For one thing, Opera 12 was the last version released for Linux. It was also the last version before they basically completely rewrote the software on top of Webkit.
I was a Linux Opera user since 2007 up until a couple months ago. I finally switched away because Opera 12 was getting on three years old, which is ancient for web browsers. Now I use Firefox full time, and I've heard enough bad things about Webkit Opera that I'm not really interested in even trying it.
"Rewrote" isn't even accurate, from what I've seen. On osx it's like a buggy version of chrome, with few of the things that I liked in the original opera browser.
Supposedly they're working on it, and I'll try this on my linux machine later today, but I'm probably staying with chromium everywhere at this point.
Pretty sad, but as "another UI for Blink" without all the Googleness that Chrome has, it's a pretty damn awesome option.
It still lacks a lot of the features that made Opera 12 nice, but it's also the best browser out there, IMHO - Chrome-like performance and standards support, without so much Google-sauce.
While I would love just to have Opera 12 with the Blink rendering engine, I was rather baffled by Operas decision to drop Presto. I though that their core business was: "Making a small, good and fast rendering engine".
Their core business was making browsers in general. Being small isn't that much of an advantage anymore. They can now sell something that works reasonably well on most modern hardware.
Opera really went a step backwards a while back when they switched from Qt to GTK "For better compatibility with desktop environments", while DEs were themselves busy switching to Qt.
With gcc and clang being written in C++, Symbian, BeOS, Genode, Mac OS X IO Kit, Windows 8+ DDK support and WinRT, among many other examples, better accept the computing world is slowly leaving C behind.
As someone that always been on the C++ side on the C++ vs C flames, since the early days, it comes as consequence of statements like "At least they don't have to use C++".
I can understand Opera not wanting to maintain their own rendering engine, except that I though that was their main source of income. What I can't understand is why they release the WebKit/Blink based Opera when they did.
They shipped a version of "Opera" without the stuff that people loved and bet that it was the brand that people loved. I used very few of the features in Opera 12, but I switched to Firefox when the new version shipped because they made it harder to get the privacy settings I want and I can't make DuckDuckGo the default search engine (honestly: Is that really so hard to do?)
Dragonfly, the Opera web developer tool is another thing I would have loved to be able to use, but I will accept that it's a bit harder to port and wouldn't be a day one feature.
What they done in the past 12 version is beyond me, I don't see that adding anything important or bringing back anything that people actually want.
You claim they shipped a version without the stuff people loved, but Speed Dial was one of the most popular features in the old Opera. Speed Dial is one of the features that define Opera.
Dragonfly is open-source. But I guess it would be a complete rewrite anyways, so no one bothers although it was quite better (despite some major flaws) than what chrome or firefox bundle by default.
Last Opera release for linux was 12.16. That's about 12 skipped updates (I just assume, I'm not familiar with the actual opera versioning) and that's unacceptable. What guarantee does Opera give me that this won't happen again and I won't be stuck with outdated browser for a year?
There is a bit of history and context needed here I think. The last Opera 12 was released about a year ago. Last year they announced they would switch to using Blink instead of their own rendering engine.
The engine switch came with a complete rewrite of their browser as far as I understand it, so they prioritized Windows/OSX stability for a year and now finally came up with a Linux build again. The big gap in version numbers is due to their new browser starting at 15 + the adoption of a much shorter release cycle.
Once Linux builds are made stable I expect they will continue to release builds on all 3 platforms as they were doing for the many years before this slightly extreme shift.
They don't have to switch engines to stop supporting Opera on Linux again. They just have to stop releasing new builds. With Opera being closed source software, Linux users can't just compile it themselves from source. They're stuck with whatever version Opera chooses to release.
I'm still sticking with 11/12. It's pain to use any other browser. Performance is worse, ux is worse, basic functionality is missing, weird bugs everywhere. Now I use combination of Opera, Firefox and Chrome (for js heavy apps like gmail). Eventually want to switch to Firefox.
It's really sad they let everything go and made just another dumbed-down featureless browser.
+ It opened all the tabs from my Opera 12 session
- It lost all my tab groups: seems it doesn't support them
- It ate up RAM to the point I had trouble moving my mouse cursor
I, too, still use Opera 12 everywhere it's still usable, and Chromium for the rest.
I don't need a Chromium replacement. I need an Opera replacement, preferably with all the shiny new features (in terms of compatibility, standards support and performance) that Chromium has. Opera 12 isn't perfect, but if it had been in development for the period of releases 12-24, it certainly would be the only browser I'd need to use.
It's a shame Opera themselves can't be motivated build a worthy upgrade to their own browser. Without Presto, and the same innovative spirit that brought us tabs, speed dial, mouse gestures, Opera Link, etc., etc., what exactly is their USP?
Ditto. I don't care what's underneath. If the new chrome based opera had all the features of the old opera, I would still be using it on osx, and waiting for it on linux.
At this point, though, I've got so used to chrome I'm not sure I'll switch back at all.
I think they were bought by someone (an UA or PL company I believe) and many of the core people left (or were let go). But don't quote me on this, I've just read in a random discussion as you do now.
They weren't bought but in the past few years the CEO and founder left the company and they did make some acquisitions, including in advertising (mobile in particular) which is where a significant portion of their revenue now comes from.
I jumped ship around the time 12 came out. All I remember is that despite all the cool features and my general love of the browser, the one thing it didn't seem to do well was browse a number of popular websites that I would frequent. That was the deal killer for me. What good is a browser that can't browse?
This is true. They couldn't keep up. I've used Chrome as a side-browser for quite some time already. I understand the need to switch the rendering/js engines, but I don't understand why they couldn't give it some time and keep around what made Opera - fast and responsive full-featured browser out of the box with the ability to customize almost everything.
There were only two updates I believe (in over a year). Hearbleed (update to library) and an expired certificate. I wouldn't call that maintenance or security fixes really.
I know there is some third party code in there but this, if released in a timely fashion, is the only humane thing to do. Saved blender, for a a similar nordic oss success story
The "about" page in Opera 12 lists a lot of 3rd party stuff so even though a lot of that stuff is open source software it seems unlikely they would be able to open source everything.
I think it's fair to hope for a more customizable Chromium, since customizability is one of the things Opera was known for. For me personally, things like a bookmarks sidebar and more flexible tab positioning would help tempt me to switch back to Opera from Firefox.
Well there are 2 features I really miss in Chromium (which are implemented in Opera now):
* easily Add/remove websites from the speeddial
* closing the last tab won't quit the browser (this annoyed me the most)
The saddest part about that is that opera was the first browser I knew of that allowed changing the default search engine in the first place, about 13 years ago.
Yet the old Opera was (and is) much faster than chrome/firefox. User confusion is valid if those are the users you are after. For the "what is Internet?" crowd there's Chrome already, and I think there's enough space for something else.
As I understand it all browsers on iOS use UIWebView rather than their own engines. However, the Opera Coast browser on iOS has a great user interface that is different from Safari.
Ironically, this happens the day after I finally stopped using Opera. As a long time Windows and Opera user, I finally switched to Ubuntu a few days ago, and frankly wasn't so surprised to find out that Opera is not even supported. All the things that made it good died with 12.16 and this was just the last drop in a sea of users' tears. Now, having it suddenly available again, I don't feel like going back there anymore. Goodbye, although I can't help but feel the real goodbye was said a long time ago -- what came after was just denial.
Opera Mail is a separate download, still using the old Opera 12 code base. I use it because I have multiple email accounts and it allows me to use them all as a unified inbox.
However, it's still at version 1.0. It hasn't received a single update since it was released and it has a few annoying bugs. It's still the best desktop email client though.
The incompatibility with websites on old Opera was enough for me to temporarily switch to Chrome. Now I'm making freaking extensions which bring some Presto features to it so it's more usable until Opera makes some significant changes to the new browser...
