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Topic: "Should I stay or should I go?" (Read 22717 times)

Re: "Should I stay or should I go?"

Reply #25
Figured out that I have not tried otter way too long. After seeing vivaldi and testing otter again, I know exactly that this browser here is much more likely going to become the replacement of my Opera.

So: I don't know what I can do that makes you go on, but it is impressive how far you got by now. Maybe leave a way of donating so people can show their appreciation of your work?!

Re: "Should I stay or should I go?"

Reply #26
Stay! Vivaldi is closed source, so it's likely to go the way of O12 at some point. An open-source project is much more valuable. And anyway, if Vivaldi gets good in the future, having two good browsers would be a good thing. Otter would be my primary browser and Vivaldi the secondary :)

Re: "Should I stay or should I go?"

Reply #27
can't believe this is even for debate

their browser is just another copy of any other webkit crap
its a resource hog ... and that forced winblows 8 flat UI is just disaster

Otter is already great, we just need some fixes from QT side

Re: "Should I stay or should I go?"

Reply #28
Please stay.

Re: "Should I stay or should I go?"

Reply #29

can't believe this is even for debate

their browser is just another copy of any other webkit crap
its a resource hog ... and that forced winblows 8 flat UI is just disaster

Otter is already great, we just need some fixes from QT side


Otter is significantly better than Vivaldi here.  Vivaldi is slow and bloated!  It feels like Chrome more than Opera 12.  Otter has an Opera feel that Vivaldi right now just does not have.

Re: "Should I stay or should I go?"

Reply #30
@jax, sure, and I partially agree, this is why I have also a private TODO, but I'm keeping just "unique" details there, not obvious ones like "we want to do another browser almost like a classic Opera". :-P

Lack of communication is way to die alone, this is why I'm considering.... Facebook profile (bleh).
But I would need someone to help with that, for two reasons:
- I'm not a native speaker (and creating ambiguity on PR page would be baaaad, unless that profile would be named something like "Otter - Ideas lost in translation" :-D),
- it simply takes a lot of time, I had such role in one company and I've decided to stick to development only, it took up to one hour per day with just ~200 likes (it was decided that we won't cheat and buy thousands of ghosts or something like that), for monitoring and then replying the same questions all the time (it was profile for hosting page) and writing announcements from time to time (trying to be a bit funny too, like for example using references to The Lord of the Rings - BTW, anyone reads that introduction line for each weekly? :-D).

And I'm already spending a lot of time here, on IRC, replying in issues tracker etc.
We simply need someone for PR, but with knowledge about my plans (I want to prepare such matrix) and time. The only thing I can give in return is gratitude and additional experience in Public Relations. ;-)

It's annoying that we can't go for donations (see last FAQ entry), I've seen too many projects that failed even after collecting lots of money (I'm still curious what exactly happened with KDE Commit Digest after that fund raiser some years ago).
And I don't want to make those who believe in this project to feel betrayed again, to not shatter completely image of classic Opera, to avoid situation when Opera gives only image of betrayal. :-D
But I also know that current approach is painful, but our offering is simply not enough yet, Otter can be called vaporware until most of plans piling for 1.0 will be fulfilled (especially that damn address filed completion ;-)) and I'm extremely strict.

To make it more clear (uh, yeah, I know, I'm a drama queen too), I won't accept any donations until I'll be sure that our goals can be fulfilled (1.0, that is, at least 95% of stuff assigned to it in TODO, github and tons of smaller details). After completing my current liabilities at work (The week of walking deadline (literally), in fact I have two of them, both set to... today :-D) I'm planning to take at least two weeks long break (well, I'm a freelancer, I can take a break anytime, when I want ;-)) to reproduce spike of activity from December.
There are some low hanging fruits like Notes (just copy model used by bookmarks, fine tune, copy bookmarks module, add editing fields, solve proper pasting), notifications (add UI, finish fallback dialog, first version done by bajasoft month ago), complete Cookie policies (concept is proven to work for QtWebKit, needs turning into code, using proxy cookie jars so dialogs asking if specific cookie should be accepted would block only that page, not entire UI) etc. (I'm using my private TODO to track such details).

Also I've contacted leader of QupZilla to ask if he would be interested in solving inevitable issues with QtWebEngine (vanilla version won't be what we need, while having stuff better than QtWebKit in terms of API it will also lack some crucial features or we will need to wait at least one year to get some basics). I was planning to do that from beginning, as soon as it was confirmed that QtWebKit won't have QNetworkAccessManager which was the only way to exploit it's hidden potential (access requests, headers, lots of stuff depends on QNAM in QtWebKit), that is complex topic, those who were on #qtwebengine yesterday know more about this problem.


To conclude, this is project made by people for people, not for money (at least not taking it directly from users, that is another complex topic, I can only assure that I won't accept things like nonsense ads in speed dial) and wanting to communicate with people (but keep in mind that time spent on communicating means less time for coding :-/).
Nadszedł już czas, najwyższy czas, nienawiść zniszczyć w sobie.
The time has come, the high time, to destroy hatred in oneself.

Re: "Should I stay or should I go?"

Reply #31
Tested vivaldi - it's a horrible chrome/opera clone with no bookmarks menu and telephoning to google at any user action. And most worse: it uses gtk2 just like opera.
Gtk2 browser under LXQT - just what I waited for...
Please merge with qupzilla and bundle your strenghts.

Re: "Should I stay or should I go?"

Reply #32

Please merge with qupzilla and bundle your strenghts.

From what I know, Qupzilla has different goals. It doesn't aim to bring back the superior UI and functionality of the old Opera.

Definitely yes to cross-fertilization, sharing code, etc., but no to merging the two projects into one (if that's what you meant).

Re: "Should I stay or should I go?"

Reply #33
I do hope you are able to stay.

Opera 12 is still my main browser but am using Otter a lot for pages that do not display well in Opera.

Good luck

Re: "Should I stay or should I go?"

Reply #34
After having had a go at Vivaldi I have to say that this whole bunch of programmers with all the time on their hands have so far delivered a browser that does not achieve what otter has achieved with fewer people in one year. Otter beta 4 is usable and stable (most of the time), even if features are still missing. Vivaldi's team should be embarrassed to have given this technical preview version number 1.0.83.38. Vivaldi is alpha or beta in my opinion, it is quite unstable with lots of important features missing and others present not working.
Keep up developing otter and I hope that at least the milestones will be available as deb-packages.

Re: "Should I stay or should I go?"

Reply #35
Keep up developing otter and I hope that at least the milestones will be available as deb-packages.

Ah yes, that's more or less ready; I'll just have to get Emdek to integrate it into his build script. ;)

Re: "Should I stay or should I go?"

Reply #36
There are three things which are better in Vivaldi:

- Notes
- Completed address bar
- Styles menu (Page actions)

All these are planned in Otter anyway and, aside from these three mentioned, in every other aspect Otter is better than Vivaldi. Vivaldi is a multiprocess resource hog, lacks customisation and has no :config page (apparently planned though).

In the area of customisation (keyboard shortcuts and toolbars) Otter is transparent and a lightyear ahead of competition. When the menus become customisable too and customisation achieves the level that Opera had, Vivaldi will never catch up with Otter. In fact, it doesn't even look like any other browser is aiming as far with its user interface as Otter, so it's fairly sure nobody will catch up.

As soon as the three planned but missing features get added in Otter, nobody will have any reason to choose Vivaldi over Otter. The styles menu (Page actions in Vivaldi) is a big deal for me, something I use a lot in Opera and would very much like to see in Otter soon enough. But in Vivaldi it looks like it's been implemented in an untransparent uncustomisable way. This must be done transparently.

The user profile of Vivaldi is full of binary junk. Some potentially important things like default blacklists and whitelists are binary. The preferences file is hardly legible and apparently not meant to be edited manually. Too many fundamentally wrong design decisions in Vivaldi.

Re: "Should I stay or should I go?"

Reply #37
The user profile of Vivaldi is full of binary junk. Some potentially important things like default blacklists and whitelists are binary. The preferences file is hardly legible and apparently not meant to be edited manually. Too many fundamentally wrong design decisions in Vivaldi.

That's a bit odd given their power-user angle.

Re: "Should I stay or should I go?"

Reply #38

The user profile of Vivaldi is full of binary junk. Some potentially important things like default blacklists and whitelists are binary. The preferences file is hardly legible and apparently not meant to be edited manually. Too many fundamentally wrong design decisions in Vivaldi.

That's a bit odd given their power-user angle.

But it makes perfect sense when they never meant to have any real focus on the power-user angle. The power-user angle is mentioned only insofar as it's good for marketing. Seriously, I don't see any attraction for geeks in Vivaldi. I'm getting a better impression from its settings dialogue than from Chrome's, but this is not telling much, because Chrome is the bottommost bottom and it's easy to be better than Chrome. Everywhere else I look in Vivaldi I see queer counterproductive management and design decisions. For example, how long would you be able to tolerate the blinding flashy colours of the window frame? A week?

This thing is clearly not for power-users and not for geeks. Opera was. Vivaldi is a whole different thing, really.

Re: "Should I stay or should I go?"

Reply #39
@Emdek Let's go over some matters of principle. Can you share some of your personal TODO list? Are you happy how it's been progressing? What did you use Opera for and what do you want to get out of Otter? And, in general, what do you use a browser for?

From the original TODO list it looks like you liked the general layout of Opera's interface and intended to re-create page-specific preferences, passwords manager, and content blocking. In my opinion, content blocking is well implemented, if it only didn't autoupdate behind the scenes. By default it shouldn't autoupdate at all. Passwords manager is missing. Page-specific preferences are making progress.

Then you have made some decisions which I don't understand, such as deviating from Opera's full screen design. If not for any other reason, proper fullscreen should be implemented and made default just because old Opera had it. When in doubt, this is a relevant guideline for making decisions - Opera had it, therefore let's do it the same way, unless we are sure it can be made better. Perhaps you had a good reason to decide otherwise with fullscreen. What was the reason?

Now there's an additional development guideline/incentive. There are three features I mentioned in Vivaldi that Otter doesn't have. Vivaldi has proper fullscreen too. It should be easy to keep up with those features and thus keep yourself ahead of the relevant competition, when you don't find something more urgent to develop for the time being.

Re: "Should I stay or should I go?"

Reply #40
I think the current status of Otter vs. Vivaldi is not the most relevant issue. Even if Otter were behind, the sole fact that it's open source whereas Vivaldi could vanish in a whim due to not making enough money should be more than enough argument for Otter.

But anyway, yes, I also tried Vivaldi yesterday, and it's definitely behind Otter. It has the advantage of the autocompleting address bar, and somewhat better eye candy, and some loved features like Notes. But the foundations seem much less solid. It feels rather slow, has much less customization, doesn't have mouse gestures, quick preferences, etc... and doesn't have the ability to get a proper standard title bar separated from the proper standard menu bar, which annoys me quite a lot.

As I said yesterday on IRC, as soon as Otter gets an autocompleting address bar, it will be in a state where I can not only use it myself (I already use it, together with O12 and Chropera in more or less equal standing at the moment) but also recommend it to the non-geek family. It does crash sometimes, but not more than Chrome or Chropera in my experience.

Re: "Should I stay or should I go?"

Reply #41
I don't like Vivaldi in total either, and although it is the most horrible decision to use Ctrl+q as a combination for that for that, Vivaldi's Quick Filter for commands seems to be a quite nice innovation (it reminds me of sublime-text).
Just in case that was undiscovered–I want such a feature for my browser. :þ

Re: "Should I stay or should I go?"

Reply #42
I want such a feature for my browser. :þ

And I was just thinking to myself, what use is the accessibility of þ under t using Alt Gr. except to type Old English! ;)

Yes, I like it too. Especially for less used features it could be a godsend.

Re: "Should I stay or should I go?"

Reply #43

Vivaldi's Quick Filter for commands seems to be a quite nice innovation (it reminds me of sublime-text).

I don't know what sublime-text is, but Vivaldi's Quick Commands filter is something that used to be a recurrent request on My Opera. Many people requested for ability to combine things that appear as lists and search them all at the same time in one place, e.g. History, Bookmarks, Downloads, Email, Contacts, RSS, ... What Vivaldi has done is to throw commands into the mix.

About commands, Otter is missing a neat feature Opera has in the keyboard customisation dialogue - filter by keybinds, not only by command name.


I think the current status of Otter vs. Vivaldi is not the most relevant issue.

This is not how I meant it. I meant the comparison as a way to get some inspiration from Vivaldi - as the Otter project in general draws inspiration from Opera.


As I said yesterday on IRC, as soon as Otter gets an autocompleting address bar, it will be in a state where I can not only use it myself...

I am able to use Otter with the address bar it has by now, even though it's admittedly incomplete. I am more sorely missing cookie management and some big features like Notes. I would very much like to be able to compose into Notes with any text editor of my choice. I wanted this for Opera already a decade ago.

Re: "Should I stay or should I go?"

Reply #44

I am able to use Otter with the address bar it has by now, even though it's admittedly incomplete. I am more sorely missing cookie management and some big features like Notes. I would very much like to be able to compose into Notes with any text editor of my choice. I wanted this for Opera already a decade ago.

I don't care that much about the address bar myself, either, but I was mentioning it as the biggest feature that is missing for the big public (I think), not for me. My non-geek family members aren't going to miss things like Notes (they don't know what it was) but they could miss the address bar.

For me personally, the pet features missing are MDI, "click tab to minimize", and then indeed, notes.

Re: "Should I stay or should I go?"

Reply #45
Yes, I agree. In short, when the address bar is feature-complete, then Otter can be unreservedly recommended to the general public. This is the only visible thing that an average user could miss.

Re: "Should I stay or should I go?"

Reply #46
I don't know what sublime-text is, but Vivaldi's Quick Commands filter is something that used to be a recurrent request on My Opera.

Sublime Text is one of the better text editors around, but I've personally settled on Geany for the time being. (I also still think SciTE is quite nice.)

Re: "Should I stay or should I go?"

Reply #47
well here's cookie from me for what is worth

why I chose Otter:

1. it is so lightweight !!!
2. it is ONLY stable browser based on QTwebkit out there, every other crashes to me
3. going for opera UI and features are only huge +

in my main point (1) this is where Vivaldi and current Opera fails

Re: "Should I stay or should I go?"

Reply #48
@ersi, that private TODO is not that much interesting, definitely it is messy and random (I had two separate files until recently, one with stuff that seemed to be too hard to do).
When in doubt, this is a relevant guideline for making decisions - Opera had it, therefore let's do it the same way, unless we are sure it can be made better.

I'm trying to follow that way. :-)

In case of fullscreen I find it a bit lower priority than stuff like notes etc.

BTW, I've got some interesting mail some hours ago.
Nadszedł już czas, najwyższy czas, nienawiść zniszczyć w sobie.
The time has come, the high time, to destroy hatred in oneself.