Opera takes Unite for spin with browser beta release

Norwegian browser maker Opera has pushed out a beta version of Opera Unite. The web-browser-meets-web-server contraption, which the firm unveiled in June this year, has been loaded into the release of Opera 10.10. Opera is unsurprisingly bigging up its tech platform by claiming it "shakes up the old client-server computing …

[SKiNFreak]

Still Making a Difference

Yeh! Reinvent it! Yeh!

Glad to see someone is still trying to do something different for the masses. Well done Opera. You may moan a lot but you make a difference (and have done so for years). And even if Unite does not work oyu get marks for trying,

Queue haters...

[Anonymous Coward]

Excellent

Just happy for Opera doing more. Best is getting better :).

[ThomH]

@SKiNFreak

Here's one of us right on cue! Unite is an extremely overhyped feature that doesn't add anything that 99% of users actually want as they share everything they want through social networking. I don't just hate Opera because of the anti-Microsoft moaning, I hate them because they seem to lack any humility whatsoever. Unite may be of interest to some corner of the intellectual and tech-obsessed crowd — especially the people who actually understand the privacy ramifications of facebook, flickr, Google, etc or who want to do more nefarious activities in the Napster c.2000 sense — but surely there's nobody outside of their own marketing department who thinks it'll actually revolutionise the web?

[Tristan Young]

Opera Unite

How does that re-invent the web? It's certainly not ground-breaking.

So users can share using their web browser. I've been doing that with Firefox and add-ins.

Opera - re-inventing something, and making it ground-breaking means to do something that hasn't been done before, or improving something to eliminate a fundamental flaw.

Add a feature to file-share - maybe, but that's certainly not unique. Even then, everyone I know would rather keep their existing browser and use online services to share, or use P2P.

[Grease Monkey]

Cue the haters?

It's not just the haters, but the haters who will deliberately "misunderstand" what Unite actually does in order to then pick it apart.

[Dave 129]

Now if only...

...they could get Jon what's-his-name to stop those diatribes against MS.

Don't get me wrong, I love Opera and have been a devotee for years now (since V5 in fact), but even I can't stomach some of the crap that gets published about how unfair life is with IE and MS and blah blah blah blah. Do us a favour, stick to building the best web browser! :) Cheers.

[Bilgepipe]

Title

I've always liked Opera, and only it's incompatibilities stop me using it, but I'm really not sure about this Unite thing. One tiny flaw and who-knows-what is published across the web. And with my crappy upload speeds, it would be impractical anyway.

Get your browser compatible first, then start of extras like this.

[Thecowking]

Does it work yet?

Because so far I've not managed to get it to act as an FTP or a webserver, in fact all that's worked on it is the chat part, which I have to tell people about on MSN, which rather defeats the point.

[Grease Monkey]

@Tristan Young

Here we go. Try understanding how it actually works before you comment, please.

I've just had a look at the available plugins and none of them do what Unite does. I can't see a use for it myself, but it is a new idea.

[genericallyloud]

Needs a killer app

Opera has consistently been first to do a lot of things in the browser world that have been mimicked by other browser later: http://www.geektechnica.com/2009/06/8-browser-innovations-started-by-opera/

Could Unite be another one of these features? Hard to tell. I think it has potential, but so far I'm not impressed. The one thing people fail to mention is that this isn't JUST a webserver running on your box. It does handle a couple of things that would be difficult for some people to do themselves such as the problem sitting behind a router and obviously the difficulty setting it up themselves. And lets not forget, most people aren't going to be writing their own Unite app, and this provides a much simpler mechanism for installing than setting up a php app or something.

I think what is really needed is a killer app. The examples they have right now aren't exactly groundbreaking. So I guess we'll just have to wait and see, but kudos for trying.

[SKiNFreak]

@Dave 129

Yeh...Jon needs to go to eloquency (sp?) lessons. Gibing his boys a bad name.

I dunno if Unite will change the web...happy to give it a go. One thing though, I have had virtually no incompatibilities with sites for over a year now. Opera 9-10 have been pretty good little browsers.

[Anonymous Coward]

@ThomH

"How does that re-invent the web? It's certainly not ground-breaking."

Actually, it is. You could control your fridge remotely with Unite installed on it. Just a silly example, but Unite could be the basis of your fridge doing your shopping for you, for example.

Basically, the possibilities are endless because your computer can access incoming connections from a mere browser, and it's extremely easy to set up.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Dave 129

"...they could get Jon what's-his-name to stop those diatribes against MS."

What diatribes?

"even I can't stomach some of the crap that gets published about how unfair life is with IE and MS and blah blah blah blah"

That's a silly thing to say. It's got nothing to do with "unfair", and everything to do with THE FACT THAT MICROSOFT BROKE THE LAW.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Bilgepipe

"Get your browser compatible first, then start of extras like this."

How is Opera going to force all those sites to stop using browser sniffing to block it?

That's the MAIN PROBLEM today with regards to compatibility.

Opera probably spends most of their resources on compatibility anyway. But the problem is so insanely complex that there's no easy or simple solution.

[Anonymous Coward]

@SKiNFreak

"Jon needs to go to eloquency (sp?) lessons. Gibing his boys a bad name."

What on earth are you on about?

[Charlie Clark]

Smell the coffee

@Thomh - listen cocksnot, by sharing through "social" (read twadvertising) networks you usually lose most copyrights on the material. With Unite there are no strings attached.

Use cases - my brother can post snapshots of my nephew without Flickr disabling my account because I don't use it enough; I can share project documents without fear of Amazon's service going bang; I can stream selected articles of my Economist subscription (an excellent innovation) *even* easier than with ITunes and even the fridge is fun!

@ all - Opera does need to demonstrate that you can't break-out of Unite and pwn the server. Or at least that this is less trivial than with Fuckbook or Twats

[Neoc]

Don't get it...

I just don't get it... who in their right mind would merge a web browser with a web server? And then try to put the lot in the hands of the same people who can't keep their computer patched/updated or otherwise safe from external attacks?

I must be missing something.

FFS, stop trying to make a program/browser/whatever that does everything. If I want a web server on my windows machine, I'll install one of the myriad Apache windows packages that exist already. but since I've already done that on a dedicated LAMP server, I guess I personally won't ever need to.

Looking at the acumen of the average web surfer, this is a security nightmare waiting to happen <shudder>.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Neoc

"I just don't get it... who in their right mind would merge a web browser with a web server?"

Simple. It makes the browser able to accept incoming requests, which opens a completely new world of possibilities.

"And then try to put the lot in the hands of the same people who can't keep their computer patched/updated or otherwise safe from external attacks?"

Unite is not just a standard web server, it's tightly locked down. It's no less secure than, say, any browser.

"If I want a web server on my windows machine, I'll install one of the myriad Apache windows packages that exist already."

Yeah, but most people can't do that. There's nothing to beat the ease of use that Unite brings to the table.