What is going on at Opera Software? • Hacker News Board

Re: What is going on at Opera Software?

#41

Post by forgotmypw_ » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 1:26 AM UTC

superkuh wrote: post #27

jackinloadup wrote: post #4

I wish Opera would open source their presto engine. I'm guessing that isn't possible due to some licensing issues. Personally I find it unfortunate that all that amazing work will be lost. While I didn't use Opera due to it's proprietary nature, as a browser engine it was competitive for its time. I'm having the same feeling now about the EdgeHTML engine which is now being fazed out. This engine was a breath of fresh…

There was a source leak a while back talked about here on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13417307 . I'm still seeding this torrent and you may find it elsewhere. http://superkuh.com/opera12v15presto-source.torrent

can we also leak and resurrect opera 3.62, please?

Re: What is going on at Opera Software?

#42

Post by sovok_x » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 1:42 AM UTC

jackinloadup wrote: post #4

I wish Opera would open source their presto engine. I'm guessing that isn't possible due to some licensing issues. Personally I find it unfortunate that all that amazing work will be lost. While I didn't use Opera due to it's proprietary nature, as a browser engine it was competitive for its time. I'm having the same feeling now about the EdgeHTML engine which is now being fazed out. This engine was a breath of fresh…

At this point the source is pretty much useless except for archival reasons or HTML support on low-end devices. It will require rewrite from the ground to adapt to modern tech. It did work well for its time but wasn't made for change architecturally as can be seen from the leaked code so any major upgrade will be difficult.

Re: What is going on at Opera Software?

#43

Post by sovok_x » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 2:06 AM UTC

superkuh wrote: post #27

jackinloadup wrote: post #4

I wish Opera would open source their presto engine. I'm guessing that isn't possible due to some licensing issues. Personally I find it unfortunate that all that amazing work will be lost. While I didn't use Opera due to it's proprietary nature, as a browser engine it was competitive for its time. I'm having the same feeling now about the EdgeHTML engine which is now being fazed out. This engine was a breath of fresh…

There was a source leak a while back talked about here on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13417307 . I'm still seeding this torrent and you may find it elsewhere. http://superkuh.com/opera12v15presto-source.torrent

Opensource is not about having a source code but having a license to use it. You can easily get in trouble with them if you'll distribute your non-trival modifications otherwise.

Re: What is going on at Opera Software?

#44

Post by lostmsu » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 2:45 AM UTC

sempron64 wrote: post #10

sempron64 wrote: post #8

Opera Mini is simply the best experience for compressed mobile web browsing on low-speed connections. I use it when traveling and when my data plan runs out for reading the news and web sites (I don't log into anything because I don't trust the provider, and they have to MITM HTTPS). I'll be sad if this goes away. I wish there was a self-hosted solution for compressed mobile browsing that I could put on a server. It'…

After a few moments research, I found this https://github.com/barnacs/compy

It is not exactly the same. Mini runs JS on the server for you.

Re: What is going on at Opera Software?

#45

Post by superkuh » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 3:16 AM UTC

sovok_x wrote: post #43

superkuh wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a source leak a while back talked about here on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13417307 . I'm still seeding this torrent and you may find it elsewhere. http://superkuh.com/opera12v15presto-source.torrent

Opensource is not about having a source code but having a license to use it. You can easily get in trouble with them if you'll distribute your non-trival modifications otherwise.

Only if you involve money. If you don't it's pretty safe.

Re: What is going on at Opera Software?

#46

Post by redis_mlc » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 4:43 AM UTC

FYI: the SEC is investigating how mainland Chinese companies ever got listed on US exchanges as their accounting methods are not compatible with US requirements.

Figure 12 - 18 months before they're mostly delisted.

Re: What is going on at Opera Software?

#47

Post by ksec » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 4:57 AM UTC

I wished they Open Source the "Old" Opera Engine.

It was small and Fast. If I remember correctly it had the browser engine, Javascript, Email client, RSS etc all in the sub 15MB download.

Re: What is going on at Opera Software?

#48

Post by Ndymium » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 7:08 AM UTC

toyg wrote: post #39

modzu wrote: post #15

ya 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…

> I believe at one point they even sent a fake UA string by default.

In fact Vivaldi, the spiritual successor to Opera, just moved to a fake UA string in the latest version (masquerading as Chrome), precisely due to UA sniffing still being a thing, even with Google's sites.

Re: What is going on at Opera Software?

#49

Post by mike_d » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 8:03 AM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #2

Opera ended the day they deprecated their own rendering engine and became yet another Chromium wrapper, which we already have more than enough of.

Opera rolled out a weird always-on VPN and acceleration service built in to the browser so every page was partially rendered on Opera servers. This gave them access to the plain text of pages as sites were rapidly moving to HTTPS. Effectively moving in on the ad targeting business where ISPs used to live.

Building a rendering engine didn't really fit in to that business model.

Fortunately the China sale spooked a ton of longtime Opera users who all jumped ship. Now apparently the husk of the company has been used to grow a lending company.

Re: What is going on at Opera Software?

#50

Post by te0006 » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 9:17 AM UTC

xioxox wrote: post #7

chrismeller wrote: post #3

Well that’s all unsubstantiated hearsay at this point, but I think we can all agree that Opera has, sadly, seen its day as a browser.

Using it on Android still, as it's the only browser I've found with good text reflow on zooming.

Exactly. It such a shame that neither Chrome nor Firefox provide this basic Accessibility feature out of the box. All their devs have 20/20 eyesight seemingly. And if anybody can recommend a good alternative, please tell it.