Impending death of Opera

[SupSuper]

I still haven't quite brought myself to switching to Firefox due to the impending death of Opera.

The what now? What did I miss?

Frankly if such a time came, I'd rather switch to Chrome.

[Muzer]

I still haven't quite brought myself to switching to Firefox due to the impending death of Opera.

The what now? What did I miss?

Frankly if such a time came, I'd rather switch to Chrome.

Well, they've already stated they're killing off Presto - but what many people don't know is that they're also killing off the old Opera as well.

The new Opera is little more than a red Chromium skin - they're not just switching to WebKit, they're switching to Chromium. Where they've removed bookmarks for some reason, and added a very small number of half-arsed shadows of former Opera features.

IMHO there won't be any big enough USPs for people to continue to use the new Opera rather than using Chrome or Firefox. And even if they do miraculously manage to keep a large portion of their user base, Opera as we know it is still essentially dead.

For me, I used Opera because of the ease of customisability. Firefox has about the same level of customisability but much harder to access (requiring extensions to really expose much of it), and Chrome just lacks it completely. For me, switching to Chrome simply isn't an option. So, very reluctantly, switching to Firefox will be my only option.

[SupSuper]

I still haven't quite brought myself to switching to Firefox due to the impending death of Opera.

The what now? What did I miss?

Frankly if such a time came, I'd rather switch to Chrome.

Well, they've already stated they're killing off Presto - but what many people don't know is that they're also killing off the old Opera as well.

The new Opera is little more than a red Chromium skin - they're not just switching to WebKit, they're switching to Chromium. Where they've removed bookmarks for some reason, and added a very small number of half-arsed shadows of former Opera features.

IMHO there won't be any big enough USPs for people to continue to use the new Opera rather than using Chrome or Firefox. And even if they do miraculously manage to keep a large portion of their user base, Opera as we know it is still essentially dead.

For me, I used Opera because of the ease of customisability. Firefox has about the same level of customisability but much harder to access (requiring extensions to really expose much of it), and Chrome just lacks it completely. For me, switching to Chrome simply isn't an option. So, very reluctantly, switching to Firefox will be my only option.

I only really got into it because it was faster and more functional than most browsers at the time, but now every website seems to be littered with vendor-specific stuff that gives it the screw, so I'm not surprised it came to this. Google in particular seems to love making their websites run like molasses on anything but Chrome. But Firefox is way too cultist for me, so I guess Chrome will be my only option.

[Xinos]

I don't see why everybody here has so much against Chrome. Sure it didn't have any useful extensions at first, like Adblocker, but now that aspect of Chrome is easily as good as Firefox.
But the only thing I need from a browser now in terms of customization is a bookmark toolbar running parallel to the address bar, and they all have that. I just think it smooth.

[Muzer]

With software in general, I've got used to being able to get it to work exactly how I want it to, as opposed to me having to work the way it wants me to.

Maybe I'm just set in my ways, but unless there's a particularly good reason for it, I don't like changing my software use habits.


Therefore, having a browser that is as customisable as possible is important for me, so that I can make minimal changes from what I'm used to. I already customise every new Opera install to make it function pretty much exactly as it did in Opera 9. That's not the sort of thing I'd expect to be able to do in Chrome - I've never seen anyone with a Chrome window arranged in any way other than the default, for example.

[SupSuper]

I gave up on customization the minute I had to use different computers on a regular basis. Opera was just set up the way I liked "by default", now I'll just have to stick with this version or settle for some other "default".

I don't see why everybody here has so much against Chrome. Sure it didn't have any useful extensions at first, like Adblocker, but now that aspect of Chrome is easily as good as Firefox.
But the only thing I need from a browser now in terms of customization is a bookmark toolbar running parallel to the address bar, and they all have that. I just think it smooth.

Screw toolbars, I want my sidebars.

Edit: Decided to split this up for clarity.

[Alien King]

How long can I put off upgrading/changing browser?

[Muzer]

Dunno, but I expect shortly after the full release of the new Opera, the old Opera will stop receiving security updates and websites will stop supporting it, so you won't be left with much choice.

[SupSuper]

It's not like any website supported Opera before. Seems they are splitting it into Opera and Opera Classic on mobile, so they'll probably do the same on desktop and just keep putting out security updates on Classic.

[Muzer]

I do hope so. But putting Opera Mobile Classic out only happened when people constantly moaned about how crap the new one is. And apparently they've laid off all their staff who know how everything about Presto, so even if they were to do a complete U-turn they probably wouldn't be able to keep up the standard to which we're used.