Google Service Drops Support for Opera • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Service Drops Support for Opera

#71

Post by zevyoura » Wed, Jul 04, 2012, 12:32 AM UTC

Zenst wrote: post #50

Worry given of all the browsers Opera has been the most standards compliant. No reason why Google can't support it as by supporting other browsers they supoprt Opera and with that if you change the browser ID then it just works - funny that. I Have noticed that Facebook have been bashing google indirectly and directly and maybe Opera are deemed part of Facebook now for some reason and got dragged into this. I have al…

I'm not sure what you mean by the last sentence, but despite rumors, Facebook has not bought Opera. I highly doubt Google would punish Opera because they might be bought by Facebook.

Re: Google Service Drops Support for Opera

#72

Post by Dylan16807 » Wed, Jul 04, 2012, 12:39 AM UTC

iso-8859-1 wrote: post #64

Dylan16807 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Browser tabs.

>in 1994, BookLink Technologies featured tabbed windows in its InternetWorks browser.

Opera at least had MDI then, though I don't know the exact timeline of making that more convenient.

Re: Google Service Drops Support for Opera

#73

Post by pigboy » Wed, Jul 04, 2012, 12:52 AM UTC

I started using Opera in the days when its free version was supported by adware (I actually purchased a license). It was always a technical innovator, so the question of why it failed to garner market share is a good one. The answer, of course, is that technical superiority is never a prerequisite for commercial success. Marketing trumps engineering every time.

Re: Google Service Drops Support for Opera

#74

Post by rieter » Wed, Jul 04, 2012, 12:59 AM UTC

zevyoura wrote: post #70

jfaucett wrote: post #24

google is frankly starting to enrage me, they are seeming to become more and more a company with only one obvious goal - own the internet. They have made some good products ( the chrome developer tools are great ), but I'm sick of them just blowing over anyone or anything that stands in their seeming quest towards a complete monopoly ( the google books settlement is a good example ). What happen to the good ol days w…

The Chrome Developer tools are almost entirely based on the open source Webkit Web Inspector.

Which was mostly developed by Google. They are the biggest contributor to open source WebKit these days, eclipsing even Apple.

Re: Google Service Drops Support for Opera

#75

Post by rieter » Wed, Jul 04, 2012, 1:02 AM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #30

cleverjake wrote: post #6

"they are making Opera untenable" I disagree. Opera's desktop marketshare is making Opera untenable. Even though Google is a major corporation, I doubt they can afford to spend the time fixing issues in a browser that gets lower single digit uses. Its not economically viable. No one will argue that Opera is a better browser than IE8, but IE8's marketshare dictates it should be supported. Google is no more forcing use…

Their mobile browser accounts for 20%+ of all mobile traffic, which together with their desktop browser usage is about 300,000,000 active users (that's the population of the entire United States). So it would make sense for Google to support them.

Mobile Opera is a completely different browser and not relevant to the Blogger admin issue at all.

Re: Google Service Drops Support for Opera

#76

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 04, 2012, 1:02 AM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #30

cleverjake wrote: post #6

"they are making Opera untenable" I disagree. Opera's desktop marketshare is making Opera untenable. Even though Google is a major corporation, I doubt they can afford to spend the time fixing issues in a browser that gets lower single digit uses. Its not economically viable. No one will argue that Opera is a better browser than IE8, but IE8's marketshare dictates it should be supported. Google is no more forcing use…

Their mobile browser accounts for 20%+ of all mobile traffic, which together with their desktop browser usage is about 300,000,000 active users (that's the population of the entire United States). So it would make sense for Google to support them.

[deleted]

Re: Google Service Drops Support for Opera

#77

Post by cleverjake » Wed, Jul 04, 2012, 1:17 AM UTC

azakai wrote: post #7

cleverjake wrote: post #6

"they are making Opera untenable" I disagree. Opera's desktop marketshare is making Opera untenable. Even though Google is a major corporation, I doubt they can afford to spend the time fixing issues in a browser that gets lower single digit uses. Its not economically viable. No one will argue that Opera is a better browser than IE8, but IE8's marketshare dictates it should be supported. Google is no more forcing use…

> Even though Google is a major corporation, I doubt they can afford to spend the time fixing issues in a browser that gets lower single digit uses. You're joking, I hope? Of course Google has the resources. It's one of the biggest companies in tech. Not only does Google have the money to do it, but it really looks bad by not supporting Opera and telling people to use Chrome. Just to prevent that bad publicity it wou…

>You're joking, I hope?

No. No im not.

>Of course Google has the resources. It's one of the biggest companies in tech.

I didn't say they lacked the resources, I said it wouldn't be fiscally prudent. They are not purposively preventing opera from working, they are just not fixing bugs that only show up in Opera.

>But it has very high market share in a few countries in Europe. Not supporting Opera is basically saying they don't support that country.

I call bananas. That is like saying they should support IE 6 because its popular in Korea and China, and unlike IE in Korea, there is not something stopping most users in that country from using something other than Opera (including firefox, and IE). Besides, it doesn't matter if 100% of a country uses Opera if that 100% represents less than 1% of their marketshare.

You are asking me if it is worth it, and I think they are basically telling you no, no it isn't.

Re: Google Service Drops Support for Opera

#78

Post by dreamdu5t » Wed, Jul 04, 2012, 1:23 AM UTC

Opera should turn the tables and add "webkit" to their user agent string.

Don't just back down Google because they have clout.

Re: Google Service Drops Support for Opera

#79

Post by azakai » Wed, Jul 04, 2012, 1:35 AM UTC

cleverjake wrote: post #77

azakai wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even though Google is a major corporation, I doubt they can afford to spend the time fixing issues in a browser that gets lower single digit uses. You're joking, I hope? Of course Google has the resources. It's one of the biggest companies in tech. Not only does Google have the money to do it, but it really looks bad by not supporting Opera and telling people to use Chrome. Just to prevent that bad publicity it wou…

>You're joking, I hope? No. No im not. >Of course Google has the resources. It's one of the biggest companies in tech. I didn't say they lacked the resources, I said it wouldn't be fiscally prudent. They are not purposively preventing opera from working, they are just not fixing bugs that only show up in Opera. >But it has very high market share in a few countries in Europe. Not supporting Opera is basically saying t…

How much - in actual dollars - do you think it costs them to support Opera, the most standards-compliant browser of them all?

Re: Google Service Drops Support for Opera

#80

Post by filip01 » Wed, Jul 04, 2012, 2:14 AM UTC

Browser war upcoming. Facebook recently added Chrome to their list of unsupported browsers (http://www.zurb.com/article/991/facebooks-unsupported-browse...) and this is obviously a counter-attack from Google. Google seem to be pretty sure that Facebook will in fact buy Opera.