
Opera browser sold to a Chinese consortium for $600M - rnyman
https://www.engadget.com/2016/07/18/opera-browser-sold-to-a-chinese-consortium-for-600-million/
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jacek
I really like using Opera on Linux. It is the only full featured browser that
has good, scalable UI and touch input support. And builtin adblocking +
"battery saver mode" (developer version only) are really good additions.
However, I do not trust Chinese companies with my data, I will need to switch
to Firefox soon.

~~~
digi_owl
May give Vivaldi a look. Made by many of the original Opera people.

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

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subie
is this using electron?

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city41
Doesn't look to be using Electron, as Vivaldi.app/Contents/Frameworks does not
contain the Electron framework.

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roschdal
The Chinese company Kunqis failed to aquire Opera because it didn't get enough
shareholder approval. Therefore this is the plan B, where Opera sells some
assets, including the browser, to Kunqis.

Source: [http://e24.no/boers-og-finans/opera-software/opera-gaar-
for-...](http://e24.no/boers-og-finans/opera-software/opera-gaar-for-
noedloesning/23742772)

~~~
digi_owl
And even plan B is not finalized and approved by regulators etc. Meaning it
could as easily drop dead as plan A.

Frankly the engadget headline here is as hyperbolic, if not more so, than
anything The Register gets shit on for.

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dezzeus
Those controversies of Qihoo 360 (stated in Wikipedia for both the society and
the product of "360 Secure Browser") and Haier (for their partnership in the
mobile platform) can't lead to anything good for Opera (browser).

Also, the presence of a "consortium" for which I haven't read any other
relevant name sound like a way to cover the direct acquisition…

What I can see here is: \- A Chinese company trying to both comfortably beat
their (Chinese) competition while gaining (out of PRC) customers for their
"services" (which will likely be integrated within the browser); Which is
fine, except for their "controversies". \- An executive team (at Opera), that
seams pretty all about finance and economics, trying to make the most (money)
from an offer in a market (the web browsers one) that is (at least, I think
so) hard to remunerate. Obviously those shareholders will be happy; but are
those shareholders really involved into the product that they own, or they are
just silent speculators who made an investment for the sole purpose of profit
when they realized the company's potential of being acquired ?

I'm also disappointed because I used to like the effort that Opera has put
into their own browser in the latest months; the same effort that convinced me
to adopt their browser (beta version) instead of Chrome and advocate them.

P.S.: Obviously, those are just my thoughts after having read the article; I
hope for a more detailed statement from Opera…

~~~
Mithaldu
> Obviously those shareholders will be happy; but are those shareholders
> really involved into the product that they own

The shareholders are ecstatic with joy. The browser has been nothing but an
advertising front for what is factually an advertising company for years now.

The fact that you actually saw the abomination that was Opera 15 and beyond in
a positive light, instead of the truth of abandoning browser development in
favor of a token Chrome fork, speaks volumes to this strategy having worked
for them.

~~~
dezzeus
I have to say that I haven't experienced* the 12 to 15 transition that you
refer; to me Opera is just a browser that changed over the time and, because
I'm not a long date user, I never ever seen it as the advertising medium that
you say. Of course they could have chose to better differentiate themselves,
but the actual decision/strategy seems to have worked also for me.

BTW, as long as I know, they also pushed some code into Chromium so I see it
as a solid step toward the consolidation of web standards by using a common
and open base. Better achieved if performance exists as well.

[*]: Even if I occasionally tried some desktop versions of Opera during the
years, I've always preferred Firefox and later Chrome as default browser.

~~~
Mithaldu
It wasn't a transition. There is no other way to describe as this:

They threw away a perfectly functional software package with thousands of
features, and replaced it with a fork of third-party software that didn't
offer even a tenth of the features of the original package.

That said, yes, the strategy worked. The world at large swallowed their lie
because it was mostly people like you, who weren't using Opera in the first
place, and didn't know better about what really happened.

The people who suffered were their loyal users, people who had even bought
Opera at some point.

~~~
dezzeus
You get my attention and curiosity; it is a browser, what were the "features"
that you are talking about ?

At some point I've read that it had an e-mail client, later externalized; if
those are the "feature", so I'm also ok with that, as I'm more into Vim than
emacs. That's my point. If you're referencing something else, I'm curious. :)

~~~
Mithaldu
Well, the email client for one. Not only is it built in, it also functions
better than any other i've seen. You know how many email clients have a spam
folder that learns by what you drop in it and pull out of it? Opera mail
allows you to enable that auto-learning for EVERY folder. It works great.

The mail client also doubles as an RSS reader client.

Aside from that, it also has mouse gestures that are core in the browser, not
bolted on with JS addons, which means they work consistently, everywhere, and
fast. Gestures i do a lot: Right-click + wheel to change tabs, hold right tap
left to go back, hold left tap right to go forward, and various hold rought
and move mouse gestures to open new tabs, close tabs, move up a level, etc.

Then there's the performance and memory efficiency. I have 100+ tabs open and
the thing sits at 2 GB with my email story as well. Right-click + wheel
scrolls me through tabs at basically display refresh rate, chrome can't even
switch that fast.

A very powerful url blocker that can be configured per-domain is built in, and
is faster than _any_ kind of js-based addon could ever dream of.

I can actually manually edit menu and toolbar ini files and even add macros
and javascript bits right there. For example i use that to add menu entries to
right-click on links to open those links in other browsers.

I can edit text-based style descriptor files with additional image files to
completely restyle the browser effortlessly.

Getting to the screen where i can view and edit cookies for the active page
directly takes me 3 clicks.

I can configure activation, deactivation of js, plugins (flash, etc.), even
animated images per site with 3 clicks, globally with 2 or a hotkey. I can
tell plugins like flash to load on demand, i.e. _only_ when i click on them or
tell the page to start loading plugins by clicking in the adress bar.

I can add browser-wide custom css, or site-specific custom css, again, 3
clicks.

I can disable all CSS for the active page with one click.

It has a note-taking facility built-in that doubles as "richer" bookmark
manager, and also serves to give strings for auto-complete suggesting when
typing in input fields.

It has one-button keyboard shortcuts, e.g. "seach in page" is "." for me.

I can have a vertical tab bar and a horizontal one at the same time.

I can open a list of all links on the current page, filter it by various
conditions, select the ones i want and hit "download these to a folder" in one
action.

I can add custom panels in the side panel by adding urls there, which is where
i keep a bunch of "translate this word" things.

And that's just scratching the surface. I could go on for a long time. And
keep in mind: It has all this stuff in it, and excluding JS engine
performance, still outperforms Chrome and Firefox. JS being slower and SSL
compatibility slowly going kaput are the only actual downsides.

~~~
dezzeus
> [...] it also has mouse gestures that are core in the browser [...]

> It has one-button keyboard shortcuts [...]

> I can configure activation, deactivation of js, plugins (flash, etc.) [...]
> I can tell plugins like flash to load on demand [...]

> I can have a vertical tab bar and a horizontal one at the same time.

All of this is still here.

> [...] I have 100+ tabs open and the thing sits at 2 GB [...]

I'm not used to leave opened such a large number of tabs, but even today's
Opera seems to handle them quite good (I may be wrong, but I think that
Chromium smartly remove some tabs from memory and reload them later, on demand
and with cache).

> A very powerful url blocker [...]

If you really need this, I think that /etc/hosts is the way.

> I can actually manually edit menu and toolbar ini files [...]

> I can add custom panels in the side panel [...]

> I can open a list of all links on the current page, filter it by various
> conditions, select the ones i want and hit "download these to a folder" in
> one action.

Perhaps extensions (which I do not use) are designed to simplify and customize
the process...

> I can edit text-based style [...] to completely restyle the browser
> effortlessly.

Not really a feature, but a "nice to have". As for myself, I'm ok with the OS-
native look.

> Getting to the screen where i can view and edit cookies [...]

> I can disable all CSS for the active page with one click.

I think that you can achieve the same result from the Inspector with a couple
of more clicks (that's not a behavior that most users need).

:)

~~~
Mithaldu
Not gonna bother to answer in detail because you are not worth the time, but
you're making assumptions without actually knowing how the features work, and
you're quite wrong in your assumptions.

~~~
dezzeus
I was just trying to mitigate your disappointment ;)

------
makecheck
I really wish promising technology couldn’t be seriously damaged simply by
being “bought”. Perhaps there should be a law that says something like: fine,
you can buy this but you must permanently open-source a snapshot of that
product from 2 years ago (ensuring some legacy regardless of your actions).

Yes, Opera might be fine. It might even end up better. If history tells us
anything though, new management can cause a lot of problems. The term
“consortium” doesn’t exactly scream “experts at moving technology forward”.
One of the companies where I worked was bought by a “consortium”, and I saw
some very…interesting decisions made back then.

Opera wasn’t special because of a dollar figure; it was special because of its
_attitude_ toward technology. If a consortium values return over anything
else, they risk alienating too many of the people that made Opera successful.

~~~
794CD01
Their attitude has proven to be largely unsuccessful. Why should they be
obligated to preserve it?

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lytedev
Is Opera fairly popular in other countries? I have a feeling this won't go
over well with a large portion of the U.S.-based power-users that use it...

~~~
toomanythings4
It's very popular in countries and continents like India, Asia and Africa.
Specifically on small, cheap phones.

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justinlardinois
Do these phones typically run Android? Or older OSes that have a mobile JVM?

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gsnedders
Mostly Android nowadays, far as I'm aware.

~~~
toomanythings4
So are you going with them, Geoffrey?

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biocomputation
Time to uninstall from my phone.

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vasili111
I remember the times of Opera 12.... :(

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Mithaldu
I still use Opera 12 as my main browser in TYOOL 2016, with menu entries and
buttons to load horrible JS abominations in Chrome.

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lostmsu
Time to delete Opera Link account, and uninstall the Mini :(

~~~
Quai
I'm sorry to tell you that your Opera Link (not to be confused with Opera
Sync, the syncing platform for the new products) has already been deleted.
Opera stopped providing the Opera Link service December last year.

The servers has been decommissioned, and according to Norwegian law, the user
data has been deleted.

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amaks
Now it's going to start reporting to (new) mothership. Whatever that means.

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Gustomaximus
Out of interest does can anyone know/can say why Mahi de Silva and Erik
Harrell left? Seemed sudden in each case.

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inthewoods
Anyone trying out Brave? www.brave.com

