Opera is dropping FreeBSD, it's (almost) official.

Then I'll drop Opera. I've used it for 13 years, now it's transformed into a Firefox clone and it won't get a UNIX port.

Goodbye.
 
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There's also a Linux version in ports.

Zare said:
Then I'll drop Opera.
I've used it for 13 years, now it's transformed into a Firefox clone and it won't get UNIX port.

Goodbye.


Firefox? I'd say Chromium.
 
The real problem is that there is no drop-in replacement.

All browsers suck and are dependence heavy.
 
The world has dropped Opera, so no wonder they must cut support. Really, Chromium or Firefox can't do the job well enough?
 
Frankly, not for me.

They would not have to drop FreeBSD if they didn't commit to this chromium liaison.
 
morbit said:
Real problem is that there is no drop-in replacement.

All browsers suck and are dependence heavy.

Midori always seemed to me as nearest replacement (also has non PITA mouse gestures), at least for the browser part, no mail client and other 'addons'.
 
morbit said:
Opera is finally confirming what almost everybody have anticipated.

I have never used Opera. Interestingly it was for this exact reason. That some day, I won't be able to use it. Kind of a catch-22 :).

But I believe in choice. Should we perhaps all get together and send Opera a polite email to keep support? Do you think it would work or is the issue that the version of Chrome/Blink they are using is proprietary and they don't have a choice in the matter. Perhaps the sheer number of anti-linuxism patches required is over facing them :).
 
vanessa said:
The world has dropped Opera

Well, except on mobile, Opera never did have a large market share.

I lost interest in Opera when it started using the Chrome engine.

We used to test in Opera for standards compliance but Opera just couldn't keep up with all the new stuff coming out lately. Opera realized this and felt their best contributions to the Internet would be joining with an open source project; hence why they joined WebKit and, then, Blink.

Opera has already made a number of significant bug fixes and updates to Blink and WebKit.

Overall, this is a good thing. One has to remember that the engine is not the browser user interface. The engine is what renders the screen, parses the data/HTML/CSS/etc., but not the skin or buttons and all functionality. That is what will still differentiate Opera from Chromium and Firefox.
 
Except that they dropped the UI as well and are basing their efforts on straight up* chromium.

* more like crippled...
 
This is such a shame! But we've been expecting it for quite some time already.

Like Zare, I've been using Opera for 13 years (since around 2000) after dropping the dead/dying Netscape.

They really ****** this up big time. But I guess they didn't really care about the "power users" after all. Since founder and former CEO Von Tetzchner left they've been restructuring their business and targeting mobile users more and more. It was only a matter of time before they dropped Presto for a more mainstream engine and started dumbing down the interface for the smartphone generation.

morbit said:
Real problem is that there is no drop-in replacement.

All browsers suck and are dependence heavy.
Exactly! That was one of the main advantages of Opera, another one being that it was the most customizable browser EVER.

mix_room said:
I agree with many others, I lost interest in Opera when it started using the Chrome engine. I really liked Opera though.
Same here. As I posted on their blog, every time they release a new Next version (for Windows), I try it for a few minutes and then remove it. It's really disappointing!

kpedersen said:
Should we perhaps all get together and send Opera a polite email to keep support?
If you followed the Opera forums and blog more closely, you'd understand what a waste of time that would be. Since they released version 15, literally *thousands* of users, including me, have been asking them to keep the interface (at the very least) and requesting back many of the removed features. To no avail. I've seen hundreds of active users leave over the last few months.

Opera is becoming a radically different browser and most of its loyal user base will be replaced. Only one problem: why would anyone want to switch to Opera? So far, I haven't seen any competitive advantage over Chrome/ium. If they stay the course, I expect they will join Netscape in the annals of browser history.

kpedersen said:
Do you think it would work or is the issue that the version of Chrome/Blink they are using is proprietary and they don't have a choice in the matter.
Being proprietary has never prevented Opera ASA from supporting FreeBSD or Linux. And Blink is open source anyway.
 
For now, there is still some support (bug fixes only) for Opera 12. Once that goes away, I will go away - also after close to 13 years of using Opera on various operating systems.

That being said, I am taking my time to find the right replacement.

I do not believe that any amount of pressure and feedback will make a difference. With their new iPad browser, Opera has shown that they are now targeting a completely different audience - and we here are not it.

Opera is now the Ubuntu of browsers...
 
Opera always seemed buggy on FreeBSD to me. That's why I moved to www/xombrero. It's lightweight and uses vi-like keybindings. Still, it misses some common features like saving webpage to disk; bokmark support is far from useful.
 
serpent7776 said:
Opera always seemed buggy on FreeBSD to me.

Actually, the 12 line is quite good for me. I usually have a massive amount of tabs opened and it works fine. And hundreds of bookmarks too. Tens of feeds also. I do not know a suitable replacement.
 
morbit said:
Actually, 12 line is quite good for me. I usually have massive amount of tabs opened and it works fine. And hundreds of bookmarks too. Tens of feeds also. I do not know suitable replacement.

Same here. Think I will use it until Opera 12 reaches EOL. Too bad I'm so used to it that I don't see any good replacement at the moment (Chromium and Firefox are just too much mainstream ;p).
 
The half-serious reply to my comment on Opera's Desktop Team blog says it all:
&quot said:
Presto FreeBSD? We've almost needed more developers to support it, than we have had users using it.. Out of all 8 Opera FreeBSD users out there, 3 of them were Opera employees Just kidding, but the truth is not that far away.
*shrugs*


recluce said:
For now, there is still some support (bug fixes only) for Opera 12.
The *only* fix since Blink Opera 15 was released was for a potentially catastrophic vulnerability. I don't think they'll be supporting the "legacy" version much longer.

recluce said:
That being said, I am taking my time to find the right replacement.
All I can do is wish us good luck; we'll need it.


serpent7776 said:
I moved to www/xombrero. It's lightweight
It is lightweight itself. But GTK-WebKit isn't. Just like with www/midori, www/chromium, Vimprobable (not in the ports), etc., once you open too many pages or open a JavaScript/image-heavy page, memory usage skyrockets.
 
Well, all major browsers already have used by default this anti-malware thing, which basically phones Google before each page load, no?

To be honest, native Opera was one of the things with which FreeBSD have won me over OpenBSD when I was starting. The power of the browser cannot be underestimated, as it's an application which will run non-stop for almost all users.
 
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morbit said:
To be honest, native Opera was one of the things with which FreeBSD have won me over OpenBSD when I was starting... Power of the browser cannot be underestimated, as it's application which will run non-stop for almost all users.

If OpenBSD will get ZFS and VirtualBox then I may consider using it instead of FreeBSD as Opera is dead anyway ;)
 
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