What this really sounds like is Hindenburg Research daring Google to not notice.
Also, please switch the link to the original research, or go upvote the original (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22092095)
What is going on at Opera Software?
31–40 of 53 posts
Re: What is going on at Opera Software?
#32Love all the comments here from folks who haven't read the article and are going on about the browser. This article is about Opera's alleged fraudulent loans business. Well really this article doesn't have much of its own to say, it's mostly a rewrite / summary of this article: https://hindenburgresearch.com/opera-phantom-of-the-turnarou...
Wow, that was a wild report and a good read. The detailed look into the predatory short term load apps is a real eye-opener... the apps would read the device contact list and shame late borrowers to their employer, parents, friends... and in developing places like Kenya and Nigeria. Truly, TRULY fucked up!
Re: What is going on at Opera Software?
#33Can’t read it on iOS safari, keeps reloading.
I’m on iOS safari and it works. I do have Firefox focus installed as a content blocker, perhaps that helps.
Re: What is going on at Opera Software?
#34Makes me sad. Opera was well positioned ~10 years ago to grow and innovate. And such an incredibly passionate and involved community.
IMO here's the beginning of the end for Opera when Jon resigned, the investors took the reins and his open letter;
https://techcrunch.com/2011/06/24/opera-founder-jon-s-von-te...
Good luck to the Vivaldi team in getting a bit of 'old Opera' back.
Re: What is going on at Opera Software?
#35Love all the comments here from folks who haven't read the article and are going on about the browser. This article is about Opera's alleged fraudulent loans business. Well really this article doesn't have much of its own to say, it's mostly a rewrite / summary of this article: https://hindenburgresearch.com/opera-phantom-of-the-turnarou...
Wow, that was a wild report and a good read. The detailed look into the predatory short term load apps is a real eye-opener... the apps would read the device contact list and shame late borrowers to their employer, parents, friends... and in developing places like Kenya and Nigeria. Truly, TRULY fucked up!
It appears only OPesa was taken down so far from Google Play. OKash, OPay and CashBean are still available. CashBean's keyword stuffed app ID [1] is remarkable, this is the first time I've seen such a spammy app ID on Google Play.
[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.loan.cash....
Re: What is going on at Opera Software?
#36How did Opera get involved in the short term lending business? How does corporate governance for a public company allow this to happen?
From what the article states, Opera was likely acquired with the explicit purpose of making this pivot. The brand was popular in the developing world, where this sort of predatory lending is still considered socially acceptable.
Re: What is going on at Opera Software?
#37R.I.P. Opera. Long live Pale Moon, Brave, Vivaldi and WebkitGTK. Chrome, Firefox and Edge could go f--k themselves.
Re: What is going on at Opera Software?
#38Wow, I did use Opera for years and also on mobile when in Africa with limited data plans. Time flies, I still remember Opera 10 years ago, they probably had the best tech April Fool's I ever stumbled upon with their "Face gestures"[1]. When you had a team that could create that behind your product, you knew that the team cared and was driven by passion and excellent craftmanship. [1]: https://dev.opera.com/blog/intro…
> Time flies, I still remember Opera 10 years ago, they probably had the best tech April Fool's I ever stumbled upon with their "Face gestures"[1].
> When you had a team that could create that behind your product, you knew that the team cared and was driven by passion and excellent craftmanship.
Even better: the Opera speed test:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdirsXNaibo
which was the Opera developer's reaction to the Google Chrome Speed Test:
Re: What is going on at Opera Software?
#39ya know what. when opera presto had feature parity with chrome, developers still walled their websites with useragent checks so for your average joe nothing worked and it created a negative feedback loop of users blaming the browser and devs avoiding supporting it. what else could they do? with chromium engine opera suddenly worked (lol).. there was still a lot of value on top of that, like a native speed dial that w…
> developers still walled their websites with useragent checks
Opera was, I think, the first browser to make UA-switching a first-class feature, precisely to avoid this phenomenon. I believe at one point they even sent a fake UA string by default. This sort of thing was really not the reason they hit the rocks.
The truth is that making a browser is hard work for little reward. Keeping up with web standard was pretty hard already, for an operation running on thin margins and based in an expensive country; when Google got in the game, brutally accelerating the development of features and hammering people with adverts for Chrome, Opera struggled to compete. They found some margins in the developing world, where their bandwidth-optimizing services were popular; but targeting the low end of the market only buys you some time (if you exist because connections are bad, as connections improve people will leave you).
Eventually, their perennial search for cash ended with an inevitable sale to this or that financial shark, and here we are.
Re: What is going on at Opera Software?
#40Love all the comments here from folks who haven't read the article and are going on about the browser. This article is about Opera's alleged fraudulent loans business. Well really this article doesn't have much of its own to say, it's mostly a rewrite / summary of this article: https://hindenburgresearch.com/opera-phantom-of-the-turnarou...
I wonder how difficult it would be for HN to flag/highlight comments from people who did not click the link first.