why is opera not as popular as other browsers?

[KAZANI]

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

But I AM using Opera!

EDIT: Nevermind, bad reading from my part.

 

[lxskllr]

But I AM using Opera!

and it doesn't support h264.

 

[KAZANI]

and it doesn't support h264.

How do you mean that, no hardware acceleration?

 

[lxskllr]

How do you mean that, no hardware acceleration?

h264 is codec for distributing video online. It's also overtly patent encumbered, so Mozilla has been resistant to implementing it, and favoring WebM instead. What that means, is a site that uses h264 as their sole implementation of html5 video won't be able to be used by Opera or Firefox without using a Flash fallback.

I don't know about Opera, but Mozilla has been talking about supporting h264 in future versions. I don't like that. Core web technologies should be as free as possible. WebM hasn't stood up in court yet, but on the surface it's libre. Starting off with an encumbered technology is bad policy imo. h264 is technically superior, but technical superiority isn't a good enough reason to handcuff the open web.

 

[KAZANI]

Althoug I think this discussion about future HTML5 standards is a little premature for the consumer level, I would like to bring to your attention that Chrome has dropped support for h.264. This means Google and by extension Youtube, which essentially is where the video codec game is being decided, will not be pushing h.264 but instead WebM. Furthermore, Opera, who initiated the drive for HTML5, will not be supporting it for the moment. In any case, I don't see how all this talk about Flash and H.264 makes Opera a bad choice for a browser at the moment.

 

[lxskllr]

Althoug I think this discussion about future HTML5 standards is a little premature for the consumer level, I would like to bring to your attention that Chrome has dropped support for h.264. This means Google and by extension Youtube, which essentially is where the video codec game is being decided, will not be pushing h.264 but instead WebM. Furthermore, Opera, who initiated the drive for HTML5, will not be supporting it for the moment. In any case, I don't see how all this talk about Flash and H.264 makes Opera a bad choice for a browser at the moment.

Google has /said/ they would drop h264, but they haven't done so as of yet. They're trying to place both sides, and see where the cards fall. I'd like to see them take a principled stance, and not support h264. YouTube is a big stick they can use to influence policy, and they should make the most of it.

As far as Opera goes, I agree, but it could become a concern for some in the future. For me, I'm sticking with Firefox, h264 or not. In fact, I'd prefer if they didn't support it. Firefox has decent market share, and if they don't support h264, it may be enough to steer sites towards WebM.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Google has /said/ they would drop h264, but they haven't done so as of yet. They're trying to place both sides, and see where the cards fall. I'd like to see them take a principled stance, and not support h264. YouTube is a big stick they can use to influence policy, and they should make the most of it.

As far as Opera goes, I agree, but it could become a concern for some in the future. For me, I'm sticking with Firefox, h264 or not. In fact, I'd prefer if they didn't support it. Firefox has decent market share, and if they don't support h264, it may be enough to steer sites towards WebM.

LOL, of course not. Firefox's market share has been static or declining by small amounts for some time now. They don't have that much power to control much, if anything, since Chrome has either the same or higher market share depending what stats you look at, and Internet Explorer is still the most used browser. If both Microsoft and Chrome decide to go with H.264, which they probably will, Mozilla will have to adopt it as well.

 

[lxskllr]

LOL, of course not. Firefox's market share has been static or declining by small amounts for some time now. They don't have that much power to control much, if anything, since Chrome has either the same or higher market share depending what stats you look at, and Internet Explorer is still the most used browser. If both Microsoft and Chrome decide to go with H.264, which they probably will, Mozilla will have to adopt it as well.

It doesn't matter how static their share is, they still control many millions of computers. Sites can either lose that business, or keep it. A company doesn't have to be in first place to affect policy.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

It doesn't matter how static their share is, they still control many millions of computers. Sites can either lose that business, or keep it. A company doesn't have to be in first place to affect policy.

And the part you're forgetting is that Microsoft and Google control many, many more millions of computers in comparison.

And you may not know, but the most used browser in business environments is by far Internet Explorer. All three (Firefox, Chrome, IE) are used extensively in home and home office environments, and the average user doesn't give a rat's behind if the product they're using is open source or not. They just want it to work. And if they go to YouTube and are Firefox users, and find out 720p and 1080p HD videos don't work in the browser because the browser doesn't support a particular video format/container, they'll be the first to ditch it and go with a browser that does.

You keep raving about being open source as if it was the end-all, be-all in the technology world. It's not. That's why Linux never took off in non-server environments and that's why it never will.

 

[lxskllr]

And the part you're forgetting is that Microsoft and Google control many, many more millions of computers in comparison.

It doesn't matter what the most used browser is, as long as there's a substantial number of people using something different. That's why sites STILL have to support IE6

You keep raving about being open source as if it was the end-all, be-all in the technology world. It's not. That's why Linux never took off in non-server environments and that's why it never will.

Actually, it is. We got stuck with the shittastic Flash, and ActiveX due to embracing proprietary formats. People /should/ have learned a lesson, but there's still some dim bulbs left in the world. Lets hope the thinkers take control of the web, instead of the corporations.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

It doesn't matter what the most used browser is, as long as there's a substantial number of people using something different. That's why sites STILL have to support IE6



Actually, it is. We got stuck with the shittastic Flash, and ActiveX due to embracing proprietary formats. People /should/ have learned a lesson, but there's still some dim bulbs left in the world. Lets hope the thinkers take control of the web, instead of the corporations.

Right, except there's nothing wrong at all with H.264 when it comes to either performance, features or video quality. You're just complaining because it's not open source.

My last reply: open source doesn't matter one bit if something proprietary works just as good or better. That won't change as much as you want it to. H.264 is what will be supported by the web moving forward.

 

[sm625]

opera simply flat-out fails to render certain items. Especially those little random buttons. Sometimes I wont even see the missing button, or even know there is a missing button, until I load the page in firefox.

Here's a fine example of where opera blows up: http://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnline...goryId=PC&c=us&l=en&s=dfh&cs=22&suid=87047d8c

Add that to cart and then Dell will throw a captcha at you. When I go to type in the captcha code, I cant type anything into the box! Seriously wtf I cant even get the cursor to appear in the box.

Here is another example of opera not working: http://www.crucial.com/support/firmw...&SID=u00000626 Select an M4 from the list box, then click on the "guide" link and an adobe message should pop up asking you to choose a language. On my opera I see no such box.

 

[Mandres]

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.

Did you miss the first half of the sentence you highlighted? I said "because it [firefox] was free" whereas Opera was not.

There's nothing contradictory in my explanation. I very clearly laid out why Opera is not more popular and never will be, barring the introduction of a revolutionary new feature or a $$$ marketing push.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

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.

And how do you know that people don't want it to stay?

 

[alexruiz]

As someone who uses Opera as his main browser, and who has been doing so since ver 5.5, I can tell you the reason:

Several websites, at one point or another, for whatever reason, don't play nice with opera

Most of the times is poorly coded websites, but then, sometimes the Opera developers break something in the code: Case in point is Staples website, go to any category and try to filter using opera 11.6x ... it won't do it properly. It worked fine in ver 11.5x so it isn't Staples. It is also broken in the opera next (ver 12) alpha.

For many of the casual users the occasional site misbehavior is enough to not try any further, specially if it is a frequently used site. However, in the sites where Opera works fine (the great majority) browsing in Opera is quite superior to IE / FF. Better tabbed interface, much faster rendering, snappier behavior, better UI customization, and better password management. It is not a "resource hog" any more than the competition.

For the record, I use FF frequently side to side with opera. FF 11 vs opera 11.62, opera hand down. But firefox just behaves better in the problematic sites, so it is pretty much a must as backup.


Alex
ps. Proudly typed in opera 11.62

 

[Sid59]

As previously mentioned, the last time i tried it, i was looking at Phoenix alpha vs opera. opera was paid or ad supported.

 

[lothar]

Why Opera and the EU suck.

Its not like you have to buy IE if you buy Windows. They're giving you something for free.

This is like Ford giving you a free cup holder with your Ford car and being forced to offer you free cup holders from other companies.

I stopped using their browser because of that.

 

[Pretty Cool]

Honestly, I doubt many people even remember when Opera was paid or even care. I have been regularly updating it since 3.x and still use it today on a slower system. No major complaints from me. It does have a funny name which most people would not associate with a browser. Its UI also looks a little different. I actually think it being non-American is also a factor. It would not surprise me if their market share in Norway is much higher than it is here. Maybe if the product changed its name & was bought by Facebook/Twitter/flavor-of-the-week company, more people would at least take notice and try it.

 

[thewhat]

I couldn't easily say that Opera is objectively better than Firefox and Chrome nowadays. But I do think that Opera was better than anything else up to around 5-6 years ago. Yet, it still didn't have a much higher share back then.

So no, just analyzing the quality of the browser won't give you the full answer. IMO a lot has to do with the lack of word of mouth hype that Firefox got and the lack of advertising money that Chrome got.
It's also interesting to note that market share of browsers varies a lot based on the country. Opera is the _most used_ browser in a couple of countries, while in some others, it's at 1%. source

 

[KAZANI]

Did you miss the first half of the sentence you highlighted? I said "because it [firefox] was free" whereas Opera was not.

There's nothing contradictory in my explanation. I very clearly laid out why Opera is not more popular and never will be, barring the introduction of a revolutionary new feature or a $$$ marketing push.

If you're not being contradictory then I think you are not being honest. You mean to tell me that if Mozilla hadn't come along as a gratis browser and Opera was still ad-sponsored* that you'd still be using IE to this very day? LOL

(*Actually, IIRC, back in 2000 the "ad" part in Opera was more of a nag banner than advertisements but hey, anything to keep dissing the browser responsible for introducing most of the features we take for granted in the browser field today, right?)

 

[rayfieldclement]

Name one product that achieved mainstream popularity because it is open-source. Or even that its open-source nature is a major reason why it is so popular.

What about Linux?

.

 

[mirandu04]

regardless of how many times i have tried other browsers i still go back to firefox even when opera is involved

 

[Rottie]

That is because Opera realized people are leaving for either Chrome and or FF so they decided to give up easily