Opera and the common barnacle

[Tannin]

Seems sensible to make a new thread of this, rather than drag the spyware thread off-topic.

Since they f*cked the user interface up big-time in Opera 7.x, they have turned themselves into a product without a purpose or a future.

I agree with you about 7-7.5, but I'm really happy with 7.60/8. I'd exhort you to try it, but that would be like prising a barnacle off with my tongue.

Well I did try it, or at least I tried to try it. My (bought and paid for genuine-spent-my-own-money Opera 7.X claims that it's a 7.54. I seem to remember upgrading to that version some time back without asking questions first because I was so unhappy with the horrible user interface in whatever version of it I had before - another 7.something.

Don't get me wrong, I really like Opera, or at least I did till this dreadful V7 came along - indeed, I'm posting this from my tried and true, buggy-but-I-like-it Opera 6.06.

So I would be delighted to discover that they had finally fixed the stupid interface in 7.x. The underlying code is way better than 6.x ever was, they only need to get the interface right. (Hint to the Opera developers: download a copy of Opera 6, then don't f*cking change anything. If your new Opera version is nearly as good as Opera 6, then it will be the second-best browser interface ever designed, which would be close enough.)

Anyway, seeing as Time agreed with me that 7.0 to 7.5 is horrible, I figured that the new one - 7.6/8 has to be worth a try. So I went to www.opera.com and - would you believe it - the current version is still 7.54!

There is a beta, but that's V8 (according to the file name), which will require that I payu them yet again, and I'm damned if I'll shell out good money on an unknown product from a company that didn't deserve to get paid the last lot of money I gave them.

So, what happened to 7.6 and above?

 

[time]

Their front page advertises "a free upgrade to the next version" for version 7 (currently at 7.54) purchasers. The next version started out at 7.60, but it's so different they started calling it 8.0 preview (it's still labelled as 7.60). They seem to be acknowledging that 7.5 disappointed and 7.60/8.0 will be the next proper release.

So you already own it.

The thing that impressed me was that even in early alpha (preview), it seemed more stable and competent than final releases. It's only recently that I've experienced problems with stories on www.news.com.au - until then it seemed bulletproof. Also, my daughter tells me that there are still certain flash sites that don't work properly - but I haven't had any problems.

What I did notice was that masquerading as Mozilla, it did a better job of rendering some sites than Mozilla. After I had worked to get people onto Firefox, I found myself meekly suggesting Opera to fix the shortcomings. :-? Hopefully, that situation won't continue.

I recommend disabling the main toolbar - it's pretty much redundant. And please remember it's a new interface with new ideas. The localized tab buttons are initially annoying, but I soon decided the conventional approach was dumb in comparison. The drop down address toolbar is also off-putting, but really logical when you think about it. Just remember that you can customize nearly anything associated with the interface - I immediately killed the Ebay search to save space.

 

[Tannin]

Ahh, thankyou Time.

They really have lost the plot on visual interface design, haven't they?

It seems nice and quick - quicker than even older Operas, but the styling of the menu bars is right out of the really-dumb-graphic-designer-trying-to-look-clever department. WTF are they thinking of? There is practically no contrast between the various screen areas and icons. If I have to train my eyes to see what's on the screen, I'll use a different browser.

OK, sure, I could buggerise about and load a different skin, but it is absurd to ship a product with a default skin that you can't use without eyestrain.

For example, look at the scrollbar on the RHS - the light grey and the dark grey are practically the same colour - this is exactly the sort of stupidity that I got pissed off with Opera 7 for. Now look at the forward and back buttons: same deal: light green on light grey on lighter grey. Really, really dumb. OK, Mozilla is ultra-clunky, but at leastyou can read it. Microsoft, of course, are extremely good at this colour and graphics stuff - probably better at this than anything else they do. Anything honest, anyway.

Does my registration key work? Let's post this and find out!

 

[Tannin]

Cool!

Ahh .. the "Windows default" skin that ships with it is a very substantial improvement. Still too shades-of-grey by a long way, but lots better.

The "main bar" is completey useless - get rid of it. Ditto some other crap.

Hey! This looks like it could be a decent browser! But it really, really needs a competently-designed skin.

 

[Tannin]

Very nice, smooth and quick skin selection and installation routine. Takes about as long to load a new skin as it does to type this paragraph. The "Neo" skin is ugly and the text on the menu bar is too light, but it's usable. I am becoming more impressed by the minute. "KDE Longing isn't bad - but it's hard to read the coloured-in multiple window tabs.

How about "Opera 1.0". Hey - this one is almost the goods! But - damnit! - the idiot designer has greyed out the page tabs again, and I use tabbed browsing the way an alcoholic uses the bottle. Probably about as good as I'll get though.

Time, you might just have broken my Opera 6.0 habit. Let's see if I'm still using it in a week or two,

 

[time]

You're right about the scroll bar, but it hadn't bothered me because I use either the mouse wheel or the keyboard. I wonder if using grey rather than the Windows theme might even be a bug?

After that, you sort of lose me. Perhaps it's picked up your settings from a previous version? My forward and back arrows are dark green, not light; other buttons are different colors; and the contrast is definitely higher with the default theme than the "Windows Standard" theme - but that might be due to the mauve background one of my daughters has set ...

I definitely have no idea what you're talking about with IE6. It has grey buttons!

This topic is ironic, because this is the first time I haven't felt compelled to change the skin! It's fortunate that there are seven Firefox-themed skins for Opera.

 

[Buck]

I'll stick with Firefox. Spending $39.00 for a browser is ridiculous, especially if it is not infinitely better then what I'm using. Besides, I only use Opera to verify html stuff.

 

[time]

The free version now only loses the width of a speedbar to the ad banner (assuming you disable the main toolbar as suggested). It's really not a big deal.

I think it's worth pointing out that the Mozilla foundation exists thanks to grants from Netscape/AOL, and not due to some utopian business model. Everyone else has to try to cover their costs somehow, a point frequently lost on the "free software" crowd.

Personally, I don't think either Mozilla or Opera have much chance of long term survival - which is a pity.

 

[Buck]

..."free software" crowd.

You can exclude me from that crowd. I gladly pay for software that is worth the money, I do not use software simply because it is free.

But for me there are three browser options, IE, FireFox, and Opera. IE is nice, but it is plagued with security vulnerabilities that are regularly exploited. FireFox loads quickly, and seems to work with almost every site that I visit. Opera seems slightly slower than FireFox, has a less than desirable UI, doesn't render all of the websites I visit correctly (like SF), and in order to get comparable viewing space, will cost me $39.00 -- in my opinion, that would be money poorly spent. If all three current options cost $39.00 each, I would spend my money on FireFox. (Mozilla is out as a regular browser because it is slow. Although I do like the mail feature.)

 

[Tannin]

Huh? We are talking to a group of people who regularly and routinely spend hundreds, from time to time thousands on ridiculously small performance mods and upgrades. What's $39? It's a drop in the ocean.

Mozilla's mail, by the way, is its worst feature.

I very much fear that Time is right re the long-term survival of Mozilla and Opera - which is a great pity as I don't really like Firefox: I've posted on this before but, in short, Firefox has too many dummy-mode features that you can't switch off. The two things I dislike most about Firefox are the lack of a proper download window (i.e., like the ones that Internet Explorer and (optionally) Mozilla have) and the lack of ability to Google search from the address bar. There are some other things, but these two are enough to relegate Firefox to being, for me, a browser that I don't mind using if there isn't anything better to hand.

 

[ddrueding]

I'm not sure what you mean about the download window...you would prefer to have individual windows for each download rather than a single list that includes your download history? Can't imagine why...

Googling from the address bar? I've got all my firefox clients doing that, it's a one-line fix in about:config (if I remembered what it was, I'd tell you).

 

[Buck]

Huh? We are talking to a group of people who regularly and routinely spend hundreds, from time to time thousands on ridiculously small performance mods and upgrades. What's $39? It's a drop in the ocean.

Just in case you were actually pointing that post in my direction:

But for me there are three browser options, IE, FireFox, and Opera. IE is nice, but it is plagued with security vulnerabilities that are regularly exploited. FireFox loads quickly, and seems to work with almost every site that I visit. Opera seems slightly slower than FireFox, has a less than desirable UI, doesn't render all of the websites I visit correctly (like SF), and in order to get comparable viewing space, will cost me $39.00 -- in my opinion, that would be money poorly spent. If all three current options cost $39.00 each, I would spend my money on FireFox.

This has nothing to do with spending money, or the amount of money spent! Why should I spend money on Opera when FireFox is better?!? If you don't quite understand this basic principle, I have some ocean front property in Walungurru I'd like to sell you, the cool ocean breeze is to die for.

 

[Mercutio]

To search google from the address bar:

Make a new bookmark: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%s
Set the keyword to something simple. I use "g"

To search, type "g searchterm"

e.g.

g boobies -bird

Which will hopefully return many results of the non-lame kind.

 

[Buck]

This is either sad, or it's a joke (maybe both?):

Opera enters UI business

 

[Howell]

The two things I dislike most about Firefox are the lack of a proper download window (i.e., like the ones that Internet Explorer and (optionally) Mozilla have) and the lack of ability to Google search from the address bar. There are some other things, but these two are enough to relegate Firefox to being, for me, a browser that I don't mind using if there isn't anything better to hand.

Frankly I like having all the dowloads collected into one window but it would be nice to have a choice.
What's wrong with googling from the Mycroft bar, It's right there? With a click you can even search other engines. I have 18 search engines loaded and available right now.

 

[Handruin]

The firefox download manager can be configured to close after a download. Granted the interface doesn't look like IE or mozilla, but it will function similar.

Firefox's address bar is actually "google" + "i'm feeling lucky". Enter a word or term in the address bar and you get the same result as if you were using google with the "i'm feeling lucky" option.