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Opera browser sold to a Chinese consortium for $600M

engadget.com

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Re: Opera browser sold to a Chinese consortium for $600M

#31

Post by CyberShadow »

jacek wrote: post #26
Teksource wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UI is great. But if you do not like it, customize it, either with massive CSS rewrites or the built inside customization options.

I just found this: https://vivaldi.net/en-US/teamblog/121-snapshot-1-3-501-6-cu... ! (dev version). It allows full customization with CSS! That's great!

A little-known fact, but you can customize the Firefox UI with CSS too: http://kb.mozillazine.org/UserChrome.css

My Firefox currently looks like this: https://dump.thecybershadow.net/0177f0cecdf6ad3b65158858a210...

Re: Opera browser sold to a Chinese consortium for $600M

#32

Post by jacek »

syoc wrote: post #29
jacek wrote: post #10

I really like using Opera on Linux. It is the only full featured browser that has good, scalable UI and touch input support. And builtin adblocking + "battery saver mode" (developer version only) are really good additions. However, I do not trust Chinese companies with my data, I will need to switch to Firefox soon.

I don't understand why people instantly go to the uninstall step when we are talking about the Chinese acquiring information, but the USG is fine. At least you most likely don't live in the country obtaining potentially incriminating information (if that is your worry).

Well, I do not use Chrome for the same reason. I am also in the process of migrating from Google to services in countries that respect privacy and do not share data with governments without a warrant.

Re: Opera browser sold to a Chinese consortium for $600M

#33

Post by city41 »

subie wrote: post #15
digi_owl wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May give Vivaldi a look. Made by many of the original Opera people. https://vivaldi.com/

is this using electron?

Doesn't look to be using Electron, as Vivaldi.app/Contents/Frameworks does not contain the Electron framework.

Re: Opera browser sold to a Chinese consortium for $600M

#34

Post by ddevault »

digi_owl wrote: post #14
jacek wrote: post #10

I really like using Opera on Linux. It is the only full featured browser that has good, scalable UI and touch input support. And builtin adblocking + "battery saver mode" (developer version only) are really good additions. However, I do not trust Chinese companies with my data, I will need to switch to Firefox soon.

May give Vivaldi a look. Made by many of the original Opera people. https://vivaldi.com/

Vivaldi is closed source.

Re: Opera browser sold to a Chinese consortium for $600M

#35

Post by hello_asdf »

CyberShadow wrote: post #31
jacek wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just found this: https://vivaldi.net/en-US/teamblog/121-snapshot-1-3-501-6-cu... ! (dev version). It allows full customization with CSS! That's great!

A little-known fact, but you can customize the Firefox UI with CSS too: http://kb.mozillazine.org/UserChrome.css My Firefox currently looks like this: https://dump.thecybershadow.net/0177f0cecdf6ad3b65158858a210...

Would you share your userchrome.css file? Thanks.

Re: Opera browser sold to a Chinese consortium for $600M

#36

Post by lucideer »

stinkytaco wrote: post #13
ZenoArrow wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Opera regularly, but I think many of the 'power users' preferred Opera 12 to the WebKit/Blink versions, as there was a feature cull during this transition. Vivaldi is the spiritual successor to Presto-based Opera. https://vivaldi.com/?lang=en

Spiritual successor in the sense that it is highly customizable with lots of shortcuts? From a technological perspective, it seems quite different. One of Opera's great strengths was how "native" it felt on every platform, plus a full suite of Internet tools. This doesn't seem to do chat, email, bittorrent, etc.

It does email at least, and maybe bittorrent and chat.

The native feel seems largely to have been Opera 12's downfall; they just didn't have the resources/manpower to maintain their own (very brilliant) internals/rendering engine/etc. on top of the power-user UI + featureset.

Vivaldi looks to be attempting to recreate the latter (poweruser UI+features) and dropping the former (by relying on Chromium/ReactJS for internals), so it's very much a large compromise if you like Opera 12.

Overall, the main criticism I would have is not opensourcing it. This is an old tired argument, but in this specific case it's painfully relevant given the huge resources that went into creating Opera 12's internals which then couldn't be community-forked.

Re: Opera browser sold to a Chinese consortium for $600M

#37

Post by Fej »

kccqzy wrote: post #30
jacek wrote: post #10

I really like using Opera on Linux. It is the only full featured browser that has good, scalable UI and touch input support. And builtin adblocking + "battery saver mode" (developer version only) are really good additions. However, I do not trust Chinese companies with my data, I will need to switch to Firefox soon.

I typically don't have this instinctive bias against Chinese companies (they manufacture lots of great products), but I've actually heard of the leading buyer, Qihoo 360. I remember they used to release some "security software" for Windows that disabled the builtin Windows update and replaced it with their own mechanism. They also used to have their own "secure browser" that was nothing more than a shell over Trident…

The problem isn't necessarily the companies, it's that the government is in league with the companies and/or outright owns and runs them, so people are concerned about the Chinese government having their data. I am too, and I imagine most people here are as well.

Re: Opera browser sold to a Chinese consortium for $600M

#40

Post by Mithaldu »

syoc wrote: post #29
jacek wrote: post #10

I really like using Opera on Linux. It is the only full featured browser that has good, scalable UI and touch input support. And builtin adblocking + "battery saver mode" (developer version only) are really good additions. However, I do not trust Chinese companies with my data, I will need to switch to Firefox soon.

I don't understand why people instantly go to the uninstall step when we are talking about the Chinese acquiring information, but the USG is fine. At least you most likely don't live in the country obtaining potentially incriminating information (if that is your worry).

It's a good question, and deserves a good answer:

The new Opera, i.e. every Opera after Version 15, is a Chromium fork.

That means it carries with it all the small and large behaviors like: Auto-updating. It also has literally no upside over using Opera v12, which still works fine for most things nowadays; and mostly no upsides over using just Chrome, or any other flavor of Chromium.

As such, getting rid of it after this acquisition gives only upside for the safety-conscious user.

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