5 things I’d like to see in Opera
Daniel Goldman at Opera Watch is running an interesting experiment dubbed blog tagging: blog about 5 things you would suggest Opera to improve some of their products and then tag 5 other blogs to keep it moving. I’ve been tagged by Ryan Wagner from Cybernet News‘, so here I go.
I really appreciate Opera efforts and innovations through the years and as I once said I firmly believe neither Opera, nor Internet Explorer or Firefox will cater to all users. Which is great as diversity keeps competition and innovation around, something we just forgot about during the dark IE only years.
- An updater. At less than 5 MB, Opera installer is remarkably small to include not only a web browser and an email client. But nothing beats an automatic 500KB update download. Users shouldn’t have to worry about updates.
- Extensions. One of the main reasons I prefer Firefox is that it starts from the belief that it can’t be the ideal browser for everybody, so it can be tweaked and customized until you drop.
- Remove the email client. I am not sure how many people still use desktop email apps but you can count me out. I’d like at least to be able to uncheck the email component when installing it.
- Offline web applications support. I truly believe it’s the next step for web application: Google Gears is on it and Firefox 3 will make it real for a significant share of web users. I guess Opera is already working on it but just can’t miss not mentioning it here.
- Web content/protocols handlers. Another one I am expecting from Firefox 3: this will allow for example to open Word documents with Google Docs & Spreadsheets directly or mailto: links with you preferred web mail service.
And that’s it. I tried not to make it sound like “how to convert Opera in Firefox” but I guess it’s hard not to being a long time Mozilla Suite and Firefox user. So, to compensate for my dirty bias, I will say I like Opera’s native BitTorrent support and web feeds reader (which of course can be added with some extension magic). These two features I think pretty much highlight the difference between Mozilla and Opera approaches to web browsers.
I also wish I could suggest something to improve the Nintendo DS Browser. I was eagerly expecting for its release in the US. But when I finally got my hands on it I was so disappointed with its performance that I took it back to the store. I find hard to say the Nintendo DS gear is not powerful enough but then I’d take a smaller feature set for better performance any day. The Wii’s Internet Channel in the other hand totally rocks. And once a Wii keyboard is available it will rock even more.
Now for the tags. Since I can’t see any restriction to English only I’ll include some international Firefox dedicated blogs: Mitch Keeler from Firefox Facts, Nicolás and foXtensor from Zona Firefox (español), Sinklar from Be:Fox (française), aljullu from FirefoxCAT (catalán) and the Difunde Firefox crew (español). Let’s see what you have to say.
Comments
David Naylor
The updater is definitely top of my list. It feels like an awful hassle to update Opera compared to most other apps. (OpenOffice is much worse though…)
Remco
The BeFox link seems to point to Zona Firefox. I think you meant this one: http://www.befox.be/
Robert
The issue with OPERA is that it doesn’t do inline automatic SPELL CHECKING in forms.
That’s really the only reason why I don’t use OPERA.
Ayush
#4 – Widgets ??
#5 – Tools – Preferences – Advanced – Programs. http://my.opera.com/Rijk/blog/2006/07/11/mailto-to-webmail
Leo
I would like for Opera to cease to exist.
Die, already. Die. (I just hate it, if you didn’t notice.)
TimothyMay 11th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Why? Without Opera Firefox, IE and others would be lost. You comment serves no purpose fag.
Helder
Without Opera from whom the Firefox addon developers will copy from? :D
MoOx
Opera mail (m2) can easly be disabled with starting with the option -nomail
There is others options like -notrayicon :)
Live bookmarks are Okay now, with the Supa sync! Bookmarks, Personal Bar, Speed Dial and the Notes (yéyé, google notebook doesn’t work with opera…)
And like it was said, without Opera, firefox will not be here… No Tabs and some others stuffs were simply copy/paste from opera…
Somebody said : “there is no extension.. :( ” but if you want extension, keep ff…
PS: xcuse for the english, i’m french ^^
Nome
“Extensions. One of the main reasons I prefer Firefox is that it starts from the belief that it can’t be the ideal browser for everybody, so it can be tweaked and customized until you drop.”
Although almost all web browser have extensions nowadays, I don’t think Opera will have extensions, for two reasons : a lot of Firefox extensions are natively available in Opera (mouse gesture, adblock…) and adding extension is a threat to stability.
“Remove the email client. I am not sure how many people still use desktop email apps but you can count me out. I’d like at least to be able to uncheck the email component when installing it.”
For a moment, I thought you were talking about removing the Mail Client, even for thoses who like it, lol.
Yes, the idea of uncheck a cas when installing it might be a good idea. However, the mail client is not really installed as long as you have not created a mail account. I’ve almost never used M2 because I use webmail. But sometimes, for some reasons, I may want to test something in a mail client instead of webmail. It’s very practical to create an account so easily, rather than reinstalling Opera. And I may also use newsgroup client or tchat client. So, no, I don’t think this is actually a good idea. Opera is very small, there’s no reason to remove the mail client from the installer. As I said, if you don’t like it, just don’t use it, it make absolutely no difference.
Daniel
Basically, yes, Opera can improve in many areas and i like the idea of this blog thing but not every recommendation.
With regards to Opera’s Mail client, i posted this today:
http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=272062&t=1238837305&page=1#comment2948133
If there’s one thing Firefox should improve in…
bring back default bookmark file!
I had Check & Get (shareware) that could sync with it.
Not anymore.
Don’t you like that when they make major overhauls and then you have to buy another machine to make it work? Well, that’s the feeling i was left with in this instance.
ed
Eh… Opera already has #3 and #5 (and did have long before this blog was posted afaik)
#1 and #4 are almost in now too… looks like it’ll be nearly perfect for you soon enough :D
Me, myself and I
I use Opera’s mail client, and I’d be dead in the water without it. It takes a while to get used to it, but once you do, you’re hooked for life.
Opera _is_ extensible with plugins. Pretty much the same way Firefox is.
I’m pretty much content with Opera’s update mechanism.
A standard for offline web apps support is in the works at the W3C. Opera has never supported proprietary stuff, so it will probably not implement anything until there is a standard.
Ryan Wagner
Removing the email client was a good one Percy! I didn’t even think about that, but I totally agree with it. That should just be an add-on for the people who need it.
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