why is opera not as popular as other browsers?

[Anubis]

Because it's a memory hog and uses tons of resources and it's never been given that much exposition by word of mouth and by mainstream media.

we are talking about opera not firefox,


and WTF is wrong with operas bookmark implmentation? TBH i find it no different then FF,
on the addon front yes FF has more options but opera has the ability to do most of the popular things like addblock and no script, YT downloading and stylefish type crap

 

[jkroeder]

Marketing.

It's fast, both page rendering and UI responsiveness
Good security track record
Has most of the features most Firefox users use built in
Extensible
Innovative

 

[nemesismk2]

it used to be amazingly awesome back before it was free and had these crazy features like tabs back before anything else had them

then FireFox came out which was open source, and then Chrome which did what Opera does only with better advertising to get it off the ground

if Opera Software had the foresight to make it freeware from the get-go they might have had something, but now there's just no catching up to the open source nature of FireFox and Internet Explorer and Chrome who are backed by software juggernauts with the resources to buy the popularity they need.

And at this point there's really no amount of innovation that they can come up with to set themselves apart to gain any real ground.

Some peoples problem with Google Chrome is it's use of marketing which some find a bit viral and in your face. it's not a problem for me though because everything has to be paid for one way or another.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

we are talking about opera not firefox,


and WTF is wrong with operas bookmark implmentation? TBH i find it no different then FF,
on the addon front yes FF has more options but opera has the ability to do most of the popular things like addblock and no script, YT downloading and stylefish type crap

No, I don't think so. Opera is a pig when it comes to managing resources. It uses a ton of RAM and when you close tabs RAM usage goes down very little, if any.

 

[zokudu]

No, I don't think so. Opera is a pig when it comes to managing resources. It uses a ton of RAM and when you close tabs RAM usage goes down very little, if any.

Because it caches a certain % of your ram. It uses the same amount of resources if you're running 1 tab or 100.

 

[dac7nco]

Preach on good brother.

You have the greatest sig of all time... sorry for going off topic.

Daimon

 

[N4g4rok]

I hadn't heard too much of it until i started poking around web developer forums. It's a favorite amongst the web development professors here on campus. Started using it at nine myself, and it has gotten a lot better than what it was.

It seems like they really got ontop of the site-specific hotfixes. I remember Facebook being unusable for a while.

 

[sactoking]

I switched to Opera when I got tired of all of the Firefox memory leaks.

 

[destrekor]

I switched to Opera when I got tired of all of the Firefox memory leaks.

I did that too.

Originally, Firefox became my main browser. Then it really started to get annoying, and I tried out Opera and Chrome, and really liked Opera. I rolled with it for awhile, then started giving Chrome a little more love.

I have all four major browsers installed and up to date (IE, Firefox, Opera, Chrome), and use each from time to time. Some sites still work better with certain browsers versus others. Opera, at this point, has very little use on my system.

Opera still has some memory issues, but the main reason Chrome has taken over is because Chrome remains fast even when loaded with an unimaginable number of tabs, has extensions galore that help make it awesome (Firefox is better in this regard - but the memory utilization sucks!), and best of all: Chrome is basically THE best with web standards. IE is catching up with speed and web standards, but Opera... holy hell Opera is terrible about standards and website compatibility. So many sites are broken in Opera it's unreal.

Sadly, when it comes to government websites, Chrome sometimes works, sometimes refuses to play along, and that's basically the only time IE really becomes useful.

 

[Anubis]

No, I don't think so. Opera is a pig when it comes to managing resources. It uses a ton of RAM and when you close tabs RAM usage goes down very little, if any.

if opera is a memory pig then FF is a memory blue whale, FF is well know for having memory issues, and its still not fixed. opera may use more on initial start up by design but no mater how may tabs i have open i haven't seen it eat 2+ GB and crash like FF

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

if opera is a memory pig then FF is a memory blue whale, FF is well know for having memory issues, and its still not fixed. opera may use more on initial start up by design but no mater how may tabs i have open i haven't seen it eat 2+ GB and crash like FF

 

[VirtualLarry]

I basically stopped using Opera after getting hit by an Opera-specific exploit that was in-the-wild and (I think) unpatched at the time.

They really don't have the greatest security track record, and being closed-source certainly doesn't help.

Plus, I think Firefox has massively surpassed Opera in terms of functionality and usability overall. (Plugins, add-ons, etc.)

 

[KAZANI]

I just opened 50+ tabs in Opera (Win7) and memory usage is around 500MB. I could set it manually to use even less than that, mind you.

I basically stopped using Opera after getting hit by an Opera-specific exploit that was in-the-wild and (I think) unpatched at the time.

They really don't have the greatest security track record, and being closed-source certainly doesn't help.

You make it appear as though FF never had any security flaws. lol Anyway, my experience has been that the Opera team has always been very prompt with security updates and I never had any serious problems in my more than 10 years of browsing experience. In fact, it's due to these guys' conscious efforts in educating users on basic safe practices that I ever became aware of and actively involved with many aspects of my online security.

Plus, I think Firefox has massively surpassed Opera in terms of functionality and usability overall. (Plugins, add-ons, etc.)

Nope, still playing catch-up (and let me tell you, gonna be like that for a while longer). Every now and then I install the latest FF/Chrome/IE version to see what in the world the hype is all about. I could say I do so even with a strong bias FOR it, in Firefox's case. I always come to the same conclusion: NOTHING BUT HYPE

Come back when mouse gestures and note-taking are not "addons" (how can people go without such basic things), customisation of GUI elements is not a joke, login forms automplete using a single button, custom searches can be executed without going through the drudgery of keyword + copy/pasting/typing when the text I want to search for is already on my screen, and, for the love of all that's holly, it's been firmly established that it's perfectly feasible to go into private browse mode WITHOUT suspending current sessions.

 

[ultimatebob]

I think it's a great browser, better than chrome or FF.
I still think it suffers from its history that it used to be a paid for app.

sometimes it doesn't render websites correctly, but chrome/ff is also guilty of this. i use it in conjunction with IE and everything's all good.

Yeah... probably because it used to be a paid app, and then after that it was bundled with advertising. Chrome and Firefox were free from the start.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Come back when mouse gestures and note-taking are not "addons" (how can people go without such basic things), customisation of GUI elements is not a joke, login forms automplete using a single button, custom searches can be executed without going through the drudgery of keyword + copy/pasting/typing when the text I want to search for is already on my screen, and, for the love of all that's holly, it's been firmly established that it's perfectly feasible to go into private browse mode WITHOUT suspending current sessions.

IMHO, mouse gestures are gimmicks. I don't use them.

And to search google for something on the page, all you have to do is highlight it, and right click "Search Google for...".

 

[Binky]

IMHO, mouse gestures are gimmicks. I don't use them.

And to search google for something on the page, all you have to do is highlight it, and right click "Search Google for...".

100% disagree.

Mouse gestures for extremely common functions like next tab, previous tab, close tab are INCREDIBLY useful. I like also having keyboard shortcuts for these functions, but I'd never use a browser without this ability. A gimmick mouse gesture is facebook if you draw an F on the screen - that's a gimmick and it's just stupid.

Searching for something on the page should be no harder than swipe-drag (i.e. drag-n-drop search in a new tab). If you have to select/swipe, then right click, then click something else, it's taking too many (unnecessary) steps.

 

[silvan4now]

tried opera for some time and every time i say it's better than Firefox i find a nasty bug. I mean it is an OK browser but Firefox is better

 

[KAZANI]

to search google for something on the page, all you have to do is highlight it, and right click "Search Google for...".

But that's just the built-in search engine of FF, for custom searches the user adds there is no menu option.

tried opera for some time and every time i say it's better than Firefox i find a nasty bug. I mean it is an OK browser but Firefox is better

There you have it, OP! The reason Opera can't get more love with users is because it can't compete against Firefox's bug-free-ness.

 

[Mandres]

Why isn't Opera more popular? Because of users like me. I'm somewhat tech-savvy but I'm not a programmer. I switched from Internet Explorer to Firefox a decade ago because it was free, and because tabbed browsing was an amazing feature that IE didn't yet offer.

And during that decade, FF has continued to work fine. So why would I switch to something else and have to learn a new UI? It would take a google-sized marketing push to make me even think about switching browsers, which is why Chrome is gaining market share.

I don't care about marginal speed gains in certain specific situations or sites, and for all the talk about memory problems I've never had a single issue. Until and unless Opera can offer me a truly useful feature that Firefox doesn't have then I'll never switch, and neither will anyone else. It's just not worth the hassle. The war for public preference was fought a long time ago and Opera lost.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

It isn't relevant. The general population are idiots. They use what they're told to use, and don't have the slightest idea regarding licensing, or its implication. By opening the code They give coders a new toy, and a fully featured browser to play with. They will then push Opera's use to the general population.

The only way I could see a definite improvement to Opera moving to open source is in the amount of bug fixing and testing that goes on. This is a big issue, and maybe if the numerous bugs in Opera were fixed (Turbo, rendering problems, adblocking strangenesses, mail problems, etc.) usage would go up significantly. But I can't think of anything else, and your claims are wholly unconvincing.

Chrome is running on a minimalism meme that's gained popularity in the last couple years. There's also some backlash against Mozilla due to the fact they're popular. Not everyone is into minimalism, and many of those that are will get tired of not having features. A libre Opera would give those people a competitor to Mozilla, as there isn't anything else like it in the browser market, especially the libre browser market.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And saying that everyone is using Chrome because of a fashion statement is certainly pretty extraordinary.

 

[lamedude]

It doesn't support H.264. Hard to be on the Flash sux bandwagon if your browser can't view most video without it.

 

[KAZANI]

Why isn't Opera more popular? Because of users like me. I'm somewhat tech-savvy but I'm not a programmer. I switched from Internet Explorer to Firefox a decade ago because it was free, and because tabbed browsing was an amazing feature that IE didn't yet offer.

And during that decade, FF has continued to work fine. So why would I switch to something else and have to learn a new UI? It would take a google-sized marketing push to make me even think about switching browsers, which is why Chrome is gaining market share.

I don't care about marginal speed gains in certain specific situations or sites, and for all the talk about memory problems I've never had a single issue. Until and unless Opera can offer me a truly useful feature that Firefox doesn't have then I'll never switch, and neither will anyone else. It's just not worth the hassle. The war for public preference was fought a long time ago and Opera lost.

Opera offered tabbed browsing a year earlier than Firefox did, yet you chose the browser lacking in this situation. This makes your two statements I highlighted above contradictory.

 

[KAZANI]

It doesn't support H.264. Hard to be on the Flash sux bandwagon if your browser can't view most video without it.

That's news to me. Never had a problem viewing HD flash content, all the way up to 1080p.

 

[zokudu]

That's news to me. Never had a problem viewing HD flash content, all the way up to 1080p.

He means Operas lack of h.264 support severely limits its ability to view videos without the use of Flash.

 

[lxskllr]

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And saying that everyone is using Chrome because of a fashion statement is certainly pretty extraordinary.

That's not an extraordinary claim at all. Anyone who reads tech forums can see it for themselves. Much of the Chrome hype was started on the minimal interface. Additionally, other companies are copying the minimalism meme(MS, Apple, Gnome, Canonical...). Somehow it became a "fact" that people were short on screen space. Monitors got huge, and for some reason there's no room for interface items, so they got dropped. I never thought "If I had 12 extra pixels on my 24" monitor, my computing would be so much better". I just get pissed off at the lack of features, and having to dig through menus for something that should be a button click away.