

Opera Browser AMA (Ask Me Anything) on reddit - katovatzschyn
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/dtbcz/hey_reddit_join_the_opera_browser_team_for_an/

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Osiris
I've been using Opera for many years. I'm so used to its features that I have
a really hard time using any other browser.

Some people think it has site compatibility issues. That was certainly true
back in versions 7, 8 and even 9, but with the latest 10.6 builds, I rarely,
if ever, find a site that doesn't work. If it doesn't it's usually due to
browser sniffing rather than actual functionality problems.

My favorite features are:

(screenshot: <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/114028/OperaScreenshot.png> )

1\. Left-side tabs - I have a wide-screen monitor, why waste the vertical
space on tabs?

2\. Visual tabs - thumbnails of the pages on the tab. I can't get along
without tab thumbnails!

3\. Speed Dial - My top 20 sites sitting right on the new tab screen. If a
site isn't on my speed dial, I probably don't visit it

4\. Address bar - type in anything and it'll search bookmarks and previously
visited sites, including the site's CONTENT, not just the URLs.

5\. Custom searches - Just right-click in any search text box and create a new
search. Assign the search a shortcut (g=google, i=google images, wi=wikipedia,
tv=tv.com, etc)

6\. Built-in IMAP/POP3 client - I use Opera's built-in email client
exclusively for personal email. The email search engine is _extremely_ fast.
Type in any word and get a list of emails in less than a second, despite
having 25,000 emails indexed. Also, whenever I get email I get a notification
right in my browser window. The sidebas constantly shows me the number of
unread emails, so no need to open Gmail in a tab to see if there's new mail. I
can also click on mailto: links and they work =)

7\. Mouse gestures - Although I only use one, I can browser with out it. I use
right-click to left-click flip gesture to go back a page all the time. I find
myself doing it in every other browser and it takes me time to figure out why
it's not working

8\. Opera Turbo - I travel a lot and use a lot of crappy hotel internet, so
Turbo is great because it compresses all the pages before downloading them,
making my browsing much faster on the slow connection

9\. Built-in RSS reader - Any page that has an RSS feed shows an icon in the
address bar. Click it to add the feed right into the Mail panel. I have a
whole list of RSS feeds I read right in the browser every day

10\. Built-in ad-blocker - Right-click on any site and choose "Block Content"
then click on the content to block. Easy.

I think most of these features are unique to Opera, and if not, many were
copied or implemented by as extensions to other browsers. Does anyone else do
visual tabs on the left?

~~~
runjake
Different strokes for different folks, but this is precisely what turns me off
about Opera. I don't want a kitchen sink. I want an uncomplicated web browser.

That web browser used to be Firefox, but it got too heavyweight for me and
Chrome's more minimalist approach became my preferred experience.

The Opera vs. The Rest argument feels a lot like the endless emacs vs. vi war
:)

~~~
pornel
Opera is just flexible and customizable. Mine doesn't even have a toolbar,
because I use gestures for everything _(edit: I mean I don't see/feel any of
the "kitchen sink" — I haven't enabled it, and I could even disable things
that clutter other browsers)_

Opera with the kitchen sink weighs less (14MB download Mac UB) than barebones
Firefox (19MB) or Chrome (30MB).

~~~
alnayyir
Kitchen sink is something you feel (UI clutter, features most users don't
want), not something you measure (megabytes).

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Firefox used to have an actual kitchen sink as an easter egg:

[http://www.mozilla.org/docs/web-
developer/samples/kitchensin...](http://www.mozilla.org/docs/web-
developer/samples/kitchensink.xml)

------
metamemetics
Reposting from: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1790843>

Why you should care about Opera:

1\. More minimal interface than Chrome. New-tab Speed-dial can be a solid
background [or image] with no extra cruft. Unlike Chrome which adds bookmarks,
recently closed, help links etc.

2\. Equivalent performance to Chrome including JavaScript.

3\. Firefox-isms while offering chrome performance. Aka Pop-in sidebars for
downloads and history rather than new tabs.

5\. CTRL-Tabbing is similar to operating system alt-tabbing. _You don't even
need a tab bar occupying screen real estate._

6\. Password manager light-up button is a superior user experience to saved
password autocomplete in Chrome and Firefox.

7\. Right click mouse gestures. [and fully navigable keyboard only]

Also, it has a very good Firefox style "Awesome Bar" that can even search
inside the text of pages in your history.

~~~
Xurinos
You will tear noscript from my cold, dead hands.

~~~
metamemetics
Opera is getting extensions, in the mean time you can use the built-in
functionality:

Preferences > Advanced > Content. Uncheck Enable JavaScript to disable it
globally.

Then when you want to manually enable JS for a single site:

Right-click anywhere on page> Site Preferences > Scripting. Check Enable
JavaScript.

~~~
Xurinos
Yes, it is extremely inconvenient (available exactly as you described), and
JavaScript is a small portion of what NoScript does for you. A quick rundown
of features as I understand them:

* blocking is the default, with whitelist enables

* quick script block for individual sources on a page; I can disable content from turner.com and revsci but can allow cnn.com when I am viewing cnn.com pages

* block is for plugins, too, and I can left-click the plugin image to selectively enable that specific plugin, whatever site it is from -- flash, silverlight, java, and other embeddings

* blacklisting sources per site or for all sites

* XSS protection

* weird script behavior protection, such as malicious attempts to overlay controls so that a user accidentally activates the wrong thing

* global override (allow all scripting temporarily)

* some cookie control

Here is a more comprehensive description: <http://noscript.net/features>

Maybe there is not a one-stop shopping for Opera, though, and I can get all
this with multiple Opera extensions? I did run down a path at one point that
made the JavaScript control more NoScripty, but the rest of NoScript's
benefits provide a too-nice user experience and sense of safety.

Note: I am not a Firefox fanboy. I just really love NoScript's help. The only
other real advantage I feel Firefox has over Opera is its JavaScript support
([https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/JavaScript#Ve...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/JavaScript#Versions)).
I periodically check to see if the next version of Chrome will support the
hooks a NoScript clone would require, and Opera periodically grabs my
attention.

~~~
madars
> Yes, it is extremely inconvenient (available exactly as you described)

There is a shortcut key for that - F12, so it's actually quite convenient :-)

------
benjoffe
I worked for Opera from the start of 2007 until the start of this year,
(webapps team). It's really fun seeing the company from the outside again,
great people, great place to work, great product; I just wish Norway suited me
better.

My main hope for Opera 11 is that they focus more on their Mac version.

------
Jkeg
I've moved on from Opera. It took them forever to implement basic usability
features such as text box spell-check, and inline password remember/find in
page. They also removed great features such as one click bookmarking. Their
widgets used to be great, one hot-key and they'd all pop-up on screen like on
OSX. Now you have to basically manage each one individually with multiple
clicks and they clutter your taskbar like crazy. Meanwhile they focus on low
value features like Unite. In the default install, it takes several clicks
just to get to your list of bookmarks (ignoring hotkeys or custimization, from
a business perspective this is bad.)

These aren't just flukes, it seems to be a pattern in their priorities that
has shifted in the past few years. Away from low friction usability and
innovative features to something a bit more convoluted. Opera used to be top
of the pack in usability, even for non-power users. But now for some reason
they lost their edge. And aside from this reddit AMA, it seems to be very
difficult to have a discussion with them about changes to the browser. They
have a suggestions forum but it seems to be mostly ignored, at least in terms
of feedback.

How about a UserVoice for Opera?

(just my analysis/opinion)

------
csomar
I have been doing massive Web Development targeting Chrome (Safari), Firefox
and certainly IE.

I also give Opera a shot from time to time. My review is: Their rendering
engine is fine, though not perfect. They have some minor problems. However,
the JavaScript engine is awful. It doesn't behave like FF or Chrome engines.
It's stupidly slow and sometimes freeze the browser. Font rendering isn't
optimal, still better than IE.

~~~
hoppipolla
I work as a core QA at Opera. Do you have examples of the javascript problems
that you experienced? We rewrote the engine for 10.50 so it's possible that
that has fixed the issues you saw. On the DOM side we are working hard with
other vendors through W3C / WHATWG / etc. to make the web specs precise enough
that we can all converge on the same behaviour.

Any bugs that you report [1] would be much appreciated.

[1] <https://bugs.opera.com/wizard/>

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zzleeper
I just came here to post about it.. there are a lot of Opera engineers there
replying to questions, so this may get interesting =)

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eli
I met some of the Opera devs at a conference a while back. They seem like they
have a lot of fun.

------
andre3k1
Unrelated question: Is Opera paying Reddit for use of their website?

Reddit should really look into this if not. There could be real money in this,
plus the community loves it!

------
yread
wow nice configs there <http://twitpic.com/2z0tdb>

[http://files.myopera.com/ruario/Pictures/eeepc_toolbar_confi...](http://files.myopera.com/ruario/Pictures/eeepc_toolbar_config.png)
!!!

