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FastMail staff purchase the business from Opera

blog.fastmail.fm

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Re: FastMail staff purchase the business from Opera

#41

Post by Indyan »

nly wrote: post #29
manojlds wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The recently released Coast for iPad is interesting - coastbyopera.com/ I am thinking Opera want to be acquired?

> I am thinking Opera want to be acquired? Possibly. They were uncannily quick in adopting Blink. The series of events seemed to be Opera->WebKit, Google->Blink, Opera->Blink... so perhaps they want to get cosy with Google? Although, I can't see what G would want with them. I think it's also known that, sometime around IE7, Microsoft tried to acquire them. Microsoft have long since made their bed though... unless the…

Two clarifications: - Opera never switched to Webkit. Opera had switched to Chromium, which initially used Webkit. So, it's no surprise that Opera adopted Blink.

- Opera has publicly commented it was aware of Google's plans for Blink, and that information was a factor in the decision to switch to the Chromium engine.

Re: FastMail staff purchase the business from Opera

#42

Post by thaumaturgy »

benologist wrote: post #7
nly wrote: post #3

This is more interesting for what it means for Opera than for what it means to Fastmail. First they abandon their browser engine, now a top-notch webmail offering. What do Opera even offer these days that you can't get elsewhere? What 'long term vision' is Rob speaking of?

Unless Opera are building themselves their own little Firefox OS kind of thing they're pretty much fucked moving forward. On the desktop their move to webkit successfully destroyed every reason to use Opera and doesn't measure up against rivals, and they've been netscaped out of mobile.

I hope not. I've just switched (long-term, I hope) to Opera out of complete disgust with Google and a lingering disgust with Firefox. It's nice to have choices.

Re: FastMail staff purchase the business from Opera

#43

Post by mrweasel »

benologist wrote: post #18
tagawa wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An increasing proportion of Opera's (growing) revenue comes from advertising (they bought a few agencies recently) and their share price continues to climb. I don't think they have many problems moving forward, it's just less visible than their traditional consumer-facing domain. Still a shame they dropped Presto, though.

Is that separate from their browser stuff?

More or less I think, they bought AdMarvel.

Re: FastMail staff purchase the business from Opera

#44

Post by nikcub »

breakupapp wrote: post #22

I use Opera just to maintain separate cookies haha.

You can do that with Chrome, Firefox and Safari as well - check out my project tmpbrowser, which is a simple app that creates temporary throwaway browser sessions:

https://github.com/nikcub/tmpbrowser

Re: FastMail staff purchase the business from Opera

#45

Post by josteink »

frenger wrote: post #4

Please please make this an excuse for a move away from hosting in the USA. A claim to respect privacy necessitates that.

If I remember correctly, fastmail representatives have (here on HN) promised that they were planning a move from US-based datacenters to European datacenters, if not completely, offering it as an option for people who wanted it.

I'd love to get this confirmed, and some news on when I can expect to have my account hosted in Europe.

US datacenters is pretty much a no-no these days.

Re: FastMail staff purchase the business from Opera

#46

Post by nej »

nly wrote: post #3

This is more interesting for what it means for Opera than for what it means to Fastmail. First they abandon their browser engine, now a top-notch webmail offering. What do Opera even offer these days that you can't get elsewhere? What 'long term vision' is Rob speaking of?

I can't speak for Opera but if you take a look at their latest browser in iOS (only available for the iPad) it will give you some hope in the direction Opera is going. The browser, "Coast" as they call it is a pretty nifty, well crafted and thought out browser.

My guess is they're trying going for a niche product and are focusing on what's important to them rather than try to get their feet wet in every market.

Re: FastMail staff purchase the business from Opera

#47

Post by mverwijs »

nly wrote: post #3

This is more interesting for what it means for Opera than for what it means to Fastmail. First they abandon their browser engine, now a top-notch webmail offering. What do Opera even offer these days that you can't get elsewhere? What 'long term vision' is Rob speaking of?

I remember reading that one of the big money makers is Opera Mini. All the content viewed by that browser comes through proxies run by Opera. This means a HUGE amount of data that Opera can monetize on.

Re: FastMail staff purchase the business from Opera

#48

Post by muyuu »

tagawa wrote: post #14
benologist wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless Opera are building themselves their own little Firefox OS kind of thing they're pretty much fucked moving forward. On the desktop their move to webkit successfully destroyed every reason to use Opera and doesn't measure up against rivals, and they've been netscaped out of mobile.

An increasing proportion of Opera's (growing) revenue comes from advertising (they bought a few agencies recently) and their share price continues to climb. I don't think they have many problems moving forward, it's just less visible than their traditional consumer-facing domain. Still a shame they dropped Presto, though.

Doesn't make much sense to ditch webmail anyway. There are many ways in which webmail can help and promote their other products.

Re: FastMail staff purchase the business from Opera

#49

Post by sygma »

e12e wrote: post #19
frenger wrote: post #4

Please please make this an excuse for a move away from hosting in the USA. A claim to respect privacy necessitates that.

Where would you prefer it be hosted? I suppose an argument might be made in favour of Germany -- but I'd be surprised if they don't have a similar infrastructure in place for wire-tapping as we know know is in place in the US. UK and France is out. Russia is an open spyocracy of sorts. Iceland?

They are already hosting in Iceland (but also, New York) [0]. I guess the next step would be to allow the customer to choose.

[0]: https://twitter.com/FastMailFM/status/382100278415081473

Re: FastMail staff purchase the business from Opera

#50

Post by presty »

da_n wrote: post #35
e12e wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where would you prefer it be hosted? I suppose an argument might be made in favour of Germany -- but I'd be surprised if they don't have a similar infrastructure in place for wire-tapping as we know know is in place in the US. UK and France is out. Russia is an open spyocracy of sorts. Iceland?

I'm currently looking into setting up a VPS in Iceland or Germany and running my own mail server from it, moving away from Fastmail. It saddens me as I both dislike managing my own mail server and really like Fastmail, but having my email routed through the US is no longer feasible.

what hosting provider are you looking into, for iceland?
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