

300 million users strong, Opera moves to WebKit - andreastt
http://my.opera.com/haavard/blog/2013/02/13/webkit

======
DeepDuh
As someone who's been a longtime Opera user before switching to Chrome (buggy
release around 10.x, weakening site compatibility) I'm so glad to read this.
This decision shows the quality of engineers who work at Opera - not afraid to
throw a huge chunk of code away if it doesn't serve the company anymore the
way it was intended. Thinking about it I can't make up a single example of a
large software house doing such a thing.

Looking forward to get my neat features again, such as fast forward, hotkey
bindings, Opera turbo..

~~~
franciscoap
Back in the day, Netscape did a full rewrite between major versions. There's a
Spolsky blog post about it:
<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html>

Very interesting read.

~~~
dagw
This is totally different. They're not re-writing their application from
scratch, but replacing a core component with a popular, well tested and widely
support one.

~~~
franciscoap
Indeed it is -- GP only mentioned he didn't know any example of a large amount
of code being thrown out, so I provided one.

------
SoftwareMaven
_The web may not be fully open, but it is far more open than the closed world
of "apps"._

(Of topic, perhaps...)

I hear this a lot, and I think, for the most part, web applications aren't
remotely open (in general). While I can use any computer to connect to a web
site, very few sites actually allow me to get my data out of them. In short,
in my opinion, open access to data trumps open access by various clients.

On the one hand, we have systems that I can connect to with any OS I want but
where my data is completely out of my control. On the other hand, we have
walled gardens where the data sits, literally, in the palm of my hand. Both
situations are ugly, but in the former, if I want my data, I have to pray the
developers left me a method to do so. In the latter, it may not be trivial,
but it is almost always possible[1].

I wish we had truly open systems across the board. Until we do, I vote we stop
calling web systems open, because they are only open in terms of access, and
that's not good enough.

1\. For example, jailbreak, log in, and scp a SQLite db. Certainly not trivial
but at least doable. In no way would I actually call this "open". I just think
it is less closed than most web applications.

~~~
rodion_89
You still have "to pray the developers left" you a method to get the data in
either case as native apps are simply the client-side of an application (just
like a web apps).

The "openness" of the web is mostly referring to the technology stack (open
source rendering engines), the standards, and the freedom of distribution. All
of those points are not fully "open" and that's what I think they're referring
to when they say that "the web may not be fully open".

------
muyuu
Terrible news.

This means basically giving up on standards-based compatibility.

Not bad news for Opera - maybe good news for the browser - but an ominous sign
on what the web is becoming.

~~~
supercoder
Whatever Opera do doesnt cause us to give up anything.

~~~
Millennium
No, but it encourages other developers to do so, which will encourage other
browser makers to do what Opera did. This is a massive step back for real
standards as protocols, toward the bad old days of fake "standards" as
implementations.

------
gkoberger
Interesting. Opera makes most of their revenue through licensing their
rendering engine. That's how they've turned their ~2% marketshare into $180MM
in revenue (compared to, say, Mozilla's ~26% and $300MM).

I wonder how this will affect that.

[EDIT: I mixed up currencies; fixed it.]

~~~
jsnell
I find those numbers hard to believe. Are you sure your currency conversions
are correct?

~~~
masklinn
Likely, Opera Software had a revenue of NOK 900M in 2011, and USD 1 ~ NOK 5
yielding a ~USD 180M revenue. So his comment is only correct if you compare
without conversion (Opera Software is indeed a billion a year in revenue, but
that's a billion NOK)

------
rartichoke
I'm not sure if this will change much for end users. I'm a long time Opera
user and some sites will just lock you out unless you use Chrome or FF even if
Opera likely has an implementation that is more standards compliant than both
browsers.

Even sites like Udacity's course viewer did this (maybe they changed it, I
haven't been there in a week).

So while Opera might be using the same rendering engine as Chrome, you'll
still get locked out because web apps are setup to investigate user agents to
determine who gets in.

I'm not sure if I like or dislike this change. I feel like testing sites
between Opera, Chrome, FF and IE I had a better chance of eliminating all
rendering bugs.

Opera I feel was/is the best candidate for ensuring your code was correct.

------
lucb1e
Yes, website compatibility is one of the major issues of Opera. The second
thing is lack of support in terms of add-ons and such, but I don't see how
they can help that. This might just get more people to use Opera as their
desktop browser though. Every time I test a website on Opera, I'm like "I
should really give this browser a chance". But every time that I try it for an
evening, I notice the shortcomings in support (by websites, add-ons, etc.).

Back then I was used to having fifteen add-ons in Firefox, but after Mozilla
made one bad choice after another, I moved to Chrome and live by Adblock Plus
and some own userscripts and bookmarklets now. Perhaps Opera isn't as much of
a culture shock anymore to use, especially with the Webkit engine.

I do wonder if they considered Mozilla's Gecko engine. It has a smaller
userbase I think, but does that automatically mean it wouldn't be the right
choice? They don't say a word about this.

All in all, I do applaud the change. It's a hard step to take after you've
been working on your own engine for years, but they've done it, and it will
probably add a lot in terms of website support.

~~~
Arelius
> I do wonder if they considered Mozilla's Gecko engine.

Gecko has a lot of legacy, and to be fair, even Mozilla has tentative plans to
transition off of gecko, to be replaced by servo:
<https://github.com/mozilla/servo>

~~~
zobzu
I don't think it has to do with servo, which is really just a research
project.

Gecko is a lot harder to embed (so yes, legacy is and issue here), and webkit
is compatible with more sites (as sites are now often "designed for webkit"
and use specific webkit-only extensions)

Makes the choice very easy and logical IMO. Not really good for the web, but
maybe not a bad idea for Opera. Time will tell.

~~~
masklinn
> Gecko is a lot harder to embed (so yes, legacy is and issue here)

Gecko embedding is also unsupported since May 2011:
[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.embeddin...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.embedding/c_NMcO-N8wo/discussion)

------
glazskunrukitis
We can hope that someday IE will make the move too.

~~~
anoopelias
Given the way MS is embracing OpenSource ( git, TypeScript ) that day may not
be too far.

------
crazytony
I guess this makes sense if you look at it from a phone/tablet manufacturers
perspective: A manufacturer wouldn't necessarily have the desire to implement
their own browser on top of webkit so they want a company (rules out Mozilla)
that will support a web browser on their phone without also being a
competitor.

The problem I think is that the non-aligned phone manufacturers are going the
way of the dodo. You have Nokia committing to WM8, Apple on iOS with Safari
and most others committing to Android. In theory a manufacturer could go
Android + Opera but why license Opera when you can get Chrome for free?

That being said: Opera has always done a great job fighting against massive
odds. I hope this move gives them the breathing room they need to keep going.

------
sikhnerd
More good discussion at this submission:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5211953>

------
meerita
A wise move for Opera. Now they can hire webkit-engineers from anywere without
heavy training on their model.

------
bzalasky
This is a good thing for everyone that uses Webkit browsers.

------
chevalric
what exactly defines a "monthly user" for Opera and how is that measured? Is
it based on usage statistics, or is it just number of installed/downloaded
clients?

~~~
odinho
Usage. Installed/downloaded is very high.

------
iomike
The number says 300 million, but my actual website stats, of over 1 million
uniques per month, show it less than .75%

~~~
papsosouid
That is why it is dangerous to draw conclusions from small sample sizes, and
why useful samples need to be random. Your website does not attract random
people, so it is not an accurate sample. Opera usage varies massively by
country for example, is your website available in Czech? If not, your sample
will self select to have fewer opera users.

------
skc
Hmm, any bets on how long before the folks at Mozilla make the move as well?
It seems inevitable at this point.

~~~
zobzu
I don't think Mozilla will ever switch. The reason why they've their own
engine and try to keep a decent marketshare (which they do indeed have), is to
be able to have a say on web standards, and the web in general.

Having a say ensure there isn't a single voice taking decisions that led us to
things like IE6. And we're actually starting to see IE6-ish stuff happening
with webkit, as it's nearly the only rendering engine for mobile.

One vendor != good for standards.

Oh also, their engine happens to be pretty close to webkit performance wise.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
I would think one vendor would be great for standards: it _is_ the standard.
It sucks for any kind of innovation, though, as IE6 shows incredibly well.

Out if curiosity, what IE6-ish things do you see WebKit doing?

~~~
LeonidasXIV
> I would think one vendor would be great for standards: it is the standard.

Well, IE6 was the standard. See how many sites were "optimized" for IE6 and
getting them to render in a browser that supported these pesky underdog W3C
standards was bound to fail.

> Out if curiosity, what IE6-ish things do you see WebKit doing?

Not quite the same, but the -webkit CSS prefix that people use without a
fallback for other browsers: webkit browsers display the stuff and on e.g.
Firefox or Opera it looks broken, because nobody cares to add a -moz or -o
prefixed version, or even the non-prefixed version.

------
trustfundbaby
What will be the first release with Webkit as the rendering engine?

~~~
rplnt
My guess would be the next major release, that is 13.00 for Desktop and
Mobile.

------
astrojoy
I feel compelled to jump in and give a warning about Opera. I also know that
the herd mind will probably pound my comment into oblivion, which is why I
made a new account.

Opera is scammy, unreliable software. DO NOT DO MISSION CRITICAL WORK WITH
THIS BROWSER. It will flake out on you in so many uncanny ways its not funny.

Also, Opera had the weird habit of becoming my default browser on my Win 7
machine repeatedly, despite me never doing so and only referencing it for
testing purposes.

That, along with Opera having the top 3 spots on HN's front page further
indicates to me that Opera is not for real. Like I mean, come on. How many of
these submissions and upvotes are fake.

Opera, you're not on the up and up and you know it.

TL;DR: Don't trust Opera.

~~~
lucb1e
The reason why you made a new account seems to be because you're not giving
any arguments for your warning. Opinions with reasons are usually upvoted by
HN.

I personally never had Opera become the default browser, nor did I have any
other problems than compatibility with it (which is normal, given their market
share). I also don't think the upvotes are fake.

So, why exactly "SHOULD WE NOT DO MISSION CRITICAL WORK WITH THIS BROWSER"?

~~~
klibertp
Perhaps because it's all caps? I can see no other justification :)

