
Adventures in Opera Unite - nreece
http://michaelodden.com/development/adventures-in-opera-unite/
======
delirium
Another possible way this can come to use would be an alternative to Google
Gears, where in users would be able to do offline web naviagation, provided
there is a sync API and a datastore available in the browser itself

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froo
Sorry to be flogging a dead horse, but I just want to raise a point again.

From the article:

 _"Opera’s idea is that you should be able to share your own data easily and
with whoever you want,"_

If anyone at Opera reads this, here is a (very short) list of a few things in
the browser that allow you to do just that.

<http://www.facebook.com> <http://www.gmail.com> <http://docs.google.com>
<http://www.flickr.com> <http://www.youtube.com> <http://www.drop.io>
<http://www.tinypic.com> <http://www.getdropbox.com> <http://www.box.net>
<http://www.photobucket.com> <http://www.vimeo.com>
<http://www.rapidshare.com> <http://www.megaupload.com> <http://www.me.com>
etc etc etc...

This is what is called reinventing the wheel. All Opera has managed to figure
out is how people can share their data SLOWLY and with less availability
(unless you leave your computer connected 24x7) than these pre-existing
services.

Opera FAIL.

~~~
GvS
Most of those sites filter what you upload, doesn't allow some content and
limit your possibilities.

I often see messages like: "Wait 60 seconds before...", "This video is not
available in your country", "Your account has been banned because we say so".

You are also limited by some laws that normaly don't apply to you, because
service is located in other country. You often have to deal with popups and
ugly banners.

Speed might be the only problem, but sometimes freedom is worth it.

~~~
froo
Let me address some of your problems.

 _"Most of those sites filter what you upload, doesn't allow some content and
limit your possibilities."_

Yes, because most of those sites are content specific (eg, youtube is for
videos, not documents)

That being said, there are sites like Rapidshare which don't.

 _I often see messages like: "Wait 60 seconds before..."_

Ok, let's assume you mean rapidshare. Well, let's do a little analysis of that
shall we. I have the fastest home connection available in my country - 24 mbit
adsl. My max download speeds are around 2mb/s down and 70kb/sec up.

So, assuming I am downloading a 50mb file from a friend and he has a similar
connection to mine, it would take about 11 minutes to download directly from
him, or 1.5 minutes to download from rapidshare (which includes the 60 second
wait time).... no contest. When you're sharing files with multiple people,
this becomes more apparent which is the superior solution.

 _"This video is not available in your country"_

Well I live in Australia, we have some of the most restrictive distribution
deals when it comes to media content and I've only ever seen those kinds of
messages from places like the TV networks and Hulu. I don't think this really
applies to peer content, so the point is moot.

 _"Your account has been banned because we say so"._

If you're sharing illegal content or content that is of a questionable nature,
then of course you're going to get banned. Either way, the point still stands
about the speeds given a lot of this content would be video, which doesn't
really scale for home connections.

 _"You are also limited by some laws that normaly don't apply to you, because
service is located in other country."_

You would also be limited by the exact same laws if someone is downloading
from your computer who lives in another country.

 _"You often have to deal with popups"_

None of the sites I linked above showed me a popup when I visited them to make
sure all the links work....

 _"and ugly banners."_

So far, the only valid point you've made.... and that is easily avoidable with
adblockers.

 _"Speed might be the only problem"_

Well, it's a pretty big problem if you want to share on any kind of scale.

 _"but sometimes freedom is worth it."_

Freedom how? Unless you are doing some seriously shady shit, most of the above
services won't even blink an eyelid at what you're doing.

~~~
vorador
_Freedom how? Unless you are doing some seriously shady shit, most of the
above services won't even blink an eyelid at what you're doing._

I know that facebook has banned photos related to breastfeeding.

Your arguments are practical but it's an ethical problem. Some people care
about their freedom (for instance by only using free software) and don't want
to have their personal data freely available on the internet.

~~~
froo
_and don't want to have their personal data freely available on the internet._

With a lot of the sites I mentioned above, you do have the option of privacy
settings so that only certain users can see files.

So the point is still moot. Opera is embedding something into their browser
that firefox has had as an extension since sometime last year
(<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3002>) and that people who
really cared about could have easily downloaded apache... yet are claiming it
as a revolutionary idea?

What's more, it's an impractical idea at it's core, which is why the practise
hasn't taken off in any previous incarnations (speed is a fairly big issue for
a lot of users), meanwhile these social sharing websites continue to flourish.

Lastly and this is a real testament to just how much Opera has missed the
mark, they also want to implement their own protocol (unite://) for it to
actually work in some cases?

Dumb from the get go.

~~~
vorador
_and that people who really cared about could have easily downloaded apache_

And what if I'm not a techie but I still want to control my data ?

 _With a lot of the sites I mentioned above, you do have the option of privacy
settings so that only certain users can see files._

And what if I don't want my data to be stored and later used by systems like
Facebook Beacon ?

~~~
froo
_"And what if I'm not a techie but I still want to control my data ?"_

Then if you were really paranoid about controlling your data - you don't share
it, at least not on a publicly accessible network like the internet. It's a
simple concept.

 _"And what if I don't want my data to be stored and later used by systems
like Facebook Beacon ?"_

It already is, whether you like it or not, eg, Google.

