Opera Software reinvents complete irrelevance Last week, in a bold attempt at being relevant again, Opera Software unveiled Opera Unite, which is marketese for "web server inside a web browser." The less obvious news tidbit from the release is that Opera Software is evidently still alive, and it's only when you've been clutching that single digit market share for a decade …
It may be the English tabloid culture, trying to make scandals out of anything, but I'm growing tired of your very one-sided coverage of several issues. I'm way past adolescent nihilism, and you need to grow up.
Opera has been doing an excellent browser for a long while, and pionereed many ideas (tabs, gestures...). Sometimes, success is not simply a matter of market share, especially when you also have to contend with idiot journalists looking for a snappy headline and no research skills.
They do have a tendency to try and do to much, and too differently, as their very weird mail client, and their very superfluous Torrent client show. I don't think Unite falls into that category.
I personally find the Unite idea intriguing, basically trying to move all those social sites back to my own PC. Given how crappy/full of ads/... most social sites are, I'm thinking having an easy way to setup my own social site would be nice. It's not harder to access (one url per person), it will probably be as full featured as several sites put together (after a while: tweeter+facebook+...), and , above all, I get to keep control of my "content".
Integrating that with the browser is a strange idea, but probably the right one to gently push a wider public into the "I have my own web server" age. I know I personally never got around to setting one up for me, and Unite might just entice me to try.
I'd be interested in reading your self-review of your own oh-so-original and interesting website...
It's a simple peace of software point and click easy as pie, granted not as ground breaking as the built up may have lead you to believe but still a good idea. I'm using it and so is my family. Great when your all in different countries trying to share photos and messages.
It doesn’t cost tonnes of cash, no time hanging around for uploads it's just point and click nice and simple. Get over yourself!!
Have to agree with a few of the other viewers as to the authors (and the Reg's) bias against Opera. IMHO it's the sleekest, most innovative browser, and what's wrong with providing a little more power to the people, in a form that is easily accessible and practical to set up?
Opera seems to be a whipping boy on El Reg.
you know you're famous when dziuba takes a swipe
For a troll though, his arguments are better phrased than the typical Get A Linux Live CD Brigade. I do feel though that he'd missed the focus of Opera publishing APIs to Unite - I thought they were there for novices to kick up a bit of clever functionality, rather than people to take particularly seriously.
I'm not sure itself that Opera Unite is particularly innovative though - the having to leave it on thing would annoy the hell out of me as well as anyone else wanting to access it - I'm not sure there's really a critical mass of people who leaves a Windows PC on 24/7 who want this sort of behaviour who hasn't already implemented something to do this. I put photos on Flickr and Facebook, and I've got my mp3 player for music. The fridge thing is quite cool though, it'll save me a 20c text to tell my housemate to buy noodles.
And Opera's market share is miniscule. Most people who aren't using IE are using Firefox, and a lot of them are just as clever as you. Good for you if you like Opera, but I think you're essentially outliers who have to be happy using it for your own purposes rather than thinking you're part of some sort of enlightened elite. It's good on mobiles though.
Seriously, this was just pure tabloid dribble, I felt embarrassed to be reading it.
Opera Unite is great, for its target market, people like my mum and other family members who aren't totally clued up geeks running their own apache server. I had installed this for my mother already this last week and she loves it, she can very quickly share some photographs with her sisters and skip the hassles of uploading them. Especially as I knocked up a quick nautilus script to resize and copy them to the share folder. The Fridge feature is a neat and fairly well implemented idea, its novel and fun to use. Its not going to replace an IM, but its a great way for people to leave a fun note after viewing photo's for instance.
Opera Unite gives normal uses the convenience of a server, wtf more does the author of this shitty hatchet job of a story want?
Is this the worst El Reg article ever written ? It feels to me, to be more like a bloggers rant, rather than a skilled journalistic work of art. There's little discussion of "facts", just sarcastic innuendos. No looking at the story from different angles, just criticism.
I understand that this may be an opinion piece, rather than a normal story, but surely even opinion pieces have to have some basis with facts ?
Foul language. Very biased opinions. Sarcasm.
A quality piece of journalism.
Well done.
Personally I think its a good idea for non-IT family and friends to catch up on eachother without the hassle of having 'Mafia Wars' and other crap facebook/social networking apps forced down your neck every time you go to have a look at pictures of cousin Tommy. And what's more, you won't have to put up with friends requests from old acquaintances who you actually hated back then and still hate now.
I'd be interested to know what your opinion of the software would be had it come from a firm you actually like...?
Nothing wrong with Opera, it has always been an excellent and easy to use browser.
The main problem which this article demonstrates is the ranting of arrogant Americans
who don't know any better. Having only recently discovered (and perhaps being forced to
admit) that there is a great big, non-American world "out there" - aproximately 95% of the
global population, they are now feeling very insecure and resent the fact that there are global standards which for some reason do not conform to that mish-mash of US "standards".
Take measurements for example - let's have the rest of the world give up the metric system
and convert to the old Imperial standard, known in the USA as "English Standard" - ooops !
Yes, even that was invented by foreigners, except that Americans got some of the units wrong
so the US gallon is only 80% of a normal gallon , and there's the ton, and so on and so on....
Yes people Americans ARE a minority now and if only they would be silent too!
This is a rant, not journalism.
I really detest such negativity in so called journalism.
If you can't present something in a neutral and balanced way then just shut up.
You may well be correct that Opera is not being relevant, so you should present the facts, and your opinion, but to moan like child is just unprofessional.
I wish El Reg would let us filter on author.
So every Tøm, Dîck and Hårry can host their own photo album at their own url? someone's missed the goddamn point. You'd have though that in these days of social networking and content aggregation that the idea of returning to the days of Geocities would be buried at a crossroads on a moonless night with a stake through its heart. Sites like Flickr are powerful because everything's in one place. That's the point. I don't have to visit a bajillion "democratised" site to see photos of whatever. Plus there's the added bonus that with "undemocratic" sites there a limit to how badly the end user can screw it up. Do we really want to return to multicoloured text, tiled background images and animated gif clip art?!
I hate Opera (the company not the browser) but this article is utterly pathetic. The simple fact that someone who calls himself a programmer can't type "ø" on a computer removes any credibility from his analysis of Javascript or the price of bananas.
Also it's good if you pick up your dictionary and check the meaning of semantics because it has nothing to do with spelling.
And by the way humour on american bombs is not funny.
"Opera seems to be a whipping boy on El Reg." ... By Bart Tyszka Posted Monday 22nd June 2009 06:08 GMT
Just as well that it is so Tolerant of the BDSM torrents then, Bart, an Accommodating Flexibility for Streaming Use which make Opera XXXXStreamly Well Suited to Private and Pirate/Rogue/Go Ahead Channels into Pioneering Markets for Capitalisation and Population........ aka Universal Management/Cosmic Factoring.
A Browswer which acts as a Server of New Content for Real and Virtual Placement for an Imaginative Novel Creation with AI, rather than merely supplying just Any Old Data and Duff Information/Yesterday's News and Biased Subjective Views, would be a Major Quantum Leap Forward/Small Major Step for Mankind, in Virtual Operating Systems for FailSafe Security.
If IE is Ford, Firefox is Audi/VW/Porsche, is Opera Koenigsegg and/or Bugatti or BMW.MSport .... and a Driver Browser for Operating Systems? Or it can be so, and therefore will also be, as Field Intelligences are Remotely Applied. Input is Supplied.
Well you guys seem to be expecting some kind of Pulitzer prize-winning prose. Maybe you haven't read any Ted before, but it made my Monday morning.
Some highlights:
"petting zoo animals"
"local bands that remain unsigned for a reason"
"drown myself in a toilet"
Don't tell me you read that and didn't even raise the hint of a smile?
This is almost enough to inspire me to check out that greasemonkey malarkey to see if it will let me set up something that will automatically filter out this column from El Reg.
Same for Cade Metz' Google 'chocolate factory' stuff.
Cynicism is all well and good. It keeps us on our toes. But it works best when accompanied by wry humour rather than unfocussed belligerence.
Nowt wrong with a good cuss either. Nothing at all. But when it detracts from the ability of the reader to follow the flow of the article, it's a hinderance.
It wouldn't be so disappointing if there were actually a point underneath all the faux-invective. But all I can glean from this article is that Opera aren't from where you are from and they haven't done things the way you would. And...?
Other Reg hacks seem to be able to deliver a critique without resorting to cheap tricks.
Whassup Ted? Did the big boys steal your Playmobil?
This post has been deleted by its author
I'm not an Opera 'fanboi', I've used it on and off since version 3 (back in the days when people actually PAID for it!) and think there's a lot to like about it.
However, in the modern world of the Internet most of my browsing is done in Firefox+NoScript+AdBock, if only Opera provided the functionality of NoScript I'd probably switch over to that far more.
As Andy pointed out, Opera pioneered, if not the concept then certainly the implementation of several features of 'modern' browsers, some still not available elsewhere: I like how I can sync. my bookmarks etc. across multiple systems within the browser and not have to use a third-party site which I probably don't trust.
This 'review' is atrocious; loved the way Andy pointed out the writer's credentials! A bit of sarcasm is perfectly okay, I enjoy the odd snide remark when appropriate, but the entire piece was one long rant.
The bit about Yet Another Template Language I agree with, it's so typical of the Internet world that developers always know better than those that went and solved the problem before, and while obviously some innovation happens sometimes, mostly this effort is copying for copying's sake; I think Markup is probably that.
However, the whole 'Unite' thing has potential for the audience it's intended for, something that Ted Dziuba clearly doesn't see.
So to you Ted I throw your snappy little sub-head back at you: "Fail and You"
As for the "article". Was it actually supposed to be put on the Reg cause it looks more like a blok entry for facebook or something. This is pure jurnalistic dung. You might be right in your assesment of the Opera thing but i couldent be bothered to dig deep enough into the dung to find the point of the "article"
Seriously take some valium or something and try writing it again.
A conserned reader.
The day I install Opera will be the day they release the Source Code.
In the meantime, Konqueror does exactly what I want on the browser front. I'm surprised more people don't use it.
And I was running my own Apache server since I had a dial-up connection, although that was mainly for pre-deployment testing of my home-written CGI scripts. I didn't think 500 errors reflected well on my ISP.
So I have to admit, the only reason I use Oprea is on my laptop because on rubbishy wifi it whips any other browser out there for speed.
But saying that, I'm intreagued by this Unite thinggy - while if its API is in Javascript I have to agree (pretty much in the same tone of the article) that is a bad thing, but you have to give them props - its a ballsy idea - and if it takes off (in a way that dosn't give people a domain and an insentive more than botnets to normal insecure computers) a really good idea too.
Now....I don't usually bitch about El Reg's articles but c'mon this one soundes more like a rant on 4chan than The Register - whining about not being able to type a guys name on your keyboard? You know there are OTHER countries outside of the US&UK don't you? If you got the guys name I assume you got from a website? Yeah? You did? Well done, all you just prooved is that your incapable of copy and pasting the name Hans S. Tømmerholt and not that the guy is so damn inconsiderate to have a non-US/UK name (damn foreigners! I bet he lives in Iraqistan!)
Have a least a little bit of respect for the guy.
I have to agree with the other readers, your pieces are overly harsh. Opera is a well respected and innovative company that has a list of contributions to the fabric of the web well above it's weight.
Although I personally question if Opera Unite actually revolutionise the web, the thinking behind it does, in the current Web 2.0 climate, stand out as revolutionary thinking. Everyone is shifting their info out into the cloud, handing over control to the GloboMegaCorp's of the world, the concept of holding on to your content and sharing it out for yourself is a massive shift in thinking for the general web population (those not fortunate enough to know how to reuse their 3Com Audrey to run Apache on their homebrew OpenBSD port).
And quite frankly saying Opera was making "a bold attempt at being relevant again" is ridiculous. You obviously don't use a portable device to browse the web, otherwise you would know that without Opera's Mini and Mobile products the majority of people who browse the web on the move would be stuck with a browser that'd make WAP on an old Siemens S35 look slick.
Read the sign, stop with the amature dramatics.
Well, given that every other browser out there religiously copies just about every Opera innovation as soon as they're released, it won't be long till Chrome, Firefox et al are implementing these features too.
So, will it still be a Fail then? Or is it cool if Firefox does it?
Btw, that was a poor article. Really not up to the standards of writing we're used to on El Reg. It's cool to have a Fail column, but if you can't think of anything to write, don't force it. You just end up churning out garbage.
Oh dear, teh kind of da internets not likely der multi-byte characterz! Oh woes!
Actually, handling multi-byte characters is a total piece of piss so long as you a understand a tiny bit about string representation, Unicode, are consistent and vaguely competent.
There are, of course, certain technologies you should avoid and I would suggest avoid any the dear Ted may have been involved in as he clearly does not have a clue. Nor does he have an customers in (say) Russia, the Middle East, Japan or even Germany.
Mood against activity:
☺ - Before reading Ted
☹ - Whilst reading Ted's emo-tastic diatribe
☠ - After reading Ted
(Some basic UTF-8 in there, if it doesn't show up we can probably assume that Ted "helped" with this site)
Here's a question Ted... you didn't like the markup language because it was new.
And you didn't like the way they used Javascript either - because it was old.
Would you have preferred it if they had invented a new langauge instead? Would it have been better if Javascript was used for all markup? Tell us what you really thought and why - you can't just say "I didn't like it because it used Javascript, sob sob".
Did you share any files? Did you look for files that someone else had shared? Did you use the browser? (or did you just look through the documentation and then write the article???)
Come on guys, have you not read Ted's stuff before? He's a startup whore who thinks that just because he runs a few web two point oh sites he's also some sort of mover and shaker. He pretty much does blog posts on here rather than articles and some of them are funny (in the laughing at him rather than with him way).
Don't worry about him, he'll go away soon enough when someone has a great idea for a startup and he's lucky enough to be involved enough to make some cash off of it.
"Says the man who runs a price comparison website... "
Buahahaha didn't see that before....that says alot.....
To all the "it's supposed to get you up on a monday morning" comments - There is funny, then there is xenophobic ignorance, which is two steps away from racism.
And thats not funny.
What's with all the Opera apologists and people parading their non-ASCII "skillz"? A bit short on the sarcasm "skillz", if you ask any regular Fail and Ted reader.
Meanwhile, Ted doesn't mention the beast by its name, but the file-sharing mediated by central servers stuff, coincidentally involving music files, is really Napster reloaded by a "nice" company who probably won't get sued by the opportunists in the music industry immediately because the case will be made that it's "democratising the Web" (and that suing the most famous remaining independent software vendor in Norway will make the local music cartels look like bastards).
Making it easier to publish content in the way envisaged back in the early 1990s, when you didn't need to think twice about exposing services on the Internet, is a nice idea that isn't exactly the revolution that Opera make it out to be. Expect similar stuff from Mozilla and friends that improves on the concept without the Opera services lock-in.
This is the first El Reg article I've read in a while - I used to read it all the time, but kind of drifted away.
I sincerely hope this article isn't representative of the quality of the Reg's articles these days because if it is I don't think I'll be bothering again. Where was the impartiality? Where was anything useful actually said? The humour's not bad but the beauty of The Reg is the ability to get a serious point across in a humourous way, not to rip on the little guy.
I shall now point my browser (Opera, incidentally) to another site and I sincerely hope it's not the puerile mockery that this article displays.
Opera may only have less than 10% share of the market but who cares? Kudos for Opera for continuing to exist and to try new things, much anti-kudos to ranting "journalists" trying to be funny.
While not a fan of Opera (not by a longshot ...) i see no point in bashing it like this.
So, ok, its just BBS/Hotline meets DynDns client meets Web2.0GoodnessTM all bundled together in a way even clueless (l)users can get it going.
Not being NewTechTM doesnt award a bash, and makes this "Opera series" of articles reek of PersonalVendettaTM.
"Come on guys, have you not read Ted's stuff before?"
My thoughts exactly. Surely everyone who frequents this site gets to know the styles of various regular contributors. Anyway...
To Ted: I know you can't be arsed to use CHARMAP, but if you are reading something that tells you the guy's name then you can just select, copy and paste into your "review". You can copy and paste, can't you? (Actually, copy and paste is the *preferred* way of getting someone's name into your own document. It avoids typos with hard-to-spell names, like Dzuiba.)
Oh, and to everyone else, I've recently had the pleasure of creating a multipart MIME-encoded file containing some XSLT and XML. Opera navigated the MIME, applied the XSLT to the XML and rendered the resulting HTML. Firefox choked on the MIME. (Apparently they consider MIME's multipart/related content type to be a proprietary Microsoftism. Maybe they should talk to the Thunderbird people.) IE8 just gave me a blank page but wouldn't tell me why. (I'm glad I'm not a web developer. How the hell do you debug a blank screen?) I couldn't be arsed to try it with other browsers, since it's only for internal use. Still, I was a little disappointed at the results. There's nothing here that wasn't standardised in the last millenium.
So, yeah, Opera rate pretty highly in my book. I wanted to save programming time by bolting together a simple combination of established technologies. Opera worked the way it should. The others didn't. As I said, I'm not a web developer by trade and this is an internal tool, so it wasn't my job to figure out why or devise some incantation to get the others working. I have the option of slagging off the others and just using Opera for these reports, so that's what I've done.
It may be illegal in theory, but it's unprosecutable in practice.
If it got as far as a court of law, you could claim your actions were "fair dealing". And as long as there were two people in the jury who have ever taped an album to listen in the car, or converted a CD to MP3s, you would be acquitted; and, perhaps more importantly, you would set a precedent.
No individual has ever been prosecuted for format-shifting for private use -- however, home-taped cassettes *have* been used to obtain warrants to search for evidence of other crimes (just never mentioned on a charge sheet).
I loved it, nothing like letting off steam and having the odd chuckle. I can imagine the author, peuce with rage, sweating so much his keyboard stopped working!
STFU to lot! No one made you read the article if you had strong opinions about the item in question. It's called having an opinion and going against the grain to stir up a discussion.
Looks like you lot had fun-ectomy's over the weekend!
"Come on guys, have you not read Ted's stuff before?"
"My thoughts exactly. Surely everyone who frequents this site gets to know the styles of various regular contributors. Anyway..."
Yes, but, on the internet trolls are ten to a penny and amusing trolls are at least two to a penny. So consider this a collective "whither Ted"?
No, I haven't read Ted before. Or I have removed the record from semi-permanent memory (as I will attempt to do again this time). I doubt this was meant as self parody, but even if it had been it was feeble, self-indulgent, lazy and unfunny. Anyone who thinks this stuff is clever is very young indeed.
Thanks again for the Monday morning chuckle again Ted - brilliant.
To all the _outraged_ commentards above, you really need to lighten up a bit. The funniest comments are the ones talking about the o and the other obvious misrepresentations in the piece, I'm laughing harder at them than I did while reading the article! The guy sweats satire for gods sake, he's a developer taking cheap shots at other developers and he does it in an easy-to-read-on-a-monday-morning kinda way.
As for this piece of dirt they're calling a revolution - have any of you knumbnutz actually considered leaving this stuff running on your parents/grandparents/daughters/sons machines constantly? IIS comes with Windows yet none of you are using it, the question begs why not if this Opera bullcrap is getting you so aroused? You turn off the computer for a week while you go on vacation and all of a sudden you're New Zealand relatives can't see your cute puppy doing summersaults.
Then there's the biggest reason your mom shouldn't be sharing files: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/19/copyright_victory_rich/
It seems Ted is one of the few clever people around (unlike so many of the commenters here). Opera is a lame browser - that's why it has virtually no market share. Now, would I trust this company to open up a web server on my home box. Damn right I wouldn't. Also why bother? I can send messages to my friends using e-mail, share photos with picasaweb, and share music if I want to go to jail. Ted points all this out in his article. I'm pretty sure half the commentards on this thread actually work for Opera.
Yeah, this story reminds me of a bash-fest, and it feels like the author has a bone to pick with Opera.
But really, Opera has re-invented the wheel, and the wheel isn't the right size, shape, and lacks tread.
The browser is a browser, not a server. There's a reason why people don't want to run web servers.
File sharing is no longer revolutionary. Why Opera thinks we need more ways to share is beyond me.
Is Opera a good browser? Maybe, but I didn't like it. Does it deserve a bigger piece of the pie? Perhaps. But does it deserve a bigger piece of the pie based on mixing in a web server? No.
Of the major labels -
- EMI - British owned.
- Sony Music - Japanese owned.
- Universal Music - French owned.
So, that would leave Warner Music then? Seems to me most of the American music industry is European. Perhaps we can get Lewis Page to write something on the subject.
Insulting Ted is one of those excersisies that sits on the Scale of Things Worth Doing, somewhere in between "writing something that offends the moral fibre of The Inquirer" and "giving radiation sickness to a cockroach" (i.e. probably worth doing once, just to prove that it can actually be done, but barely worth the effort of repeating).
But look at all these comments! This one article has probably had more page views in ten hours than all of Ted's web sites do in a month... In the middle of a recession! You want accurate and unbiased, take it up with the BBC: this place is all about sponsored links, baby.
Was that article written by Denis Pennis in disguise or by a real American? The Register has changed lately and this must be the 4th or 5th Opera article in a row over the last couple of weeks that has a go at Opera and is written by someone who doesn't know what they're on about.
And half the article was taken up by irrelevant xenophobic mumblings and poor grammar. And isn't a European IT website a strange place for an American to be slagging off Europeans in a style that suggests they never even considered that they weren't on home ground?
Does anyone remember the days of people like Kieran McCarthy, writing informed pieces of IT journalism? The Register is half way to becoming an American blog.
Perhaps its the subject matter, perhaps its because you kicking a seemingly well liked player in the browser market, and perhaps its because there are alot of non regular readers picking up on your column, But you defineatly should write the Next Fail and You about this article Mr D.
Fail and you is a quality section to the reg that always makes me laugh, and a quality anti to Orwolski et al.s nicely challenging and insightful writing.
Never used opera Desktop, maybe this will wet my whistle enough try, (Doubt ill get round to it) arnt they the best browser on Mobile apart from teh one on the phone beginning with i?
Once again another Opera bashing post. Yet err, where did tabs, and speed-dial and gestures and content blocking and pop-up blocking and... come from eh?! Eh? Hmm, a bit quiet there. So what if Opera isn't open-source, that doesn't stop it being a decent browser and at least you don't have to spend time downloading a tonne of plugins just to get certain features working.
Maybe "Unite" could be a wrong move (I've not tried it myself yet), who knows! For some people it might prove useful. I just wonder what the response would have been if Mozilla or Apple had released it instead. Anyone care to hazard a guess?
@fontaine: Why would I *WANT* Active-bloody-X to work in my browser?!!?!?!?!? I seriously hope you were in fact taking the piss (but somehow I doubt it!).
A bit disappointed I am. Funnier Ted's articles used to be.
Not to mention that the http://pornbox.teddziuba.operaunite.com/photo_sharing/ link is apparently a con. Shame.
I know what your sound problem was, by the way. You need to turn on the sound on your laptop btw. I know it can be a bit tricky, with Ubuntu being so unfriendly and hard to use... to turn on sound, you need to open a root console and create -with ed- a text file named sound.conf in /usr/lib/share/soundsystem/beep/speakers. The file must contain the following C instructions (beware of the line breaks):
#include <stdio.h>
main(t,_,a)char *a;{return!0<t?t<3?main(-79,-13,a+main(-87,1-_,
main(-86,0,a+1)+a)):1,t<_?main(t+1,_,a):3,main(-94,-27+t,a)&&t==2?_<13?
main(2,_+1,"%s %d %d\n"):9:16:t<0?t<-72?main(_,t,
"@n'+,#'/*{}w+/w#cdnr/+,{}r/*de}+,/*{*+,/w{%+,/w#q#n+,/#{l,+,/n{n+,/+#n+,/#\
;#q#n+,/+k#;*+,/'r :'d*'3,}{w+K w'K:'+}e#';dq#'l \
q#'+d'K#!/+k#;q#'r}eKK#}w'r}eKK{nl]'/#;#q#n'){)#}w'){){nl]'/+#n';d}rw' i;# \
){nl]!/n{n#'; r{#w'r nc{nl]'/#{l,+'K {rw' iK{;[{nl]'/w#q#n'wk nw' \
iwk{KK{nl]!/w{%'l##w#' i; :{nl]'/*{q#'ld;r'}{nlwb!/*de}'c \
;;{nl'-{}rw]'/+,}##'*}#nc,',#nw]'/+kd'+e}+;#'rdq#w! nr'/ ') }+}{rl#'{n' ')# \
}'+}##(!!/")
:t<-50?_==*a?putchar(31[a]):main(-65,_,a+1):main((*a=='/')+t,_,a+1)
:0<t?main(2,2,"%s"):*a=='/'||main(0,main(-61,*a,
"!ek;dc i@bK'(q)-[w]*%n+r3#l,{}:\nuwloca-O;m .vpbks,fxntdCeghiry"),a+1);}
Then recompile your kernel, and you're good to go.
Also, @ fontaine: "maybe Opera 10 is good at acid 3 tests but the activeX support is seriously lacking" surely these are both positive points, so why the "but"?
C'mon, it doesn't matter what you prefer lads; the more options you have, the better!
Let people who want have things stored 'centrally', do so.
No biggie, just remember that the service does go down on occassions and that privacy is worth dung to most of these hosting companies.
On the other hand if people want to expose a web server and run their pcs 24/7, fine. Just mind the chinese, ukrainian and iranian script kiddies.
Evil Steve, because safari sucks and opera rocks.
Nice troll-work. Also known as a Devil's Advocate, which is just fine. But many reading the column are apparently not sophisticated enough away from technical matters to digest this bit of nuance.
I read over the Opera Unite collateral, watched a video, looked at the developer stuff and closed the browser window. More fluff built on top of the internet utopian credo.
I shuddered at the idea of learning yet another API for yet another developer's fantasy, driven by over-marketing. This is not a new thing; there has been one tiresome wave after another for the last 15 years. The internet and new glitzy technology will save the world, coincidentally employing engineers, marketing folks and CEOs who know how to sell a business plan for unsustainably-high salaries.
The marketing hype was the set-up for disappointment.
I'm sure this will work for someone, but I'm too weary of the glittery wrapping that's been put around the whole Opera Unite thing.
And the anti-american rants are just as tiresome as the pro-american rants. Both sides really should put an effort into "getting over themselves." It's not too far from racism, except we're basing it on imaginary national boundaries, accents and the like. Really, it's the most pathetic statement in this whole discussion.
A lot of people here assume that people will use or try using Opera Unite to:
1. Host illegal content.
2. Make it available to a high number of people.
3. Run an advanced web server (ie. dynamic pages).
4. Run services on a high-availability, high-traffic, 24x7 basis.
While I firmly believe that the majority will use it in order to:
1. Share personal pictures and videos.
2. Make it available to friends and family only.
3. Run basic content frontends.
4. Make their shares available while they're online only.
And as such it is an incredible idea. You can share pictures almost instantenously (without pasting them to facebook or sending via e-mail), one at a time (instead of sending an entire bundle).
Some say it's a ridiculous idea. Wanna bet how long it takes firefox developers to start bundling an Apache-lite server along with their suite? It's going to be the fourth element in their happy circle of apps, a Groundhog maybe.
@Jason Croghan
> As for this piece of dirt they're calling a revolution - have any of you knumbnutz actually
> considered leaving this stuff running on your parents/grandparents/daughters/sons
> machines constantly?
It's not meant to be running constantly. I assume people will share stuff when they're online and turn their machine off once they're done for the day.
> IIS comes with Windows yet none of you are using it, the question begs why not if this
> Opera bullcrap is getting you so aroused?
First, with Professional (2000 and XP) and Premium (Vista) editions only. Second, to set up your own IIS (or Apache for that matter) server and add a nice interface to it is difficult enough for most people. Setting this up with Opera is easy.
Plus, it's free (yeah, so is Apache; see the people actually download it and run and refrain from jumping in to save them from their folly.
> You turn off the computer for a week while
> you go on vacation and all of a sudden you're New Zealand relatives can't see your
> cute puppy doing summersaults.
So what? Once you're back, they'll see it again.
> Then there's the biggest reason your mom shouldn't be sharing files:
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/19/copyright_victory_rich/
Oh, I shudder for the thought that I will have to pay millions for sharing pictures and videos I shot. You think I should pull down my galleries or risk running them for my family to see?
.. well, to be more specific, I love starting my search query with the words 'Ted Dziuba' and then filling in something entertaining, before allowing it to complete the search with 'in Palo Alto, CA' (or whereever) - and then watching it appear on screen.
For example:
http://milo.com/search?q=Ted+Dziuba+got+butt-shafted+upside+his+ass+with+a+broom%2C+sideways%2C+whilst+covered+in+organic+honey+harvested+from+the+bee-fields+
It makes about as much sense, and is as pointless, as Ted's articles, but it's far more entertaining....
This is what I expect from Opera after all these years of holding onto their 3.5% (+/- 2%) market share. They promise the world and give an acre. Lets look at this from a security point of view... would you really want someone that knows nothing about computers suddenly running their own web server? I suppose that we do need job security for tech support but come on... Talk about giving the bad side of the web a golden ticket to the chocolate factory!
Even Paris can have her own web server now!
It's too bad Opera's "fans" are so rabidly anti-API. Which means that the browser doesn't have any "real" extensions because the fanboys think it's already perfect and nobody could use any additional tools. You can't even copy formatted HTML out of it or drag/drop HTML out of it. Pretty standard stuff.
I have to agree regarding Unite. 1) Not everyone has a decent upload speed, 2) Some people have ridiculous bandwidth caps ;) Unless Opera.com is willing to cache everything for you and serve up subsequent requests, I can't see this making much sense.
Just the right amount of shit and fuck this time round, Ted. Well done. Could've done with an arse and a prick, though.
On the subject of arse, it'd do you well to learn to use arse and not ass when writing for a UK publication, and the subtle syntactical differences (we can leave the discussion of whether Opera devs slay bums or donkies later...). 'Ass' makes you look like some fail wannabe journo who can't write to their audience.
"Whassup Ted? Did the big boys steal your Playmobil?" ..... By W Posted Monday 22nd June 2009 08:52 GMT
That was brave and can be immediately foolhardy, W, ..... rattling the El Reg ToyBoXXXX........ for there are All Manner of Transformational IT Programmers Cruising Its Sourcey Saucy Post Operative Commentary ....... AIdDiscussions on Virtual ConeXXXXions ...... for Semantic Web Mastery of NEUKlearer HyperRadioProActive Vision with Future Experienced ForeSight Driven, and therefore also Led, with the Benefit of FailSafe Hindsight.
Which is a Self Perpetuating and Constantly Cleansing and Purging Virtual Machine ..... for Virgin Operating Systems which could equally as well be Viglen Sugar Factories/SharkWorks.
Although that could also be Baited Need with Guaranteed Supply Feed to Brothers Saatchi/Barclay too. :-) ....... to name but two Creative Source Hosts.
And you don't need to be hungry to feast with Sharks Working, only SMARTer Enabled at ITs Levels, and Way Beyond it in Deeper ProgramMING for the Immaculate Leads to Follow and their Tales to Foretell.
Thus is, in AI Initially, the Future View Phormed and Created and Constantly being Administered to with Remote Access and Control Input for Transmission to Reality .... over the Full Spectrum of Broad Band Communicating Global Operating Devices ....... ie with a Little Help from Our Friends who see a Fast Solid Buck.
I refer you to my comment on last week's article about the teaser announcement, wherein with great prescience I predicted that Ted would write a withering Fail about this, whatever it turned out to be.
Cheers Ted, knew you wouldn't let me down.
I now intend to try to second-guess Ted every fortnight by tagging the most hyped new product in dev APIs, web 2.0 or cloud computing. Not that he's getting predictable or anything...
Clearly the reg is the tabloid IT press, but for the love of god that is no excuse. You commentees need to buck your ideas up - you get prodded with a pointy trollstick on a fortnightly basis and without fail rear up in varying degrees of frothy mouthed nerd rage. i despair, i really do.
Bringing what i like to think of as the buffet cart at the end of this train-wreck comments thread back on track: Opera really is irrelevant these days. Simply passing Acid2 isn't all that impressive and 'speedy' load times are virtually undiscernable from unacceptably 'normal' loadtimes.
i make webapplications for a living, so as a matter of professional pride i endeavor to test my work on every browser a user is likely to encounter, and make sure it works properly. More than this, i can remember exactly how many times somebody has asked me about Opera compatibility in the last 6 years. Once. One client asked me the question on one solitary occasion.
Interest piqued "Why do you ask?" i enquired?.
"oh i was just curious. i'd never heard of it until i read something about it on the web today"
fuck Opera.
Opera are as ever banging their collective heads against a wall.
*IF* this turns out to be popular it will no doubt be copied by other vendors and Opera won't get a look in. The web browser would be a much blander and less user friendly application without Opera's innovation. However Opera must surely have learned by now that nothing they do will ever increase their market share. They would probably make more money if they licenced their innovations to other browser vendors rather than punting their own browser.
I'm just commenting here even though nobody is reading it in the vain hopes that somehow my feedback pushes the number of complaints about this so-called "journalist" over a threshold at El Reg offices such that they reconsider letting this drooling simp near a keyboard again without proofreading his articles and making sure they're even remotely entertaining, if not informative, balanced, interesting or humourous.
HAHA your site throws an error when you type multibyte chars into the search box! That's like a "my first web app" kind of mistake.
Instead of fixing this really simple bug you choose a foreign software company to write a rant about, just so you can slip in an asshole comment about UTF-8 to make yourself feel better.
Go back to school, Ted.
"""Europeans are suffering from GDP envy? That might be right for the rest of the continent, but GDP pr. captia in Norway is 10% above that of the US. I suspect the GNP envy goes the other way."""
Nope. Your wrong. Nobody here in the USA gives a flying fuck what the GDP of Norway is. Sorry.
In fact we are mystified* why somebody in Norway would know or care what our GDP is. We barely care ourselves..
In fact it's mostly irrelevent except for those dickwads that think watching "CNN Money Hour" will somehow unlock some secret to their monetary happiness in 20 years or so. (which is won't. Those talking heads are nothing but a bunch of fuckwits. If they knew what they were talking about they would be too busy being rich to waste their time on some boring TV show)
*Then ten seconds later we remind ourselves how much we kick-ass and wonder no longer.
Was this author working for Microsoft [who started boycott for Opera products] or is he from some other product marketing team? i haven't seen so bad journalism LONG time (in here, i would be not surprised if i would find this article from some yellow newspaper)...
i am so disappointed that i even can not comment it longer, SAD is only word that comes on my mind
I singed up for new account just to make this comment
GDP isn't a relevant measure of anything, particularly if you live in a country where the distribution of wealth and huge levels of debt make the economy look like an African dictatorship anyway. It's even more laughable a measure of 'awesome' when all the nations richer than you in terms of income per capita are European.
You keep waving that big foam #1 finger, chum, we'll keep rolling our eyes.
Ranting at Opera is like kicking a puppy. Not just any puppy, but the ugly little mutt in the back that you know isn't ever going to get adopted and has a date with a needle some day. So how anyone can get so worked up over an unwanted puppy would be bewildering if it wasn't clear that the 'anger' schtick is just a writing crutch that he's schticking to in the same way a schoolkid will plaster his jacket with more and more goofy slogan buttons in a feeble effort to stand out from his peers. I've seen better rants from bawling fanbois in Warcrack forums. Funnier, too.
About Opera's proprietary gadgets, I don't care either way. I'm not going to use it because an application such as a browser is something you can (and sometimes must) close, while a server is something you want running all the time. So running a server in a browser is already a conceptual failure.
What really irks me is their apparent decision to stop implementing HTML5. Not so long ago, Opera was at the very forefront of HTML5. Now... the only serious browser that doesn't support video/audio tags? (*) OTOH, if they can't even get an audio file to play in their proprietary extensions, maybe it's a good thing.
(*) That video-enabled 9.63 build is two years old and doesn't support basic elements of the current spec. None of the current video test pages play on it. Nothing has happened ever since.
Dziuba?? WTF? The name looks like a scrabble rack and probably sounds like a brand of colorful wrestling pants, and he's the one mocking someone's name?
OK, Ted's an asshole. No great sin: the occasional bloke has thought of me the same way (mistakenly, of course). BUT... if you're going to be a PUBLIC asshole, then you'd better be good at what you do.
What Ted does is milo.com. I'll give Zoobas a pass on the domain: after all, he may not have been the one to rip off the name of a Latin American beverage powder. Let's see if milo.com can help me shop locally.
Simple query: "lacrosse sticks" in [suburb of major American metropolitan area], any brand, no price filter.
Simple result set: The "House" Seasons 1-4 DVD set. OK, so milo.com was as useful as ask.com on that one. Let's make it easier:
"Lacrosse" yieids a bunch of hits, all books and DVDs except one (an alarm clock). No equipment on the first page.
OK, OK, I'm being sneaky. After all, perhaps the fastest growing sport in the country isn't a good choice. How about "baseball bats"? Lookie here! First hit is an actual baseball bat! Good thing, too: none of the other hits on the first page are. Click the link, wait for the cute piece of Ajax code to check local availability... oh, never mind, the item is "only available online". IOW, "Best Price from 1 Local Store" was pretty much a lie.
Perhaps the "Defense Minister" at milo.com should spend more time trying to get his site to work, and less trying to channel Mencken.
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