But to attribute the statements of Opera developers, certain incongruous details within change logs, or "official" statements by Opera to a conscious process of lying, deliberate deception[snip]
That's not what I'm suggesting, so I probably expressed myself poorly.
I personally suggest precisely this: They are deliberately deceiving and lying. And I effectively said so in my own post in the thread. No reason to put it in stronger words, I was blunt enough.
The deception deserves to be uncovered by the means available to us (within the limits of reason and conscience of course). I personally am not afraid to throw the hooks of their propaganda (which is the synonym for PR) back at their face. Which is what I got my ban threats for - directly catching one employee at a lie that he couldn't admit or spin, and charging another for failing to address the point I had brought up. He gave the answer that I had already dismissed when presenting my question. I don't regret any of this. It went very well because I didn't get banned after all
What Haavard is doing to his blog post, I call it dismantling because he shows that Chropera can do the same as Opera in a way, by means of workarounds, etc. At each strikethrough he links to another blog post where he shows this. I call this dismantling because the strikethroughs leave the impression that he is progressively retracting the original items on the list. Which of course he is, because when this goes on for long enough, the original post will consist mainly of strikethroughs. He is an employee at the company and a proponent of the move to Webkit, directly engaging with users in the comments section. He says that Chropera is Opera too - already now. For me it will never be. So I am diametrically opposed to his standpoint.
I didn't know of Andre Zanghelini's post. It's a good example of the frustration caused by the move to Webkit, but the comments section bears the marks that he is more of an emotional type rather than rational and principled. As an emotional type, he is relieved by mere venting and is then vulnerable to smickering by the highups of the PR artillery. Or maybe I'm mistaken. He could be just playing their own game back at them when he says he would revise and correct his post and could retract this or that. Which is also a tack The best moment on that page for me is the long comment by QuHno. Of course, as PR strategy dictates, he is completely ignored by the rest of discussion, despite being profoundly relevant.
You can invite BS-Harou here, but if he has strong opinions or even a philosophy built around his view on 'user-select:none' (as I suspect he has), there will be dispute. Which is okay. We are a heterogenous group here already.
About plain-text config files - excellent in principle, but implementing it for themes is not indicative of any trend to me. It doesn't remove the Chromeness from Chropera. It's not even a baby step back towards Opera.
Some day I should present some concise statement about what I believe true Opera to be, or what good software is at least. It's horrible to see Haavard gradually dismantling his definitive list that many of us used to refer to http://my.opera.com/haavard/blog/2012/10/19/what-is-opera
With all the DnD that is now going to happen all over Internet, it might be good idea to finally implement "-o-user-select: none " in CSS
I don't like this CSS element (and its variants). I don't like what it does. BS-Harou has been consistent over the years supporting its implementation. You noticed I had a little debate with Pesala recently that involved this element...
Just a revision of events concerning the mysterious case of bcbear86.
1. Chropera allegedly took over .torrent and other file type associations and the normal restoration methods didn't work.
It's implausible that Chropera did it. However, hijacking of file type associations by various programs happens often enough. I know Windows users who complain often enough that some file types important to them, such as .doc and .pdf, don't open any more. I personally dumped Windows at Vista. When on Vista, I was always able to restore and modify file type associations as I pleased. Am I too advanced user (and others therefore too dumb in comparison) or has some freaky development occurred somewhere when moving to 7 and 8?
2. "When Java was updated, it had an option to install Opera and she [daughter] didn't uncheck the box."
That Chropera comes bundled with some Java update like Chrome is plausible, because Opera ASA is in bed with Google now. This cannot be too widely known yet because Chropera is a fresh product. And even when known, this practice cannot be too widely and publicly denounced, because Ask toolbar and Chrome and whatnot have also not been too widely denounced for the same practices. People seem to think that this sneakiness (foistware) is normal.
On the other hand, given that there's some daughter (n00b dumbuser) involved in action, implies that nothing in this report can be taken too literally. The author of the posts may not be much more advanced than the daughter. Maybe the author is the daughter herself or it's just the family cat typing. This is roughly the same point as my comments on event #1 - It's implausible that Chropera did it, even though file type associations get hijacked on Windows often enough.
3. The author of the thread gets banned and the thread disappears from the orbit.
This is like the fifth or sixth time I see it happen in the course of maybe three years. By now it takes a whole lotta convincing to make me believe it's a mere coincidence or a pure accident.
I include below a complete copy of the thread linked by ersi, since someone at Opera appears to have privatized it. [edit]ersi noticed too.[/edit]
Thanks for the information, this looks bad.
I tried to make a joke about it on the forums, but I actually think it's a serious case - again. Some of these alleged autobans just don't smell right. If autoban is really so trigger happy, then why, for example, am I still a member?
All this happened within this year. Isn't this enough to totally demolish the reputation of the company? At least I can't even consider the software any more for ethical reasons...
I notice it says the gold sponsorship ends on 31 December 2013.
Indeed:
Quote
As you know our Platinum sponsorship from Blue Systems came to an end and so will our Gold sponsorship with Opera at the end of this year. Losing our two main sponsors is tough...
My estimates tend towards extremely destitute fate for Opera on desktop. I think it will be out of desktop browser business in max three years, on all desktops, even on Mac and Windows.
Google has eaten the heart out of Opera ASA. If there's still some sense in this world, the rest of the corpse will follow rather sooner than later. Then again, Greece has been in absolute bankruptcy for years, financial, political, and moral, but the official announcement is still delayed. So, admittedly there is no sense in this world. But how to translate nonsense into estimates?
Quote from: Frenzie
I'm not sure if I entertain such hopes exactly, but I had no idea the bookmarks were implemented in plain text. I really meant it when I said that was the best news about Chropera I've heard yet.
Reports hitherto indicated that Chropera's profile was perfectly interchangeable with Chrome's (except for extensions; what a queer quirk...). Bookmarks file was a .db like in Chrome. Either they really changed the format, which would whip up your hopes, or it could be that also Chrome/Chromium can read a plain text file in some mode. Have you tried? I haven't
Now, allegedly Chropera for Linux will be released in March or so. (The official statement I quoted earlier, to take it literally, it would mean we can begin waiting for the Linux version at that time. I personally won't believe until I see it.)
Let's combine these things. I have these questions:
When/If the Linux version of Opera Blink arrives, will it be in the repositories ready to wipe out the Presto version or will it be possible to have it side-by-side with the Presto version?
Will it be sufficiently different from Chrome for anyone of us to use it? Why? (I noticed Frenzie hoping for a sensible Unix-like non-Chromish config&profile files system. I entertain no such hopes.)
Will it be in the repositories at all? I know Chrome is not in the repositories, even though it has packages to suit all the base distros. Then again, Chromium is available and Opera ASA is a gold sponsor of the Linux distro that has been #1 for a year or more on Distrowatch, so...
Damn that disqus, I can't see the comments properly!
Same here. I extracted the link from someone else's post and verified the quote with a console browser which is the only one without any url-filtering and adblocking You can only see Disqus comments when you don't use url-filters and adblocks AT ALL.
Do not expect [the Linux version] for another three months at the earliest.
Meaning, in February or March the Linux version of Chropera might land on us. Does it really take so long for the company to get out of desktop browser business that they even dare to promise a Linux version? Well, I guess the credit they earned under Tetzchner is not so easily wasted after all.
On the subject of Opera itself, or rather Chopera, I've heard criticisms of it although nothing too specific except the Bookmark business (which is a killer for me) but I'd like to have a look.
The other kind of criticism is Chrome-ness. All the criticism that applies to Chrome also applies to Chropera.
Both kinds of criticism have been very specific on the My Opera forums, but of course, go ahead and install it so you can see for yourself. However, if Chrome or Chromium is not for you, then chances are neither is Chropera.
Here's a thread that followed Opera development news http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=1767272 but unfortunately it seems to have ended on my hopeful note that it would not end Is there some continuation of this thread on the other side, on the new forums behind Disqus? Is there a new forums yet? Does anyone know of a similar active thread? Is anyone following the dev blogs, changelogs and user comments on the other side?
As to reasons for using Opera, I used it precisely for the email client first and foremost. I valued the interface of Pegasus, but it mangled with encodings. I also liked Eudora and I have tried a long list of other email clients, but eventually Opera 6 won me over with the inbuilt browser and a growing number of other features, while remaining lightweight on system resources.
Now when migrating away, the email client has been the most difficult component to replace. In the end I believe I used everything in Opera. I used it as it was - an internet suite. A tough loss. Migration from it is very difficult.
So in all this Australis hype they forgot the principle of conforming to desktop look and feel with GUI? Or at least trying/pretending to? Sad story that Chrome started.
To me it makes quite a difference what GUI looks like. With this forced stick-out-like-a-sore-thumb trend it looks like I have to migrate entirely to shell and never return.
BTW, can the mods see the user-agent strings here? Of course they can, silly question. Will you put up some stats in a while too?
Are you testing those Australis nightlies yourself? I made FF my system default at 0.7, but since version 1 I only installed finals. What are your impressions? Do you have links to sane in-depth critical analyses? Am I asking too many questions at once?
You can only see Disqus comments when you don't use url-filters and adblocks AT ALL.