
 Google Service Drops Support for Opera - telemachos
http://planetbotch.blogspot.no/2012/06/google-service-drops-support-for-opera.html
======
Xcelerate
This whole "supporting browsers" thing should be gone, and very soon. There
are specifications that browser makers should follow, and if they are all
supporting those specifications, then they well be well-supported.

The only differentiator between page rendering among browsers should really be
speed.

(I believe Opera is actually one of the browsers that adheres most closely to
the specs.)

~~~
ta12121
LOL

Opera _is_ the browser that adheres to the specifications most closely, and
yet it is the least usable. Why? Because web developers don't test with it.
Specs are irrelevant. Testing is relevant, and testing is caused by
marketshare.

~~~
el_presidente
Yeah, Google's reverse image search is unusable with Opera... unless you
change the user agent string and tell Google you're using Firefox.

Then they whine about how Facebook and Apple are trying to destroy the open
web.

~~~
okamiueru
Quick tip: On images.google.com, go to 'Quick preferences' (either F12 or
right click on the page), hit 'Edit site preference', then set the user agent
under the 'Network' tab.

I'm tempted to do this for all google related services, because they are such
browser prudes.

------
Zenst
Worry given of all the browsers Opera has been the most standards compliant.
No reason why Google can't support it as by supporting other browsers they
supoprt Opera and with that if you change the browser ID then it just works -
funny that.

I Have noticed that Facebook have been bashing google indirectly and directly
and maybe Opera are deemed part of Facebook now for some reason and got
dragged into this.

I have also noticed the google search landing page having below in effect
adverts for there new products <https://www.google.co.uk/> gives me the line
below with link to buy a chromebook "From zero to online in seconds.
Introducing the new Chromebook" - same results nomatter what browser I use.

Not sure if Facebook have purchased Opera and google got wind of it and acting
all evil or if it is a gross oversight. Either way something smells.

~~~
zevyoura
I'm not sure what you mean by the last sentence, but despite rumors, Facebook
has not bought Opera. I highly doubt Google would punish Opera because they
_might_ be bought by Facebook.

~~~
asto
I don't know about google but I "punished" them already when I heard they're
looking to sell and the buyer might be facebook. I doubt it's just me.

Opera is not open source, they distribute only binaries. If the new buyer
stuffs it with rubbish you don't want, there's nothing you can do about it
other than switch. Might as well switch to chrome and learn to use chrome's
developer tools when I'm not in the middle of something.

Of course, I will continue to test anything I make on Opera, it's just been
dropped as my primary browser.

------
rch
I didn't use Wave because it didn't work in Opera, and apparently I chose
correctly.

My assumption is that the Blogger service is faced with cutting costs, and
dropping non-mainstream browsers makes sense in that context. So, at the
moment I see this as a negative indicator for Blogger, not for Opera.

Wake me when Gmail or Voice officially drops support.

------
jfaucett
google is frankly starting to enrage me, they are seeming to become more and
more a company with only one obvious goal - own the internet. They have made
some good products ( the chrome developer tools are great ), but I'm sick of
them just blowing over anyone or anything that stands in their seeming quest
towards a complete monopoly ( the google books settlement is a good example ).
What happen to the good ol days where google at least seemed open and
supportive of the internet, its community, and innovation?

~~~
zevyoura
The Chrome Developer tools are almost entirely based on the open source Webkit
Web Inspector.

~~~
rieter
Which was mostly developed by Google. They are the biggest contributor to open
source WebKit these days, eclipsing even Apple.

------
hugh4life
"The reason I felt it important to pass on this news to non-Opera users is
that I’m wondering if Google are going to stop at Opera? I get the sense that
this could be the thin end of a wedge, and that Opera may not be the only
browser which ends up getting the cold shoulder."

I doubt Google will give a cold shoulder to browsers with actual market share.

I'm glad Opera exists to keep a check on the other browser makers... I'm also
glad Opera only has 1% market share so I can ignore it when I make own
websites.

~~~
sp332
A user base of 300,000,000 means they can't have less than 4.2% market share,
even if the whole population of the earth were online.

~~~
simonw
I'm pretty sure that number includes opera mini / opera mobile users. I don't
know what the numbers for opera desktop are but I'm certain they're a fraction
of opera's mobile offerings.

~~~
mbrubeck
Yup. According to Statcounter data from last month, Opera accounts for about
2% of desktop page views and 21% of mobile page views worldwide.

~~~
recoiledsnake
It's still a significant number overall and has large shares in some
countries. From the Wiki:

As of December 2011 Opera has a 1.3% to 2.6% worldwide usage share of web
browsers.[111]

The browser has been more successful in Eastern Europe, including about 47%
market share in 2009 in Georgia, 43% in Ukraine, 39% in Kazakhstan, 36% in
Russia, and 8–11% in Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, and the Czech Republic.[112]

In July 2011, Opera broke its previous download records when Opera 11.50 was
released and was recorded to be downloaded 35 million times during the first
week of release

------
nodrama
Go Opera! Go!

How would one buy a computer in East Europe?

You go to some PC shop (the vast majority of them were not in a chain of
shops, just one guy selling PCs in one area and that's it). You barely had
enough money for the machine so nobody was buying software. Anyway, the shop
owner (a technical person) knew that it can't work unless he installs some OS.
So Windows was installed for free. They could also install some other software
for a small fee (the fee was for the work to install it and not for software),
or you could buy CDs with software. When they installed software they would
usually install the best there was (because anyway, nobody was paying for it
so why not?). That meant best software in the category and the latest version
of that software. For browsers that meant Opera.

How did you fix the PC?

You just get you technical friend to do it or the shop owner that sold you the
PC. When these people would see that you still use IE they would (start to cry
and) immediately install what they used: Opera.

So Opera adoption was driven by technical people installing, repairing PCs.

Why it's not so popular elsewhere?

Marketing. MS was telling you how to get on the internet in ads. Firefox was
fighting a big monster in articles. I don't recall seeing either for Opera at
the time.

------
manojlds
As a long time Opera user, I have always seen Google treat Opera badly. When
Google+ came, I didn't realise there was the notifications bar until I logged
into Chrome. It never came on Opera.

~~~
recoiledsnake
Wow that's a very good point. I heard people talking about the bar but never
saw it myself because I always use Opera. Ironically, they hurt themselves a
little because G+ needs all the help it can.

------
golgo13
As a long time Opera user, I like to say that I am proudly part of the 1%!

~~~
ams6110
I don't use opera, but I guess I'm part of the other 1% in that I don't use
any google services (outside of basic search).

------
giZm0
"They’re not exactly forcing Blogger users who currently run Opera to migrate
to Chrome, but they are making Opera untenable, and suggesting Chrome in its
placev"

I have also had this feeling that Google is trying to monopolize the web.
Hopefully this is only a misstep or my paranoia.

Chrome is very nice browser, but so is also Opera!

~~~
godDLL
Is it routine for you to have `feelings` about Google, or what it's trying
giZm0? We don't usually share feelings on in this forum.

------
cleverjake
"they are making Opera untenable"

I disagree. Opera's desktop marketshare is making Opera untenable. Even though
Google is a major corporation, I doubt they can afford to spend the time
fixing issues in a browser that gets lower single digit uses. Its not
economically viable. No one will argue that Opera is a better browser than
IE8, but IE8's marketshare dictates it should be supported.

Google is no more forcing users to use chrome than they are forcing them to
use firefox or IE

~~~
azakai
> Even though Google is a major corporation, I doubt they can afford to spend
> the time fixing issues in a browser that gets lower single digit uses.

You're joking, I hope? Of course Google has the resources. It's one of the
biggest companies in tech.

Not only does Google have the money to do it, but it really looks bad by not
supporting Opera and telling people to use Chrome. Just to prevent that bad
publicity it would be worth the money to just support Opera.

Furthermore, yes, Opera has low market share - a few percent globally. But it
has very high market share in a few countries in Europe. Not supporting Opera
is basically saying they don't support that country. Again, wouldn't it be
worth the very small cost (in Google terms) to just support Opera?

~~~
mtgx
Didn't Google give up on IE6 for some of their services when it had less than
20% market share? Opera has 1-2% market share. Granted, it should be a lot
easier to tweak their code for Opera, but the difference in market share is
pretty big, too.

~~~
luchs
>Granted, it should be a lot easier to tweak their code for Opera

In fact, most things would just work in Opera as they do in the other browser
if there weren't any Opera-specific sniffing code in place locking Opera out.

~~~
eli
If that's literally true then isn't this not really a problem? Opera has a
user agent switcher built in, no?

------
Yarnage
I love Opera; it's incredibly fast (until the past few years Opera was king of
the JavaScript speed) and very standards compliant. I hope this doesn't become
a trend.

~~~
jonknee
As long as it's standards compliant, it shouldn't be too bad of an experience.

~~~
jarek
You can support all the standards you want but it won't help you if the server
sends you a gimped page because your user agent string doesn't contain
"Webkit."

------
pigboy
I started using Opera in the days when its free version was supported by
adware (I actually purchased a license). It was always a technical innovator,
so the question of why it failed to garner market share is a good one. The
answer, of course, is that technical superiority is never a prerequisite for
commercial success. Marketing trumps engineering every time.

------
chickenlittle
Philosophically, I'd like every web page/app/widget/etc to be browser
agnostic, and deliver an A-Grade user experience; but this is getting blown
out of proportion.

1\. Blogger ditching support for Opera, means the population that uses Opera
to administer a Blogger blog is affected. Of all Opera users, how many
administer a Blogger blog?

2\. Browsers are just applications. Doesn't mean you have to do _everything_
in one browser. Administer your Blogger blog in not-Opera; use Opera to
consume your favorite web cotent.

Easy solution? Download another browser. If it upsets you that much, move your
blog to another platform.

------
jbeammm
Google is pushing all other browsers out of their way. How is this not evil?

~~~
Teapot
Opera walks on to a site. And Google says: We dont serve _your_ kind here.

------
Karunamon
>I get the sense that this could be the thin end of a wedge

 _sigh_

Can Google do nothing without invoking the "evil slippery slope"?

------
bulibuta
I see a lot of posts here make fun of opera.

Just a gentle reminder: they are the ones that invented tabs among other
things.

~~~
jfaucett
your comment got me curious. It looks like opera was not the one "that
invented tabs" after all. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tab_(GUI)>

~~~
Dylan16807
Browser tabs.

~~~
iso-8859-1
>in 1994, BookLink Technologies featured tabbed windows in its InternetWorks
browser.

~~~
Dylan16807
Opera at least had MDI then, though I don't know the exact timeline of making
that more convenient.

------
velodrome
I really want to like opera....it tends to be a memory hog (at least for me)
and it tries to do too many things. In any case, if they open sourced the
software it might see more adoption.

Opera does not take a lot of dev work at all. I do like some of the dev tools
(unlike firefox - excluding firebug).

I could never get opera to work properly on Google Apps. Lets be honest, it's
not like google made an effort to begin with.

I just find this kind of odd. It's kinda like when Microsoft thought it was
too hard to support Firefox on msn.com. Look how that turned out.

~~~
yareally
I think you are confusing Firefox with Opera:

<http://news.cnet.com/2100-1032-1008869.html>

<http://people.opera.com/howcome/2003/2/msn/>

------
filip01
Browser war upcoming. Facebook recently added Chrome to their list of
unsupported browsers ([http://www.zurb.com/article/991/facebooks-unsupported-
browse...](http://www.zurb.com/article/991/facebooks-unsupported-browsers-
whats-goin)) and this is obviously a counter-attack from Google. Google seem
to be pretty sure that Facebook will in fact buy Opera.

------
dreamdu5t
Opera should turn the tables and add "webkit" to their user agent string.

Don't just back down Google because they have clout.

~~~
andyking
Opera has user-agent switching built in. You can just masquerade as Chrome.

------
rachelbythebay
Opera owns fastmail.fm. fastmail.fm could be seen as competition to Gmail.
Related?

~~~
Gustomaximus
I would think Fastmail is fairly insignificant to the Google thinking. My
guess is they are most interested in the mobile presence, especially as Opera
are moving further into advertising. Also they would probably like to see them
generally weakened so a competitor can't use them as a entry point such as
Facebook recently attempting to purchase Opera.

------
recoiledsnake
When I do web development, I test in Opera at the very end after I have fixed
all issues in IE, Firefox, Chrome and Safari and guess what?

I never had to make one tweak for Opera. Ever. Opera has almost a religious
focus on coding to standards. While I bet there are specific issues with
implementation, whatever happened to the concept of coding to the standard and
let browsers do their work?

Do Blogger features really need HTML5 WebGL 2.0 or something? I can understand
some layout issues and willing to excuse them, but to not support them
functionality wise is really sad, especially when you're the biggest web
property on the internet. This is a throwback to the days of "Best works in
IE(TM)".

To add insult to injury, I sometimes get messages like "Need a faster browser,
Get Chrome" on Gmail.

~~~
luriel
> This is a throwback to the days of "Best works in IE(TM)".

Exactly, it seems that a whole new generation of web developers have forgotten
history.

Is sad that when we thought we had left behind those awful times, and that we
had learned the lesson, we have Google kicking us back to the dark ages of the
web.

If standards are worth anything, all browsers that follow them should be
supported equally.

~~~
esbwhat
The c't had a good opening "story" about this a couple months back. I, for
one, will keep using firefox even if chrome is tempting, because I haven't
forgotten what happened the last time someone got a monopoly on the browser
market: The stiflement of web evolution for a decade.

And make no mistake, IE6 was revolutionary at it's time too.

Google is abusing it's monopoly on search and other things to convert people
to chrome. Good, in many ways (if you visit google with an old IE, it displays
a chrome ad). But now that I think about it, I'd rather have to bear IE for a
year or two than give google the power over what becomes part of the web and
what doesn't. Anyone remember flash?

------
voxx
It's been this way for a long time. Opera is such a fantastic browser, it's a
shame to see giants like Google turn their backs to it for whatever reason.

