hi all, just have read that Opera is now giving their browser away for free, without banner ads and I thought I should inform ya (...only a few copies left, hehe j/k ;O)

Last time I touched opera must have been in 1999, now I'm gonna check out if I missed something since that time ;O)


greetz+cyaz

sensai

@guenter: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/64079

Well, but doesn't works with w98se.

No problem, I prefer K-Meleon which is free

Works for w98se (it was an error on clubic site)

But I always choose the same browser

danke - aber nein danke.

"No problem, I prefer K-Meleon which is free"

you mean free as in terms of open-source I suppose, yep I agree somehow, whereupon the modifications that are done to k-meleon doesn't seem to be free at all anymore, at least I never saw anyone providing the sources for his 'builds' here. Moreover I remember ra asking for the sources of the modifications (refering to the gpl) a while back and his demands seemed to be ignored. My feeling is that the only available sources of km are from the org. build (which is outdated imo) and the ones from dorian. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I also don't think I would make opera as my default browser, I'm happy with my km as it is, adapted to my needs. I didn't even install opera yet ;O) But I'm quite sure I would always favor it over the bloated firefox cause of its professional background.

"But I always choose the same browser "

yep, me too, but since here are people like carson with loads of partions and also loads of different k-meleon versions (16?) on them, I thought it wouldn't harm to inform them that they are able to expand their hardrives a bit ;O)

but, nvm,

cyaz

Sensai, thank you very much indeed for this.

The first thing I did was download Opera.

The second thing was read about why.

It is quite surprising, and I think it is very good news. It is obviously a marketing ploy, and likely a good one. Opera is hoping to expand its popularity, so that it can make money in related browsing fields. So many other software products do this as well. The free version attracts the multitudes, who become the best advertising the product could have. And then corporations or niches are willing to pay money for their own more specialized uses for the product.

I was a critic of Opera formerly using the word "free". Words are constantly eroded in their meanings and their effect, as people are either abusive or just careless in the way they use words. Commerce has pretty well wrecked the word "free", which is an important word NOT to wreck. But nothing is free when there are strings attached; you can't have "free WHEN you buy two other pairs" or "free IF you agree to . . . ."

Those are just conditional sales. They have nothing to do with "free".

So, seeing as Opera was not about to change its use of the word, I am very glad that it has changed its use of the browser.

Although the good folks at Opera once had a heart attack, and actually removed a post of mine about this issue, I notice that they are now calling their browser "free"--as though they never called it free when it wasn't.

Go figger.
;-)

I suspect their true goal is to build a list of email addresses to resell (much like gmail's "invite only" method of signup. Just how long is that thing going to remain "beta" anyway?!). Notice how they insist on an email address, but then give you the unlock code right there in your browser. The only reason for that is if they're trying to build an email database for some reason. If you go to get this, use a fake email address.

More on that . . . When I set up my shiny new Opera 8.50 just now, and walked around it and looked at it, I thought" "Migosh! What is this going to do to Firefox?"

I think we'll lose a few folk right here in K-Meleon, too. Opera claims it is the fastest of all. Is it?

But, back to my post in Opera which they HATED--I don't mean disliked; I mean hated. They took it off, commenting that I must have been just a trouble-maker.

And yet now they are experimenting with exactly what I suggested. That was maybe a year ago. I'd posted because there was a discussion wondering why Opera wasn't as popular as Firefox, and I said "because Opera isn't free."

No, no, people LIKE advertising, they said; and No, No, Opera IS free, they said. And they burned my message as that of a heretic.

But if they'd considered it instead, it was really a suggestion of how they could compete with Firefox. And now I'm just thinking: I know that a great many Firefox users Do want a truly free browser, and Don't like advertising--so, indeed, it will be very interesting to see what Opera will do to Firefox.

Kind of parasitic of Opera, though. Firefox takes all the chances, and then Opera moves in like a Firejackal.

Drahken, I downloaded it (twice, from two different sites that were both official Opera), but I wasn't asked anywhere for my e-mail address. I installed it; no questions asked. Just like installing K-Meleon.

A very fast install--much faster than Firefox. Something like installing Avant. Excellent for grabbing hold of the vast numbers of people who are afraid of their computers and will love a "nothing to it" install.

Perhaps they've changed it in recent weeks. A few weeks ago they had an anniversary special. The opera browser itself was unchanged (you still got ads unless you registered), but they were giving out free registration numbers if you went to the site and put in your email address.


Regarding the quality of opera: It is pretty good, it's quite fast, and has some features that other browsers don't. On the other hand, it lacks a lot of customizability, lacks some features that FF/KM have, and has some annoying quirks. (My petpeeve with it is the behavior of tabs when you close them. It always insists on going to the previously focused tab when you close the current one, and there's no way to make it go to the NEXT tab (the way any decent browser should).

Opera 8.50 for Windows Changelog

This release is a recommended security upgrade.
* Advertisement banner removed
* Registration options removed
* Updated end-user license agreement
* Browser JavaScript fixes broken Web sites on the fly

Oslo, Norway - September 20, 2005

Opera Software today permanently removed the ad banner and licensing fee from its award-winning Web browser. The ad-free, full-featured Opera browser is now available for download - completely free of charge – at http://www.opera.com.

" . . . regarded as the world's fastest, most secure browser . . ."

Drahken,

Opera is free permanently. No registration required. Opera is looking to sell/advertise the other assets of their corporation.

Here is a good perspective link to the story.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050920-5327.html


K-meleon is my favourite browser. Firefox is nice. Opera is good because it is free.
Free is good.

I guess when Opera experimented with free registration, they got the idea. Their response for the temporarily free offer was:
--------------------------------------------------------------
In 24 hours, more than three million people got their free registration codes

In 24 hours, half a million people downloaded Opera from our servers (a new all-time high).
--------------------------------------------------------------
. . . That was just a couple of weeks ago. No doubt they were really overwhelmed (like, D--uhh . . . ; people like it free, with no ads--what a surprise!) and they went back to the drawing board and just wiped out their former policy, on the spot.

Otherwise they'd never have gone from "free registration code" to "no registration" in just a week or two.

Actually Opera is TINY. It boasts about its increasing popularity, but Opera barely exists in the numbers game at all. Yes, it has increased, from nothing-plus to nothing-plus-and-a-half. However, this move may have results that not only shock Firefox, but which even shock Opera (which has seemed pretty dim-witted in its previous marketing).

Firefox demands user savvy with extensions. Lots (millions and millions) of users who came from IE 6 don't want to TOUCH extensions--they're afraid of their own computers (as Bill Gates knows so very well. He is smart that way). So, lots of Firefox users make the very bold statement: "Who needs extensions? I don't use any at all."

Well, on Firefox, that's . . .[fill in your own word]. But Opera is the opposite, and no one needs to mess around with scary downloads and computer-geekity things. Opera has everything built in.

Oh oh . . . .
;-)

It took opera this long to realize what netscape realized years ago. People won't pay for a friggin browser. I can guarantee that at least 80% of the people who do use opera (before this new free opera) either put up with the ads, or used an illegal password. Only a small portion of fools ever actually paid for it.

That's good news. Of the popular free web browsers for Windows, Opera is the most secure. At this point in time, anyway.

Don't believe me? Go to secunia.com and compare the reports for IE, Firefox, and Opera and you'll see what I mean.

Phil

Opera is, in my opinion, one of the best browsers out there. It's definitely up there in the speed category and its user-friendliness isn't all that bad either. If I wasn't so into customizing things, I'd probably use it... but I just can't imagine parting with my dear K-Meleon.

Brian

I use free version of opera. I will tell you that that little google banner ad isn't going to kill you and it's not spyware either. If you consider using Google spyware, then I guess it's spyware to you, because the ad is not different. All it does query up related searches related to what you are browsing through. That is all. In my opinion Mozilla browsers are slow on my computers. I don't have high end PCs. The only Gecko browser I use on my machines is K-Meleon, because it not as sluggish as Mozilla browsers. Same reason I use Opera. Reason I use K-Meleon and Opera is because of their set cache settings. Opera's default cache settings is maximized for speed with RAM cache, but the cache doesn't refresh. So this can be a problem for websites that change each time you visit or browse through. I wouldn't say Opera is handsdown faster than K-Meleon. Opera seems blazingly fast mainly because of the cache settings, which you can similar to K-Meleon. Well guess if Opera really going for a completely free browser maybe a good thing for users. Increase popularity maybe, but the current free browser they offer really ain't that bad. Ad is not annoying at all.

--------
I think we'll lose a few folk right here in K-Meleon, too. Opera claims it is the fastest of all. Is it?
--------
From my experience, it is. KM does not even come close. Even when clearing out it's cache, it still outruns KM. Those claims are not lies. It's <Refresh> is also much, much faster than KM. Compared to the basically barebones Km it's speed is an achievement. Opera oozes user friendliness. A wonderful browser. Even better now that it's free.

@Phil Calvert (---.152.153.16.Dial1.Atlanta1.Level3.net)
well maybe look into secunia specs for k-m too? That are better records than Opera!

we definitely need the 1.8 GRE for k-m since it is faster.

Opera is not faster then K-Meleon, even may be a little bit slower.
It had the advantage of a fast cache for back/forward between
already loaded websites. But the 1.8 and 1.9 K-Meleons have
now the same feature as Opera has.
Opera may be easier to use out of the box, but K-Meleon is far
more customizable by a user with a little experience.
You can do a lot of things using your own macros, or those already
made by others, I do not even miss any extension of Firefox,
that I would need.
You can block ads to your satisfaction, only the RSS reader
may be a bit better in Firefox.
Nevertheless many users coming from Internet Explorer will
doubtlessly change to Opera, and not to K-Meleon, which
seems less impressive, and which many still consider to be
a bare bone browser. But I prefer K-Meleon.

Fred

@sensai - soweit ich mir bekannt,
haben alle hier bei änderungen Mozilla quellen genutzt.
also ist der code bekannt.

Just to add two unreported facts about Opera and join in on the good news:

- Opera has made a java browser that can be installed in some mobile phones (such as the Motorola E398, the apparatus I operate which has been getting rave reviews in comparison to what the manufacturers provide;

- There is a beta version of Opera going around which claims to do bittorrents - I haven't tried it, but that could prove to be a killer functionality.

I love K-Meleon and the community that supports it (free both as in beer and as in speech) to much to depart; but I deeply respect Opera and its struggle to exist in adverse conditions; I've kept it installed since version 5.x, because I believe that diversity is the paramount dimension of liberty. Hail Opera and this timely decision...

Opera is faster than the official build of KM, and any updates that still use the 1.7x engine. However, the builds of KM that use 1.8 and 1.9 are as fast as opera.

Thank you, sensai, for this info! I will grab a copy.

I know Opera since years. However, I've never used it to surf the web. I've only used it (and will go on using it) for testing purposes. Since version 6 or 7, Opera has a very good HTML engine, comparable to Gecko. In some regards it is even more progressive. But Opera has never convinced me. On the one hand, I did not like to have an ad client as my (default) browser and on the other hand, its features did not justify its price. I guess, many people thought this way and that is why opera never reached a high market share. Opera was not really able to compete with MSIE or with the free Gecko browsers. Now it is! I guess, we all will benefit from more competition. I don't expect Opera's coup to have a large impact on Firefox' (or even K-Meleon's) market share. These browsers have all their own philosophy and are addressed to different groups of users. However, I expect this coup to have an impact on M$IE's market share! M$IE is outdated. Technically, it is five years behind Gecko and Opera (you can add KHTML, if you like). M$IE is nowadays what Netscape 4.x was five years ago. A legacy! And IE7 won't change this.

BTW: Is IE7 already out? But who cares, anyway?

Market share:

IE, 86.6
Firefox, 8.7
Opera, 1.0

But the figures are way off, as many articles, including the one below, explain.

IE 7 was made available awhile ago for some very, very guarded testing. It must be plain embarrassing to be Microsoft, always so dependent on money.

If you read this, keep in mind it was released last June, well before Opera's present venture into free browsing:
]http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39204643,00.htm

I installed my copy of opera this morning, have to say that it renders quite nice, but I can't share the opinion that it should be the fastest browser on this planet, at least on my pc it isn't. My km-version CCFME 0.0.4 is a tick faster for sure. Still, opera is a nice gift and I think they've done right to release it for free without ads finally.

the config-options from opera did bother me a bit, I wasn't able to find a bookmarks-toolbar, anyone knows if there exits something like that? I'm afraid opera won't make it to my default browser, but I granted him the right to rest on my hdd. That's graciously, isn't it? ;O)

@Carson:
The statistics above should be handled carefully, I noticed that the default user-agent settings from opera are set to pretend to be IE 6.0.

cyaz

the relative speed issue has been discussed much last year prior to the making of the
w-b - it was more or less consensus that it depended much on individual software
(OS & settings) and hardware equipment plus surfing habbits.
At least when You compared browser that are not outdated like IE.
(with IEb 4 and 5 x faster than 6 on most machines).

opera: i liked the straight forward appaerance and settings of 5 and early 6.
their 7 was way faster the k-m at the beginning - slowed with every bugfix.

i prefer one trick gadgets like k-m to suites. that much about their V. 8.x

@ kko
Internet Explorer 7 is planned to become a public beta december/7th.
By the way : Firefox 1.0.7 is out, fixing the Internet Domain Names
vulnerability and, in Linux, a new bug about executable embedded
commands in URLs.

Fred

@guenter:

"@sensai - soweit ich mir bekannt,
haben alle hier bei änderungen Mozilla quellen genutzt.
also ist der code bekannt."

jup, das ist mir schon klar, das meinte ich auch nicht. Ich meinte genau diese Änderungen die Du ansprichst, gibts dafür Quellen irgendwo? Hab noch keine gesehen. Wenn jemand plugins oder sonstige Teile von K-Meleon modifiziert, neu compiliert + veröffentlicht dann ist er laut gpl verpflichtet die sourcen dieser Veränderungen auch offen zu legen. Der Vorteil von open-source ist ja gerade dass man anhand der offenen quellen den Browser oder einzelne Funktionen nach eigenem Gutdünken prüfen/erweitern/modifizieren kann. Wenn nun plötzlich jemand sich der Werke anderer Leute bedient, die Quellen seiner eigenen Entwicklungen aber nicht mehr der Community zur Verfügung stellt, sondern "nur noch" das Endprodukt raushaut, dann ist der Open-Source Vorteil leider dahin.

Author: guenter (---.net-htp.de) wrote:
> well maybe look into secunia specs for k-m too?
> That are better records than Opera!

The Secunia report for K-Meleon is wrong. K-Meleon is affected by some of the same vulnerabilities as Firefox, including one (at least one) that is still unpatched in K-Meleon 0.9.

The bug I am referring to is this one:
http://secunia.com/mozilla_products_arbitrary_memory_exposure_test/

Phil