Why did Opera become Chrome?

By STNN
in Web Browser Discussion & Support

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Apprentice

STNN

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I so hate Opera for using chrome engine for their browser. Goddamn do i hate the new password management system, the bookmark system and everything about it. Nice way to ruin something so original and imitate crappiness. No offense to chrome users but i was never fan of it and never will. Presto engine had me since the day i first used it.

 

The only reason i am using it now is because i am so used to Opera, have like hundreds of bookmarks and so much data stored in it and for nostalgia of it. I am gonna write my own browser based on internet explorer and call it stnowser, at least i won't claim originality which opera so proudly claim now. It is basically chrome remodeled.

 

PS: You won't understand my frustration if you haven't been a fan of opera, i used it since version 8 and that was eternity ago and it truly was unique back then.

 

PS2: If anyone know of another awesome browser that isn't chrome/firefox, fire away.

 
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SharpGreen

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  On 23/03/2014 at 20:25, STNN said:

I so hate Opera for using chrome engine for their browser. Goddamn do i hate the new password management system, the bookmark system and everything about it. Nice way to ruin something so original and imitate crappiness. No offense to chrome users but i was never fan of it and never will. Presto engine had me since the day i first used it.

 

The only reason i am using it now is because i am so used to Opera, have like hundreds of bookmarks and so much data stored in it and for nostalgia of it. I am gonna write my own browser based on internet explorer and call it stnowser, at least i won't claim originality which opera so proudly claim now. It is basically chrome remodeled.

 

PS: You won't understand my frustration if you haven't been a fan of opera, i used it since version 8 and that was eternity ago and it truly was unique back then.

 

PS2: If anyone know of another awesome browser that isn't chrome/firefox, fire away.

Ha well there's always IE :P

Grand Master

+virtorio MVC

Posted
  • MVC
Posted

I think I've read that they felt it more valuable getting their people to contribute to the open-source Blink platform than for them to keep on developing Presto.

 

I always found pages never looked quite right with Presto so I'm happy about the switch. 

Grand Master

Draconian Guppy

Posted
Posted
  On 23/03/2014 at 20:39, CJ33 said:

i tried to get myself to like opera, but never could. some webpages wouldnt load/display correctly, had to trick gmail into not loading the not showing the HTML view, annoying mouse scrolling. It was a mess

That changed when they switch to chromium

Apprentice

STNN

Posted
  • Author
Posted
  On 23/03/2014 at 20:36, SharpGreen said:

Ha well there's always IE :p

 

I am seriously considering that, the new IE is not that bad...at least it is original  :D

 

Opera wasn't that famous with its presto engine but there was still a very loyal following, they ###### everyone of their fans by becoming something those fans despised, their forums are full of complaints and they mass deleted and banned a lot of people, not very good thing to do.

 

They should open source the presto engine and let someone else develop a browser based on it, i am sure it will be success.

Grand Master

+jamesyfx Subscriber²

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  • Subscriber²
Posted

Don't forget that Opera now contribute to the whole Chromium/Blink code, so anything they've done in Presto previously that worked great technically could be implemented by them into this new engine.

  • Draconian Guppy, bigmehdi and Denis W.
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Grand Master

HawkMan

Posted
Posted

While I liked the old presto engine and it was a great engine. 

 

remember NONE of the great opera features where part of the engine, but the browser built around the engine. most of the good old features are coming back but it takes time to recode it all.

Apprentice

STNN

Posted
  • Author
Posted
  On 23/03/2014 at 21:01, Boo Berry said:

Maxthon, but it's based on Webkit (not Blink... currently) but it can use IE's Trident too (dual engine browser). Other than that, nope.

 

Does look nice, i'll give it a try. I am liking K-Meleon it is similar to Firefox but i don't hate firefox as much, it just doesn't have the features i am used to in (old) opera e.g notes, email manager/irc but it does have amazing add-ons so maybe i will end up with firefox after all or k meleon.

 

I only switched to opera 20 today because v12 is pretty much useless now and very buggy, i would probably have used it for eternity if it worked half as much as it was a year ago lol. 

Grand Master

+Zlip792 MVC

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  • MVC
Posted

(Disclaimer: My opinion, I don't need bashing if don't agree, don't start fight with quoting).

Opera Presto engine might not be up to expectations for users but other bundled features of Opera were really out of the box things. Presto engine needed real push from web developers side so that Opera developers become more and more focused on it. Now they really should Open Source it and their JS engine and Test suite as well.

Opera did good move to switch to Blink with Chromium wrapper but I really hate one thing about Chromium that you can't go away with using Blink separately from Chromium. I think Google should try to add so that people can build more focused browser using Blink. In this regard Webkit is way ahead while Gecko is struggling, even Jolla OS developer offered patches for Gecko embedding but still no further progress.

I personally wish that Safari would have been around in the corner, so we can use it but sad to say Apple sometime do stupid decision makings.

Opera Presto developer really made some good workups in Blink engine (text selection, unprefixing and removing old stuff, scrolling improvement and they continue to do more so).

 

Currently if anyone wants pure Webkit experience although some half assed then this browser worth a try: http://www.midori-browser.org/

Its based on WebkitGTK+ and quite infancy right now but I have high hopes that they manage to consider Windows as second place after being default in Elementary Luna OS Linux (I'm not Linux guy).

 

Internet Explorer is not too shabby these days and in some points light years ahead of even Chrome and Firefox. I have high hopes for IE12, I hope that MS does not disappoint us. I have huge wishlist for them if they like to hear us out to bring to table.

Safari for Windows does need to make return seriously.

Firefox scenario is more like they are axing their own feet without any particular reason, the efforts they done on Australis UI and Modern Metro based, if done to cleanup old crufty code and getting more streamline codeline for new hackers (Open source hackers - students I mean here in positive sense). It could help them making it really great browser.

Opera for Windows, its just Chromium based browser on steroids, I will consider it if they really manage to do some amazing work with it.

Chrome - I really avoid and only use Chromium because of being Open Source and also Chrome sync feature is way better than Firefox one, they really need to make it less confusing. Not to mention I also use it as thread starter mentioned because of having too many bookmarks etc (over reliance in Australis after landing days) in it which again Firefox can't import.

Grand Master

ViperAFK

Posted
Posted
  On 23/03/2014 at 21:37, Zlip792 said:

(Disclaimer: My opinion, I don't need bashing if don't agree, don't start fight with quoting).

Opera Presto engine might not be up to expectations for users but other bundled features of Opera were really out of the box things. Presto engine needed real push from web developers side so that Opera developers become more and more focused on it. Now they really should Open Source it and their JS engine and Test suite as well.

Opera did good move to switch to Blink with Chromium wrapper but I really hate one thing about Chromium that you can't go away with using Blink separately from Chromium. I think Google should try to add so that people can build more focused browser using Blink. In this regard Webkit is way ahead while Gecko is struggling, even Jolla OS developer offered patches for Gecko embedding but still no further progress.

I personally wish that Safari would have been around in the corner, so we can use it but sad to say Apple sometime do stupid decision makings.

Opera Presto developer really made some good workups in Blink engine (text selection, unprefixing and removing old stuff, scrolling improvement and they continue to do more so).

 

Currently if anyone wants pure Webkit experience although some half assed then this browser worth a try: http://www.midori-browser.org/

Its based on WebkitGTK+ and quite infancy right now but I have high hopes that they manage to consider Windows as second place after being default in Elementary Luna OS Linux (I'm not Linux guy).

 

Internet Explorer is not too shabby these days and in some points light years ahead of even Chrome and Firefox. I have high hopes for IE12, I hope that MS does not disappoint us. I have huge wishlist for them if they like to hear us out to bring to table.

Safari for Windows does need to make return seriously.

Firefox scenario is more like they are axing their own feet without any particular reason, the efforts they done on Australis UI and Modern Metro based, if done to cleanup old crufty code and getting more streamline codeline for new hackers (Open source hackers - students I mean here in positive sense). It could help them making it really great browser.

Opera for Windows, its just Chromium based browser on steroids, I will consider it if they really manage to do some amazing work with it.

Chrome - I really avoid and only use Chromium because of being Open Source and also Chrome sync feature is way better than Firefox one, they really need to make it less confusing. Not to mention I also use it as thread starter mentioned because of having too many bookmarks etc (over reliance in Australis after landing days) in it which again Firefox can't import.

They've already fixed the sync function in firefox 29 beta. It works almost exactly like chrome's now, you just sign in with a 'firefox account'. no more pairing, sync keys etc...

Grand Master

+Zlip792 MVC

Posted
  • MVC
Posted
  On 23/03/2014 at 21:58, ViperAFK said:

They've already fixed the sync function in firefox 29 beta. It works almost exactly like chrome's now, you just sign in with a 'firefox account'. no more pairing, sync keys etc...

 

I know but I still don't feel the way its integrated in Firefox... They are only good at making UX mockup but not really good at improving User Experience at all.

Grand Master

ViperAFK

Posted
Posted
  On 23/03/2014 at 22:02, Zlip792 said:

I know but I still don't feel the way its integrated in Firefox... They are only good at making UX mockup but not really good at improving User Experience at all.

The new sync seemed pretty user friendly to me, significantly more so then it was previously. Most of the criticisms of the redesigned sync I've seen are really grasping at straws.

Grand Master

Denis W. Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

For me their Speed Dial implementation is still the best and smoothest, and I've come to treat the Stash as a reading list. Besides that, I like its UI better than stock Chrome/ium given Chrome has moved away from using native UI widgets on Windows.

 

And the days of dealing with pages that didn't look right on Presto are long gone.

 

To answer the OP: the upside of borrowing the bookmarks API from Chrome is that the existing bookmarks extensions from Chrome will work in Opera, such as Xmarks - Xmarks was supposed to provide an extension for Presto-based Opera but eventually gave up somewhere along the line. Now it works just fine. As for password management, recently I've switched out all password managers on my browsers to Lastpass (plus I've never liked how say a friend could go on my browser and with a few clicks view all passwords saved for my frequented sites).

Experienced

wahoospa

Posted
Posted

I have used Opera since back in the 90's. I loved the features and speed it had. Sometime back Firefox had great features and I started using it, but was not sold entirely on it. I don't care for IE at all. Now that Jon Von Tetzchner got some money and no longer is with Opera, Opera is Chrome incognito so to speak. Different people own the company. I like the looks of Opera 20 and it runs quicker on my machines than any of the other browsers. There are a few things still yet wanted and I will give them some time to come thru with them. I don't care for a zillion bookmarks on the Speed Dial, maybe 10-12 is plenty.

Grand Master

+Zlip792 MVC

Posted
  • MVC
Posted
  On 23/03/2014 at 23:21, ViperAFK said:

The new sync seemed pretty user friendly to me, significantly more so then it was previously. Most of the criticisms of the redesigned sync I've seen are really grasping at straws.

 

Its matter of opinion and we should not hijack this thread from OP.

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