[Npl]

Just a heads up that the new Opera has gone final, and is now available as 64bit download too if you search around a bit in the download options (or here via ftp if you are too lazy).
Unlike eg. IE9 it does support javascript compilation and 32bit plugins even in the 64bit version.

Comes with Hardware acceleration (defaulted to off) and WebGL (also defaulted to off) now too

[Davros]

About time

[Grall]

How does Opera still keep operating? What is their revenue stream(s)? I don't get it... Norway is not a cheap country to live and work in...

[entity279]

Their mobile browsers are state of the art, so i guess that's their source of revenue.

Personally, I'm really really fond of their desktop browsers as well. Too bad can't make it functional at my workplace.

[Zaphod]

Originally Posted by Grall

How does Opera still keep operating? What is their revenue stream(s)? I don't get it... Norway is not a cheap country to live and work in...

From a year and a half ago, but should be similar today:

How does Opera make money (aka our most asked question ever)?

Today we have two different revenue models: One for the Internet embedded markets (such as Opera pre-installed on a mobile phone or a set-top box) and one for the desktop market:

• For the Internet embedded market, we receive revenue as a mix of engineering fees, maintenance fees and shares of sales income. The balance varies from contract to contract. This model accounts for the majority of Opera’s income.
• For the desktop market, we derive revenue from our free products through revenue sharing with partners. For example, several search engines make usage payments to us for searches made by you (Opera users). This is the major source of income for Opera’s desktop browser, with revenue shares also in place on a variety of mobile products.

[Dominik D]

Desktop browser is profitable thanks to search and deals with partners.

Mobile browser is profitable thanks to deals with operators, integrators, etc.

Embedded browser is profitable due to the nature of Opera's offering (e.g. every TV manufacturer can get Opera in his box with some custom UI, aps, etc.) A lot of revenue comes from this and AFAIK Polish dev center deals mostly with this part of business.

In general: Opera is more than OK when it comes to money. In fact they're the best of the second best IT company from Norway in terms of brand recognition, monies made, and several other indexes. Desktop Opera is huge in Central and Eastern Europe and in Asia. Some countries have Opera penetration around 50%. It's US where Opera is struggling. During the most recent Up North Web (Opera-centric conference in Oslo) there were some celebs from US (iJustine for example) but I don't think that benefited Opera that much. I was cool to see her in person though.

[Davros]

when you upgrade it leaves the 32bit version installed also it does not copy over the settings from the 32bit version.

[dZeus]

Originally Posted by Zaphod

From a year and a half ago, but should be similar today:

I wonder if the revenue sharing with partners includes the difficult to turn off sharing of domains visited with google ('domain autocompletion'), everything else typed into the address bar ('search suggestions' with default search engine), 'private' data that passes Opera's servers when using Opera Turbo, 'private' data that passes Opera's servers when using Opera link and everything else I've forgot to list here of which I probably am not even aware yet.

In managing data privacy, Google Chrome is far ahead of Opera with very clear checkboxes in a privacy settings menu. And Google Chrome is often criticised for their behaviour. I guess Opera kept off the radar because they are too small for most people to bother writing about.

Sadly, they do not even offer a 'paid for' model for Desktop users that would prefer to get slightly better tech support. I'm convinced there are plenty of desktop users that would like to get feature regressions to be fixed in exchange for a paid support model (without sacrificing their current free version).

[Arwin]

Opera has been my preferred browser for quite a while in the past (afaik first and best tabs, first and best zoom, first with gestures, fastest), but the last year or so it's been Chrome.

[Grall]

What does people ever use gestures for? I don't see the point at all. Mice aren't very accurate gesturing devices anyway, and the way I let the pointer meander all over while idly browsing I'd just trip myself up with shit like that...

[kache]

Originally Posted by Grall

What does people ever use gestures for? I don't see the point at all. Mice aren't very accurate gesturing devices anyway, and the way I let the pointer meander all over while idly browsing I'd just trip myself up with shit like that...

You need a better mouse...

[Richard]

Originally Posted by entity279

Personally, I'm really really fond of their desktop browsers as well. Too bad can't make it functional at my workplace.

Example?

As for my workplace, Opera is now installed on all our computers (roughly 200) and it's been our main development target for over a year now (then IE8+, FF 3.6+ and finally Chrome 10+).

Opera 12, meh at hardware acceleration, out of process plug-ins is where it's at.

[Grall]

Tech news aggregator IDG is claiming Facebook is interested in purchasing Opera.

No idea how true this is...

Here's a link (warning: swedish!)
http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.454303/da...ook-kopa-opera

[Dominik D]

This is late May news. There has been silence on the topic for about 3 weeks now.

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/0...-what-we-know/