~~~
nl
Xiaomi and Huawei's software is generally pretty good.

~~~
zghst
Except for the CN gov't spyware baked in...

~~~
anonbanker
better chinese government than US government.

------
themartorana
Something people may not know is Opera the Browser is only a part of the
bigger pie. Opera is an ad company (through Opera Mediaworks - they own Ad
Colony, for example, that might not mean much to anyone not in the mobile
apps/game space, but it's a huge player[0]).

It makes me wonder how much the purchase was about the browser vs. a solid
play in the mobile gaming market ad space.

[0] [http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/24/confirmed-opera-buys-
adcolo...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/24/confirmed-opera-buys-adcolony-
for-75m/)

~~~
sengork
Another less known fact is that Opera used to have a large footprint in the
embedded browser markets. (eg. Wii, TVs, players, OS pre-boot environments)

~~~
themartorana
OS pre-boot? I'm intrigued. Can you expound?

~~~
eli
Just what it sounds like:
[http://apcmag.com/phoenix_puts_opera_web_browser_into_bios.h...](http://apcmag.com/phoenix_puts_opera_web_browser_into_bios.htm/)

------
sengork
Vivaldi[1] is now where most of the Opera founders have congregated to. The
project is fresh and rhymes of Opera Presto days.

[1] [https://vivaldi.com/](https://vivaldi.com/)

~~~
balakk
Sorry, but Vivaldi _feels_ like Chrome. Opera still _feels_ like Opera. Dont
believe me? just open both browsers. Spam the Ctrl-T (new tab) key for a
while. See the difference? Only one browser remains responsive.This is not
some weird/random test case - the whole UI widgetry seems extremely fluid and
ultra-responsive in a way no desktop app is.

I still use Opera, and super-apprehensive about this new development. It's
still fantastic - the rendering engine change actually benefited Opera, in
that it removed so many of the rendering glitches in Opera 12. Some options
were lost, but it's still very configurable. I respect Hakum and the team
that's still there, but not sure if they'll stick around. It will be a shame
if we lose one of the best desktop apps on the planet to spyware/bloatware.

~~~
ndesaulniers
> Spam the Ctrl-T (new tab) key for a while. See the difference?

And that's why browser vendors can never win. Too many cases to optimize for;
if you don't get every extremely contrived (non) use case right, it's off to
twitter/hn-comments-section to complain. FFS

~~~
CDRdude
I don't think having a lot of tabs open is a contrived use case. I have over a
hundred tabs open in Firefox, and that's been pretty standard for me for at
least a year.

~~~
LinkPlug
How can this possibly be effective? What are that many tabs useful for?

~~~
astrobe_
Basically some people use tabs as glorified bookmarks. It feels like something
has to be invented that unite bookmarks, tabs and speed dials.

~~~
icebraining
That's me. Tabs are for short term stuff I want to check out, bookmarks for
saving potentially useful/interesting stuff for the future.

Since Firefox now only reloads tabs on demand after a restart, it's not
resource-heavy to keep many tabs open if one occasionally restarts the
browser.

~~~
sebtoast
I use it the same way but it was bugging me so I installed an add-on called
TooManyTabs and you can set a limit to the amount of tabs you can have opened.

I also reserve some time to clean them up about once a week, I start with the
oldest tab and "take care of it", sometimes it's just a news story I want to
read, sometimes it's something I kept opened because of the information on
that page.

If I don't do that I will have a thousand tabs opened and will never actually
do anything about it.

------
jboles
Hmm. I hope they don't do anything with FastMail.fm. This was a company whose
email product I was so impressed with that I still pay $15 a year for email.

Edit: looks like Fastmail bought themselves back from Opera anyway.
[https://blog.fastmail.com/2013/09/25/exciting-news-
fastmail-...](https://blog.fastmail.com/2013/09/25/exciting-news-fastmail-
staff-purchase-the-business-from-opera/)

~~~
brongondwana
Correct - we are an independent Australian company again :)

~~~
voltagex_
Your profile here says you're still involved with Opera, though.

------
superkuh
Opera hasn't been Opera since version 12.

~~~
Terr_
I am literally typing this on 12.17... Which may be a bad idea, but that one
of the main reasons I use it is because it has a built-in quick way to
enable/disable Javascript, and it's usually off.

I like to think that it leaves me safer than newer browsers with a broader
attack-surface, but really it's just so much _faster_ 95% of the time.

~~~
coldtea
> _I am literally typing this on 12.17... Which may be a bad idea, but that
> one of the main reasons I use it is because it has a built-in quick way to
> enable /disable Javascript, and it's usually off._

Can't you do that in ALL browsers, with a plugin that adds a button to your
toolbar?

~~~
acqq
In the Old Opera I can do every imaginable setting on per-site basis, and all
built in, no overhead of extensions. My default were browsing with javascript
disbaled, and enabled only for a few critical sites.

Much beter than the "ad blocker" extensions that make deal with _some_ ad
providers. Real control.

~~~
coldtea
> _In the Old Opera I can do every imaginable setting on per-site basis, and
> all built in, no overhead of extensions._

The overhead for running a few select extensions, compared to native code,
would be minimal.

And if Opera implements its native extensions as a scripting API (lots of apps
do), then zero.

~~~
acqq
> The overhead for running a few select extensions, compared to native code,
> would be minimal.

Only if the browser is designed that way. If the browser has only global
settings implementing per-site handling can impose the need of extension
reimplementing half of the browser (in extreme case, see how Google made their
"extension" of the IE which effectively installed the 90% of the Chrome inside
of IE).

And you have to trust extension authors, they can do their own things.

Old Opera had what I needed built in, it worked without the need of even
enabling javascript subsystem. I don't know of any other browser able to work
that way.

~~~
coldtea
> _Only if the browser is designed that way. If the browser has only global
> settings implementing per-site handling can impose the need of extension
> reimplementing half of the browser (in extreme case, see how Google made
> their "extension" of the IE which effectively installed the 90% of the
> Chrome inside of IE)._

That's not an extension running on IE to deactivate JS. It's a completely
different rendering engine running inside an IE shell.

The two concepts are so different it's not even worth commenting.

> _Old Opera had what I needed built in, it worked without the need of even
> enabling javascript subsystem. I don 't know of any other browser able to
> work that way._

It's trivial (one setting toggle) to disable Javascript in both Chrome and
Safari (and I presume Firefox too).

~~~
Mithaldu
I recommend you stop commenting on software whose functionality you have never
experienced and are judging based on your interpretation of second-hand
descriptions.

~~~
coldtea
I'm not sure what software is that. When you assume, etc...

I've started with Mosaic and Netscape (and on Sun OS for that matter), used
Mozilla for a few years, then FF on Windows, and finally Safari and then
Chrome for as long as both existed on the Mac (and have even used KHTML --in
the form of Konqueror-- for light browsing on my dev box for a couple of years
in the early 00s). Those, as an end user.

As a web dev for testing, besides IE, I have also fired up Opera for years,
including back when it had an ugly QT facade and with its own rendering
engine. I've never liked it though, and it never stuck to be used as the main
browser.

Being able to toggle Javascript on/off with a single checkbox: all browsers
have that.

Doing it per page: again, as I said, dead easy to add, e.g.:
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/quick-
javascript-s...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/quick-javascript-
switcher/geddoclleiomckbhadiaipdggiiccfje?hl=en)

So, "only Opera has that" is BS.

"Oh, but Opera has it built-in and I can't be bothered to install a third
party exception", on the other hand, might be true -- that doesn't make that
much of a valid reason to stick to an older browser to me eyes.

~~~
acqq
As far as I read the source of the extension it's still per tab, not dependent
on the origin of the script but just the URL of the whole tab and then it's
all or nothing, completely different from Old Opera's behavior?

> [https://github.com/maximelebreton/quick-javascript-
> switcher/...](https://github.com/maximelebreton/quick-javascript-
> switcher/blob/master/src/js/core.js)

That is, if the url of the tab is whitelisted, the code from all sites is run
in the given tab with this extension? Opera worked differently.

------
schwarrrtz
> For most Opera users, the sale came as a bit of a shock, not in the least
> because Qihoo 360 doesn’t necessarily have the best reputation.

Why doesn't Qihoo 360 have a good reputation?

~~~
z2
If I recall, from an investor presentation I was pitched on, Qihoo's crazy
user and revenue growth comes from apps that claim magical things, such as
speeding up your phone while lowering the CPU temperature and, while at it,
removing all viruses/spyware/adware/malware. There are also claims that their
4.5 star ratings on said apps are the result of fake reviews:
[http://www.pcworld.com/article/2919554/tencent-qihoo-
antimal...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/2919554/tencent-qihoo-antimalware-
firms-are-accused-of-cheating-stripped-of-rankings-in-antivirus-tests.html)

------
pingec
Hmm, what will happen with Opera Mail? I don`t really feel comfortable using
it anymore now. And there is nothing that suits me better on Windows...

------
kordless
That's OK. Not using Opera was my decision.

~~~
wantreprenr007
I always wondered why, for the longest time, they thought competing with
Chrome and Firefox was a good idea when they didn't have any compelling
durable advantages and had distinct disadvantages like not being able to set
alt search engines as default until recently and it's basically Chromium with
"richness" tweaks and branding.

Their investors were lucky to get an exit.

The well-upholstered lady sung the swan song, I'm afraid... I hope those guys
refocus on something that does change the world for the better rather
duplicate what others are already did.

~~~
umeshunni
>> they thought competing with Chrome and Firefox was a good idea

The reality is that they pre-date Chrome and Firefox, but never gained much
traction.

~~~
wantreprenr007
NCSA was before them, and Netscape (and later Mozilla after server business
didnt materialize) basically clean-room copied NCSA from scratch. Pioneers in
new directions can define space but still get slaughtered because the next
entrant (Chrome) doesn't have product inertia and has/should learned lessons
of what didn't work.

Some of it maybe popularity/marketing of not having a huge org behind them,
but odd rough-edges did more to sabotage stickiness. Plus, competing with deep
pockets giving away something for free is an unnecessary competitive war of
attrition, especially by not differentiating: most secure browser or best
browser for X/Y/Z.

~~~
Aeolos
TBH, Opera was a _much_ better browser than either Firefox or Chrome until
version 11 or so.

Unfortunately, technical prowess is not enough to gain traction. Being closed-
source and costing money (until version 8) was a much bigger factor for their
failure.

Still, back then there was simply nothing that was as fast or usable as Opera.
Rest in Peace.

~~~
bananaoomarang
I do wonder what would have happened if they'd open sourced it. The browser
landscape might be quite different.

------
RubyPinch
Gosh that just sounds like a very sad interview

------
yueq
They should be thankful since no other people would make a buy-out offer like
this.

~~~
pyre
why is that?

------
Aoyagi
And that's why you stay private.

