This press conference has reached critical mass. We've enough journalists - Intel Spin Doctor
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Opera sings to 100 million people
PLUCKY SOFTWARE FIRM Opera says that the number of people who use its browser and email packages has reached 100 million worldwide.
Apparently it reached this milestone in March. This should place it in its second act. Which in an opera is when the fat lady howls like a banshee that she is going to stab herself over the short round bloke who thinks acting is about waving his arms.
There are 50 million Opera users on Windows, Mac and Linux computers, as well as another 50 million people using Opera Mini.
The Opera Mini figure is interesting because it suggests that the outfit is actually doing better on phones than it is on the desktop.
Growth of the Opera browser on the desktop now stands at over 30 per cent, measured from March 2009 to March 2010. The number of desktop users was measured during March 2010, resulting in an unprecedented 50 million unique active users, an Opera spokesperson sang.
Lars Boilesen, Opera's CEO, said that this year's record growth shows that the outfit is on the right track.
The growth spurt happened following the launch of Opera 10.5x which we just deleted from our machine because it didn't like to cut and paste into the Inquirer's CMS and the email program was a bit annoying.
Still Opera tells us that it is much better than its predecessor Opera 10.1 so that must be a good thing. µ
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Refreshing to see realistic comments on the latest releases. I used to be die-had Opera, but after 10.5x, elected to examine other browsers and have moved on. The condescension in their forum is something else. I can only equate the latest releases and smug attitude to Vista, and we all know where that went.
When FF bashes other it angelic why dont someone reveal their own hypocrisies. Firefox is consumption of granny type people who open 5-10 tabs atmost. Its also so Hippocratic of them against IE. When u install FF3.5 it asks for making it default, you say NO. after install, on first startup this product of Hippocrates again asks for it and keeps default focus on yes to take advantage of deception that user think it already told it for NO and this message would be something else. then this macho FF crashes facedown when u r downloading virus infected file. the AV kills the file bit FF3.5 somehow keeps clinging to the file and crashes down. FF3.5 page scrolling is pathetic. The jitters it give makes page unreadable while keyboard (down key) scroll. IE and Opera but give smooth scroll through keyboard scroll keys. IE and Opera are killer combination right now. IE for corporate applications and environment. while opera for surf hounds and downloaders.
Opera10 has super feature of keep downloading file even if u switch proxy from opera settings i.e. the file when starts downloading in opera is independent of further proxy changes. this blissful feature enables one to download another file through another proxy setting and these two files will keep happly downloading till finish.
Stick to 10.1 (not 10.5 or 10.51), 10.5x are RAM guzzlers. I have 150+ tabs always opened and i keep .VBS script runing to backup opera session file periodically through win schedular.
From time to time, I put on my asbestos shoes and hop into the frying pan just to see what nuisances you people put with continually. So, downloaded and installed Opera (having shoveled coal into the old XP box).
First nuisance: imported all my Firefox bookmarks without asking. I'm sure some think that a convenience, but likely Opera just snooped and now has a list of my (generic over there) bookmarks.
Second, clicked on the "+" at top; it began loading a bunch of sites that I don't wish to see, so I pulled the network cable to at least have peace while I tried customizing.
Third, after fishing around, managed to find "preferences" page where I might turn off javascript, except that it wouldn't, nor modify anything on that tab, no clue as to why. Yet I could use check boxes on other tabs.
Fourth, it allows -- no, invites, since can't even turn off javascript -- all the parasites that I usually keep out. So now I know what a "fly out" ad
is.
But at least it uninstalled without visible detritus.
The problem with Opera is the menu system(bar). It annoys the hell out of me and should me more like the IE/FF one. If they did this I would use Opera and I suspect they would gain more users
and it's been lately a "from frying pan into the fire" experience. It is a pity, since it used to be great browser. But rushing 10.5 to market (and also rushing some previous versions) have had a negative impact on the software stability and usability. What a pity.
Since 10.5 (and I reinstalled previous version only by 10.51, not by 10.50) my browsing has been plagued by frequent never-stops-loading page problems, sometime I can't even load some pages. Some of my email bodies disappeared altogether, VERY WEIRD. There are some other minor issues but these are the worst and they affect the daily browsing experience.
As a previous Opera fan I now recommed people to stay away from this browser since it's just wrong how the developers mask a beta version for a full stable version. Just check some changelogs since 10.50 and see how "full and stable" it actually was. Pity, I say again. Too bad I am hooked on this browser, I feel now like I am trapped, since I have all email and features I need there. Enough whining.