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Opera 5 Free... If You Want Commercials 388

Posted by CmdrTaco from the free-as-in-good-bye-privacy dept.
Many of you wrote in to note that the latest version of Opera is now free... except for the part that it runs commercials while you browse. (The option still exists to buy the commercial free version if you like). The Linux version is still in a 4.x beta, and I'm unsure if this advertising thing will also be applied to the other platform. What do you guys think of ads in your software? Is it worth giving up your privacy for a free binary, or paying fifty bucks for the binary? Personally, I'll stick to mozilla.
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Opera 5 Free... If You Want Commercials More

Opera 5 Free... If You Want Commercials

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  • . I've disabled the ads in AIM just because I dont want anything dirtying my bandwidth without my permission, no matter how small it might be.

    Do tell, How does one manage to do this? I'd love to be rid of those flashing, RAM hogging, ugly things.
    _____________

  • It sees banner adverts. So what? How much work is it to change the domain resolution for its adverts after you've downloaded?

    Would it really be so hard to find a few amusing banners to place where the others had been? You could even get clever about it, and use the banner advert space to display entries from your bookmarks which you hadn't visisted in a while.

    Come on - turn this into a plus and have a bit of fun with it, people.

    • It believes in things called standards

    Actually, I am entirely in favour of Opera producing an independent implementation of the W3C recommendations. Multiple implementations (open source or not) are good things.

    However Opera fans don't seem to admit that Opera are competing with Mozilla (and friends) and IE/Mac to be the best standards compliant browser. And, at the moment, they aren't winning.

    Having said that, I wish them success in the future. It's going to be very useful to occasional web developers to snag a free copy and test their pages against it.

  • You don't give up any privacy; you can easily check that the browser doesn't tell the Opera people anything (tcpdump, anyone?). What you do give up, however, wethever you pay or not, is freedom. You don't have the freedom to give your friend a copy, and even more important, you don't have the freedom to fixe bugs for yourself, but have to wait for the Opera people to fix them. This has nothing to do with privacy, whatsoever... <Mode type=RMS>Go get a free browser, like conqueror or mozilla</Mode>

  • Actually more than nice ... (Score:3)

    by zxSpectrum ( 129457 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @06:09AM (#578304) Homepage Journal

    For the first time in my life, I do not think adware = spyware. I had my serious doubts.

    On the opera newsgroups [opera.no], you can always read comments from some of the Opera employees. They have also (as someone already have pointed out) documented the advertising model.

    Opera's main advantage is the bloat factor. It's virtually non-existent, both downloadwise (without Java support it's just 2MB.

    Memory footprint is another, just check these numbers on a win2k pro installation: netscp6.exe
    Mem usage : 18680K
    Peak mem usage : 24404K
    VM Size : 23260K

    The same numbers from Opera 4.02 are:

    opera.exe
    Mem usage : 3736K
    Peak mem usage : 3864K
    VM Size : 1412K

    These are with just the browser up, and no pages yet loaded for any of them.

    Opera claims that this latest version is even better, when memory footprint is regarded. However, I haven't had the time to check out the mem-footprint for O5 yet.

    I think I'll live with Opera for a long time still.

    So far - Opera is the only stable browser I know of that selectively lets me disregard cookies, both based on cookie usage, and server filters.

    The only problem I can see with Opera, from a developers perspective, is the DOM and Javascript implementation, which I have found little documentation on yet


  • I'm not sure if this advertisement-concept is known to the Linux people out there, but a lot of win32 software that is advertisement supported ships with spyware, profided by advertisement agencies as Radiate.com [radiate.com]. This spyware is installed on the win32 machine together with the ad-supported software and it collects data of the user and transmits this data to a radiate server.

    This spyware even sits on your computer when you've already deinstalled the sponsored program. You have to use software like Ad-Aware [lavasoft.de] to remove al kinds of installed spyware and registry modifications done by his spyware.

    It's not clear to me what kind of data this spyware collects, but it's both a privacy and security violation that a piece of software is able to sit on your machine to collect private data.

    As long as it's not clear what kind of ad-software Opera uses for their version 5 browser, I would be very careful. Ad-supported software is more than just a banner on a web page.

    For more information on spyware, have a look at: Spychecker [spychecker.com] or ZDNet [zdnet.com].

    Arleo
  • Remember yesterday's article [slashdot.org] on anti-aliasing - or the day before [slashdot.org]?

    I dare you to tell me that Opera doesn't desperately need [opera.com] some anti-aliasin' lovin'.

  • I thought the idea was that we'd put up sites to hawk our wares, with product reviews by trusted individuals, register our pages with search engines and let people find us when they want us.

    Instead we're cluttering up the screens and lives of people with constant noise trying desperately to catch the attention of people (and not making sales anyway.)

    Advertising is the wrong application of internet technology. It is fundamentally irritating, annoying, expensive and a futile waste of resources.

    In [cyber]space no one can hear you scream. No matter what you're screaming.

  • Re:So we have ads for a while (Score:3)

    by PerlGeek ( 102857 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @05:16AM (#578312)
    > commercial software companies shouldn't be demonized for having a different business model.

    Of course not. Commercial software companies should be demonized for pushing "intellectual propertry" at the expense of intellectual freedom, and for censoring their critics with copyright law, and for covering mathematical algorithms with patent law, and for sueing anyone who gets in their precious way.

    Commercial software companies should be demonized for all sorts of more reasons, but not because of their different business model. Even Red Hat writes software and sells it. That's perfectly respectable.
  • Distributing ad-supported software is entirely different from ad-supported hardware.

    The cost in distributing (via the 'Net) an additional copy of a piece of software is so close to zero, it's not worth counting.

    Distributing hardware is much different. Someone has to pay for each additional pieces of hardware in the first place. Moving atoms around costs big money compared to bits.

    Doesn't Eudora now come in an ad-supported or pay-for-it-and-get-no-ads versions? Anyone have figures on how well that's going?

    ...j
    (who last week paid £5 to get rid of the ads in the DigiGuide [digiguide.co.uk] software)
  • I've never used a program so slow in my entire life (except maybe older versions of Mozilla).

    Actually, Mozilla isn't slow. You just have to have enough memory that it can run without swapping. On my machine, that point was reached at about 192MB. The fact that it's too slow to be usable on a 64MB machine is not a good sign for its long term viability, though.

  • Actually I find that running it on my 400MHz machine is painful. At best. That's when it's not crashing or getting confused by frames.
  • I've disabled the ads in AIM just because I dont want anything dirtying my bandwidth without my permission, no matter how small it might be.

    Do tell, How does one manage to do this? I'd love to be rid of those flashing, RAM hogging, ugly things.

    Well, first of all, I've only done this in recent version of AIM for Windows. Go to the AIM folder and look for a file named aim.odl. Open it up and search for "advert". There are several locations in the file where something reffers to advert. Comment out the line, or the whole group if that is all that is in the group. Save the file and restart AIM. The ads should be gone now.

  • Stick to Mozilla? let me buy a new computer first. (Score:4)

    by Tridus ( 79566 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @04:13AM (#578322) Homepage
    Mozilla is all fine and dandy provided you have the serious hardware required to run it. Try running it on something like a Pentium 200. Its painful. At best. There has been a lot of talk in the Opera newsgroups (in which I'm a regular) about the adware version, without much real consenus on it. We do have some details on the adware implementation itself though. Here is the protocol they are using [myopera.com]. We have information from Tollef (who works at Opera) about what information is logged by the ad server, apparently all it tracks is which ads have been shown to which client, and whatever personal information (which is totally optional) was put in by the user. It doesn't log IP addresses, email addresses, or anything of that nature. I haven't had a chance to download the browser yet, since it came out at 1am in my time zone. I do know that I should be able to use it without getting a system upgrade, which is more then I can say for shit like Mozilla.
  • In order to get (partial) DOM support into Internet Explorer, Microsoft had to rewrite the rendering engine.

    In order to get DOM support into Mozilla, Netscape had to rewrite the rendering engine from scratch. (The first attempt at kludging the proprietary Layers-DOM onto NN4 resulted in a crashy memory sieve.)

    So, I always wonder about these alternative browsers like Opera and Konquerer that claim to be "working on" DOM support. It seems to me that it's a little more difficult than just taking a passible HTML3.2 renderer and hacking a DOM parser on the side. Instead, you have to have an entirely different model which to parse information against, and you still have to get the display parts right.

    It's a messy business, and one that probably requires more than just a patch from Hans and Frans of the University of Kronenberg. If anyone has gotten DOM support without a major overhaul, it would be interesting to hear about it.
  • The "giving up of privacy" is in the running of a browser where you can't see what it's doing behind the scenes. Does the Realplayer fiasco mean anything to you? Granted: Ads themselves don't mean an invasion of privacy... however tracking what a person does online or worse, potentially sending keystrokes and passwords to uninteded recipients (an easy task with a browser where you can't see and compile the source yourself) is definitely giving up your privacy.

    It's all a matter of how much you trust this company and the software they're giving you. Personally, I'm a bit paranoid so I don't trust any of them to do the right thing, and hence I'll be sticking with Mozilla or Dillo or Konquerer for now.

  • > At the risk of being moderated down ...

    This is an old old trick to be moderated up. Let's see what is _really_ in your post.

    > by mozilla utopians

    So you talk about free software. Why are you throwing IE in your example then ?

    > It's less bloated than Mozilla

    Right.

    > It's faster than Mozilla

    Right.

    > It believes in things called standards

    Hard to say that Mozilla don't beleive in standard. Very hard.

    Hence your argument boils down to: "I prefer Opera because it is faster and less bloated than Mozilla".

    I don't see why you would be moderated down for this. I don't see why you get a 4:Insightful either...

    Cheers,

    --fred
  • If you're a 'Linux is great because it's "open source"' type of guy (and most of you are) and you don't have a problem with using a closed, proprietary browser like opera - then you don't really value your "open source" ideals.

    The GNU project was originally about providing a free operating system, the basic software needed to use a computer. RMS wrote in the GNU Manifesto [gnu.org]:

    GNU will remove operating system software from the realm of competition. You will not be able to get an edge in this area, but neither will your competitors be able to get an edge over you. You and they will compete in other areas, while benefiting mutually in this one.
    Linux is still competing with Windows for the desktop and the 31 flavors of proprietary Unix for the server. The availability of certain proprietary apps. (Microsoft Office, FrameMaker, Diablo II) on Windows represents a competitive advantage. We can nullify that advantage by convincing the manufacturer to port it or by providing a similar app. (free or proprietary). In the long run, free software will compete at an equal level with Office and FrameMaker, although I'm not convinced about Diablo II.

    That said, I think free software is on its way to having the browser covered, so the availability of Opera on Linux doesn't add much to the platform.

  • You sicken me and disgust me, People whine about the lack of good software, it is your likes who are to be blamed!!!! Opera is a freaking decent browser, and damn cheap too, By giving it away for free, they earn some revenue through ads, by blocking those ads you are denying them revenue, if you are so freaking inclined to use their browser, PAY FOR IT. If they don't make money, they will close shop. Junkbuster is good when webpages are streaming ads at you, I installed it, but I realize that most of the pages are use earn their revenue through ad, so I removed it, Ignoring the ads is now second nature to me, I browse pages with ads, my favorite sites earns a few bucks, and remains online!

  • I installed ICQ 2000b and deleted half of its DLLs based on the descriptions included in them. Most importantly, I deleted ALAgent.dll and the http client dlls, which are responsible for relaying any ad information. Now it shows blank spaces instead of ads and uses less memory. It is actually less bloated than most ICQ versions (~10 MB on disk without user data, ~10 MB in memory).

    Karma Police, arrest this man, he talks in maths

  • He's really just making shit up. I can almost guarantee that he hasn't even used Opera 5, or looked at the ad protocol (which I posted in an earlier comment), or even watched it with a packet sniffer.

    He's assuming adware = spyware, and making general assumptions from there.

    He also wants to stick with Mozilla, which is a bloated PoS thats about as fast as as the flow of a frozen river. But thats ok.

    The bottom line here is that he's saying things as if they're true without having a fucking clue of what he's talking about. That goes beyond what can reasonably be tolerated into something thats rediculous. And the comments here should correct things that are so obviously wrong.

  • Is there any quicker way to get modded up than to start off a post with,

    "I'm probably going to get modded down for this, but.... [insert righteous-sounding, semi-controversial statement here]"

    I don't think there is a quicker way. Damn, I'm probably going to get modded down for this.....hehehe


    http://www.bootyproject.org [bootyproject.org]
  • I cannot seem to find any documentation on this. Does anyone know? Thanks.

  • I shelled out $300 (after rebate) plus $10/month for Tivo so I can stop watching commercials. Given that they are about 1/3 of broadcast television and I watch 6-8 hours per week, I think it's a good investment. I've gotten pretty darn good at that 60X fast-forward, which compresses two minutes of commercials to two seconds. Interestingly, I have to concentrate so hard, I can't help but notice which company logos flash on the screen, which is more attention than I used to pay to ads.

    However AFAIK, Tivo's business model does not involve compensating the networks for lost advertising viewership. Nonetheless, I think we're witnessing the beginning of what will become standard practice: free access to media with lots of ads or pay for access with much fewer ads. No matter how you cut it, though, I think you'll see ads no matter how much you pay. Shell out $8 for a movie ticket and you still see commercials, followed by previews, followed by increasingly obvious product placements within the feature.
  • Thanks Dog!

    Ditto, I am appauld at such stupid statements Taco makes from time to time, if he posted that comment under an unknown nick in the comment, would he not be moderated to Troll? Another thing that amuses me is how such a rich kid like him can be so frugal to use an inferior software just because it is open source than to fork over $50 for a decent software. Long live Opera!

  • According to the press release [opera.com], Opera has experimental support for DOM. Then again, Netscape and IE don't exactly have sterling support for DOM, either.
  • I can't speak for the majority of linux users, but it irritates me to no end to see this bee-line mentality on 'open source or nothing'. The open source factor is but one of many features that brings linux to its ultimate goal: flexibility. Whether that's flexibility on price, functionality, look'n'feel, hacking, or any facet of any given linux distribution, it all ends up being the same thing.

    Linux is by no means a church or religion. It's a decision. For some, they like to make it a statement. For others, it's the only OS they can mold to fit them instead of vice versa. For others all it is is a 'free ride' and people love and fight for free stuff. Whatever the reason, the bottom line is the same. People are discovering they can make things work the way they want.. and they love it.

    So Opera is closed source. Big deal. Ideals inclusive, the flexibility of the linux OS allows you to chose another browser. It's about time that linux users in general stopped fearing closed source software. If open source is 'better' in whatever way you perceive it, keep using it. Contribute to it. Make it your religion if you like. But whatever you do, don't deny or reject added flexibility (in browser choice, et al) to the OS of choice.
  • Mozilla already has better standards support than Opera. 1 out of 3 and counting...
  • And Waldherr [waldherr.org] has blocklists and a modified version that looks better in Windows and can do the 1x1 pixel substitution.
    __
  • Just to note, you link to Junk Busters with the .org domain. It should be .com

    The website you mentioned clearly states:

    - We are a for-profit .com, not a non-profit .org

    Many people assume that because we don't charge consumers for our services or software that we must be a non-profit, but we're not. We fund our operations from consulting and services to businesses. We choose work that we think benefits both ethical businesses and consumer privacy.

    The proper link is http://www.junkbusters.com/ [junkbusters.com]
  • It's exam week, and I'm going to let off a little steam here. Indulge me as I waste half an hour to jump up and down on the whole concept of WEB ADVERTS while I should be at the books. Yes, I might be a little touchier than usual.

    This browser model represents a defeat of all the potential of the web and programable machines in general. By using it, you accept that you have no ability to control your machine and what you chose to view on the web. Free alternatives are available and better.

    People seem to talk about bandwith as if they owned it. Let me assure you that they do not! The only bandwith you truly own is your own private network.

    The web is a public resource and those advert packets, which may or may not make a living for someone else, get in the way of my packets. I have a cable modem, but I browse with the images and java script off and I refuse cookies that are not returned to the original site. If I want to see a picture, I can request it. One day, I might look into junkbusters.org. It's not a speed issue to me, it's a resource issue for everyone else. Why should I request that stupid flycast crap if I don't have to? I am no more interested in a banner add than I am in a phone call at 6PM from the carpet cleaning company. You should not have to suffer for me to be annoyed by things I don't want. Responsibly use public resources and please yourself at the same time.

    Essentially, the web is a pull medium and push stuff has no place on it. If you want to see a Ford add, goto ford.com. Pelease do not accept or support the notion that you must look at an advert to support content on the web. It's just not so. People will make that information available to you for their own good, and if you don't need it that's their problem. You own a programable machine, make it serve you.

    Stand up for your rights now. Do not use browsers that do not allow you to chose what content you wish to recieve. Realize that you have as much right to broadcast as does ford, just as you have the right to say what you want and publish as many books as you care to pay for. Never let the day come when someone could plausibly argue that bandwith is limited and comercial concerns have a greater right to it than you do because of a greater demand for comercial content. No one really wants to look at a banner add, and no one really has to!

    OK, I'm loosing coherency. Back to fluids I go.

  • That's why I don't use Mozilla, but I do use Gecko. The thing that makes Mozilla a dog is its JavaScript/XML-based "application interface". The actual rendering component, Gecko, is extremely speedy when compiled without debug info -- though I can't compare it against Opera.

    K-meleon (on Windows), and Galeon or GTKGecko (on *nix) are both nice browsers using the standout Gecko rendering component without any of the sluggishness of Mozilla.

  • The proxy doesn't always sit between the pipe and the application. In most cases, they do, but for those of us that run JunkBusters on the same machine that we browse with, it may be possible for any application to get around the proxy.

    The question is: does the Opera browser ignore it's own proxy settings when the proxy resides on the same box?

    --

  • Re:That's a really stupid move. (Score:3)

    by segmond ( 34052 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @06:46AM (#578383)
    AFCArchive, here is your logic ... argue it.

    StarOffice is free, Applixware is free, Koffice is free (well, not when it comes to the compile/build/configure/reconfigure/delete/re-inst all/fus/head-pound/tweak time that you have to invest). So why the hell is Microsoft Word $1,000?

    Microsoft's move is equivalent to treason in the word processing world. You don't charge for something that other companies provide for free. That's like a hoe charging for $20 for a hj, when you got your own hand and lotions at home.

    After seeing this story, I hope that People who make good software and charge for it when there are inferior free store make it onto www.fuckedcompany.com

  • At the risk of being moderated down by mozilla utopians
    Well, you got modded up, not down, so your criticism of the bias of the moderators is unjustified in this case.
    [Opera is] less bloated than IE/Netscape/Mozilla [...] faster than IE/Netscape/Mozilla [...] believes in things called standards
    I take it you're refering to the Windows version? AFAICS the Linux version (4.0 beta) has nothing to recommend it [slashdot.org] above Galeon 0.8 or Konqueror 1.9.8 - anyone care to differ?

  • Re:**not** spyware! read here for the **truth** (Score:3)

    by Tridus ( 79566 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @06:47AM (#578385) Homepage
    Yeppers.

    I also posted the protocol spec URL earlier on in the thread (and here it is again http://www.myopera.com/people/howcome/2000/opera5/ acp.html )used for the banners.

    There has been extensive discussion of this in the Opera newsgroups, and I think we may finally have most of it pinned down.

    Bottom line: Taco assumed without actually checking at all.

    Of course, lets ignore the banner at the top of slashdot, which is from doubleclick today, which is far better at violating my privacy then Opera is. But I guess hypocracy and stories that aren't full of FUD and Bullshit are just the norm around here, eh?
  • the model of 'free with ads' is, i think, best epitomized by Eudora [eudora.com], the email program i've used on every computer that i couldn't use elm or pine on (i.e. Macs)

    Eudora, for as long as i can remember, has come in two flavors: a free, bare bones 'lite' version and a commercial, full featured 'pro' version. i think this is based on the original authors' licence to qualcomm requiring that the program be free, at least in some form

    the lite version is usable, and even the older lite clients still beat any other free email client i've used with a big STiK.

    the last couple of revisions have added a third layer to the lite/pro (free/paid) strategy, that being a 'sponsored' version. the sponsored version includes all the features of the Pro version, but is free. the 'sponsorship' comes in the form of a small floating ad pane that is as unintrusive as a 100x100 (or thereabouts) pixel floating window can be. and the best thing is that the different versions of the program are all in one binary.

    for 40 bucks i can get a serial number to get rid of the window, or, since i'm a cheapskate, i can put up with the ads. or i can click one preference option and get rid of the ads, and 'downgrade' to the free/ad-free version of the program. most of the ads are for the commercial version of eudora anyway...
  • Opera's move is equivalent to treason in the browser world. You don't charge for something that other companies provide for free. ... After seeing this story, I hope that Opera [goes under].

    Um, treason against whom? You don't have to buy Opera. Windows users, on the other hand, do have to buy IE.

    I don't see the value of Opera, but I don't wish the company ill will.

  • Well, it's **ALMOST** that easy... (read on) (Score:3)

    by cjsnell ( 5825 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @08:40AM (#578392) Journal
    If I recall correctly, the Junkbuster proxy does not work as a transparent proxy but rather, requires that the users configure their browsers to use the Junkbuster proxy manually. I haven't installed Opera yet to verify this but I'm guessing that it pays no attention to the proxy server settings when fetching its banner ads.

    This behaviour is similar to the popular windows bannerware program, Napigator. Napigator gives you no options to choose a proxy and thus, no way to disable the banner ads. However, there is a way around it. I installed AdZapper [zaplet.org] on my firewall box and configured ip-filter [anu.edu.au] to send all outbound port 80 connections through the AdZapper proxy. This "transparency" required a patch to AdZapper, and the author (Adam Feuer) sent it to me. Now that I had a transparent banner ad filter running, it was time to figure out how to filter the banner ads out of the application. For this, I used tcpdump (see the manpage for the exact options) to snoop all outbound connections from the machine running Napigator. I logged all of the traffic to a file and was able to find an outbound connection to an http server that had something similar to this:

    GET /bannerad.php?userid=AB34C2D7F HTTP/1.1

    So, I wrote a quick Zaplet [zaplet.org] to block this banner ad fetch. Presto, no more ads in Napigator.

    There are, of course, ethical obligations when using free software and you should certainly take these in mind before blocking Opera's ads.
  • all kind of ad sucks, but it all boils down to this simple truth, will you pay for the software if you liked it? if you would, you can get it without ads in other words, quit whining.

  • I don't like ads. I am actually considering buying a copy of opera, because it's so fast and slim compared to netscape 4.7 which i run now. I also like the fact that it formats cleanly too.
    Does anybody know if the ads mean that it needs to be able to "phone home" to run? I would like to be able to use the browser on machines that are connected only to my inside lan and have no outside connectivity... I think writing software that phones home should be punishable by death...
  • Insightful?

    Opera's giving away their browser (in addition to a paid version). How do they expect to exist without accepting some pay for it?

    Netscape and Microsoft, both multibillion-dollar companies at the time, could afford to dump their browsers on the market. Opera's coming late to a 2-browser party. If they'd try to release the browser without some kind of revenue generation, they'd be toast.

  • Commercials at the Opera??! I thought sitting through one was boring enough... maybe if there are some Bud or Coors light ads in between all the high pitched screaming....

  • I don't mind ads (Score:3)

    by WarSpiteX ( 98591 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @04:15AM (#578418) Homepage
    ...as long as they don't get in the way.

    Eudora Pro is an excellent example of this. It's far superior to Outlook or any other mail client out there. The ads there don't get in the way but are noticeable - I've even voluntarily clicked a few - and not out of guilt either. They had these World Wildlife Fund ads going which I had to check out. I haven't checked out Opera yet but I'll be willing to support it as long as it's better than Nutscrape.

  • I used opera for three full trial periods (not on the same system) without purchasing it. I think I saved some 40 bugs because of that. Now that I am up and running on Opera 5, I do n't think I will spend money on the license. The reason is there is * I am not bothereed with ads appearing as long as I do not lose much of real estate. Just don't look at them. I have better things to do than looking at the ads and clicking on them. Have some self control without it you're an animal. Also, the ad banner now only takes up 10-20% extra of my screen real estate than the opera 4.0 browser without it. I can live that. Also another cool feature that I found in new version is the search text box. Way cool. I've always opened many windows just to do search on google and AV. With IE hanging my Win2000 and nutscrape out otf the question, I think Opera is my only choice. I don't see myself changing browsers in near future. Way to go Opera!!!

  • Re:Free+Ads a minus? I think not. (Score:3)

    by SpinyNorman ( 33776 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @05:41AM (#578424)
    Personally, my concern is with the bandwidth those ads might consume. I've disabled the ads in AIM just because I dont want anything dirtying my bandwidth without my permission, no matter how small it might be.

    According to their web site, it's just a single banner ad that changes once a week and gets downloaded and cached locally.
  • > Try running it on something like a Pentium 200. Its painful. At best

    I see what you mean. I run it on a P90 laptop. (Okay, it is slow as hell, but I really use it. Good enought for slooow suuurfiiing and in-bed reading)

    Mozilla is slow on every platform. On a K7/600 I find it slow. There is no computer in the know universe where Mozilla (Slozilla ?) is snappy.

    Anyone running mozilla on a daily basis on something slower than a P90 laptop ?

    > shit like Mozilla

    I disagree. It is slow, but it _works_. Mozilla fullfills most of its design goals. It is already free software, standard compliant, multi-platform. Not that bad for an not-yet-released browser (I wouldn't trade any of the 3 preceeding item for even a 10x increase in speed).

    Cheers,

    --fred
  • No, no , no...

    The commercial version is commercial free, except that it is supposed to generate commerce for the non-commercial version that has commercials for other commercial products (otherwise they wouldn't have commericals, right?)

    Commercialism only informs the non-commercial version inasmuch as commercials for non-commmercialism direct commerce toward the commercial version which is, after all, what makes the world turn, don'cha know?






    ..my head hurts.

    --

  • But you forget, CmdrTaco.... (Score:3)

    by Captain Derivative ( 182945 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @05:48AM (#578432)

    Slashdot is free... If You Want Commercials

    from the free-as-in-good-bye-privacy dept.
    Many of you wrote in to note that the latest edition of Slashdot [slashdot.org] is now free... except for the part that it runs commercials while you browse. (They don't even give you the option to buy a non-ad-filled commercial version if you like). It seems as though this advertising thing has also be applied to the other platforms. What do you guys think of ads in your web pages? Is it worth giving up your privacy for a free page, or paying fifty bucks for the HTML file? Personally, I'll stick to kuro5hin [kuro5hin.org].


    --

  • "Giving up your privacy" is ridiculous (Score:3)

    by Stupid Dog ( 133756 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @04:18AM (#578438)
    Sorrry, CmdrTaco, but saying that using a sponsored browser is equal to giving up privacy is simply incorrect. Opera does not force you to enter details about you: It runs by default with exactly NO information about yourself and you CAN customize the ads to suit your needs if you WANT using the "Preferences" Dialog. So, do you really call some random ads, generated with exactly NO information about you "giving up privacy"? That is really a bit far fetched.
  • But IE is free, Netscape is free, mozilla is free, why is Opera still charging for their broswer?

    Probably because that all the Opera people do is make Opera. They don't have other sources of revenue like Microsoft (You know what they sell), Netscape (Web servers and things), mozilla (open source, community effort, no cash involved). So they have to sell their browser. Personally, I like Opera and think $50 isn't to bad for a nice chunk of software that I use alot.

    Life is a disease, sexually transmitted and fatal.

  • Re:Internet junkbuster, here I come! (Score:5)

    by drooling-dog ( 189103 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @07:05AM (#578443)
    You're disgusted by people who block ads, but you say it's become "second nature" for you to ignore them? What sense does that make? The revenue stream produced by these ads ultimately depends on their performance, and not on how many people allow them to be displayed on their screens. You're just blocking the ads one paddle further downstream, with your brain instead of your browser. If you don't buy, the ad revenue won't continue.

    To really support this kind of free software, we should not only look at the ads, but (at least occasionally) buy whatever they're selling, whether we really want it or not! Maybe they could charge for the browser, and refund the price with your first purchase.

  • Good for web authors (Score:5)

    by Bob Ince ( 79199 ) <and@doxdesk.cDALIom minus painter> on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @04:18AM (#578444) Homepage

    Opera were shooting themselves in the foot by not making a free version; webmasters need a copy to test their pages on, if not even more pages will be Opera-unfriendly and no-one will want to use Opera. Hopefully this will help.

    I've been waiting for Opera to support DOM Core for ages, but their web page doesn't say whether they've done it. It could be they haven't changed much and this is just version 4.02 viewed through the wonder of version number bloat, I guess...


    --
    This comment was brought to you by And Clover.
  • Yeah, no contest indeed. Nothing is slower then Mozilla. Watching Mozilla do anything always reminds me of watching the water flow of a Frozen River.

  • Re:Advertising in programs (Score:5)

    by slashfucker ( 259972 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @07:12AM (#578457) Homepage Journal
    Here's the timeline for you:
    1. Some asshole who got his MBA out of a Post Toasties box writes a business plan: "We will provide people with free lunch, supported by banner impression and clickthrough revenues, and cross-marketing deals with online retailers."
    2. MBA boy shops the business plan to coked out VC. VC says "This looks great, can you score me a dime bag by Friday too?"
    3. VC firm pours cash down MBA boy's throat. MBA boy hires a bunch of kids, who got expelled from high school for hacking the principal's PC to make farting noises, to write Perl/Java/Visual Basic code to provide free lunch. The code is open source.
    4. www.freelunch.com goes live. CmdrTaco posts a story about how it is proof that free stuff works. Hemos posts the story again 2 days later.
    5. Thousands of people use and enjoy free lunch, but completely ignore the ad banners and cross-marketing links. 1.5 million impressions a day, 3 click throughs, one of which was an accident. (he was probably trying to punch the monkey) The VC guy wakes up covered in money, next to a dead hooker, with a terrible hangover.
    6. An IPO is announced. VC firm gets pre-IPO stock, which repays their initial investment so they have more cash to support free breakfast and free dinner startups, and enough left over to buy crack rocks for all of San Francisco. Joe Sixpack invests his retirement fund in freelunch.com stock. MBA boy and the high school kids all buy solid platinum Ford Excursions.
    7. freelunch.com has their first post-IPO earnings report. Server bills, payroll, and the ad budget for the $10,000,000 Super Bowl commercial with a man farting out the tune to "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" all add up to 600x the revenue brought in from ad impressions. CNNfn attributes this to "problems in the supply chain with freelunch.com's JIT business system."
    8. Stock plummets, Joe Sixpack decides to buy more while the price is low, because "My friend has a computer, and he uses free lunch all the time." Stock soars.
    9. Advertisers realize that nobody gives a shit for the ad banners. freelunch.com can't sell its ad inventory. They lower their asking price for impressions, and change from banner ads to pop-up windows. Closing the window counts as a clickthrough, and it pops up another window. Ad revenues soar, advertisers get shafted. MBA boy gets a nose ring, and is interviewed by Wired Magazine on "The New Free-conomy."
    10. Users get fed up with clicking through 10,000 pop-up windows for free lunch when they could just pay for it. Besides, Microsoft gives you a tastier free lunch, although less nutritious, and you have to pay to sit down to eat it.
    11. Stockholders vote MBA boy out of the CEO chair. He is replaced by a former Pepsi CEO. freelunch.com is branded as "the choice of a new generation," and through a cross marketing deal, free lunch is given away at Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut to people who fill out a market survey, including name, address, social security number, income, and credit card numbers.
    12. The data is securely stored online just in case a user wants to purchase something from freelunch.com's sponsors. Securely means it can be accessed by clicking on the link that says "Secure data, don't click here!" and entering the password: "password". Script kiddie finds out and mass-mails goatse.cx [goatse.cx] to all freelunch subscribers. Wired News does a story, when reached for comment the CEO says that "No private account data was compromised, but all freelunch.com users should probably cut up their credit cards. It's good to renew them every few months, anyway."
    13. Stock has been steadily dropping. The CEO has to sell one of his 10 Bentleys; he just can't afford the gas. CNNfn attributes the drop to "low consumer confidence in the high tech sector." Joe Sixpack calls his broker.
    14. One day, freelunch.com is replaced with an animated gif of a construction worker, and the message "Please excuse our dust! freelunch.com is being redesigned to serve you better!" The new CEO considers a subscription based model, a support based model, b2b, b2c, c2b, c2c, p2p, and a few other words he read in Fast Company.
    15. Eventually he realizes that his retirement is on the line, and jumps ship, albeit with a $20,000,000 performance bonus, 12 months vacation before he leaves, and severance. Somehow it works out that Mr. CEO runs freelunch.com into the ground, and the company buys him a dozen vacation homes around the world, including an apartment aboard the International Space Station.
    16. One of the high school kids takes over as interim CEO. AOL/Time Warner convinces him to sell the freelunch.com technology by offering him Pokemon cards. freelunch.com stock is converted to AOL/TW, dollar for dollar, which means the entire market capitalization of freelunch.com is worth 13 shares of AOL/TW.
    Sorry if that was a bit long-winded, but I think I covered it all.

    The winners in this game are the VCs, who chuck money at startups like it's nothing, and cover their losses through big hype IPOs. Also, the CEOs and "visionaries" that come up with the startups must manage to squirrel a little away for retirement, not to mention the godlike reputation they get for "breaking all the rules." The investment banks that broker the IPOs make out pretty well too, on the near-asymptotic curve that peaks roughly 2 seconds after an IPO, and slowly rolls downhill.

    The main loser is Joe Sixpack, the hardworking, taxpaying investor who takes a bath because he doesn't know to get out of the stock while the getting's good. But it's probably his fault, since he doesn't really know enough about lunch to invest in it. He should know better than to listen to press releases and earnings reports on technology. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

    Thank you for your time, cunt.

    Love,
    Slashfucker

  • There's an ad on just about every web page, including every page loaded from Slashdot. This just puts another one just a little outside the page.

    It's like alladvantage, only it's a flat $50 up front, in a manner of speaking.


    -------
  • I'm afraid you don't know what you're talking about. Adding "incrementality" is not adding just another feature. It means that most interfaces have to be changed. It means that many of the implementation strategies that used to work well don't work well anymore.

    "Clean and modular" helps you as long as changes are confined to a few modules and don't require interface changes. But when you have to change your interfaces and most of your modules, then clean and modular isn't buying you anything. In fact, it often gets in your way and makes things more difficult.
  • I like the SDI approach. I never favoured MDI for anything. Tabbing is sometimes ok, if it makes sense. In KDevelop and spreadsheets it makes sense.

    I tend to run a *lot* of apps at a time. It's just the way I use a computer after many years of UNIX. This is the main reason I have trouble running Windows. The taskbar isn't suited for it. I find myself resizing the bar a lot. Application switching gets really slow, too.

    I like having the taskbar in the upper left, like in BeOS. That way, the entries don't get smaller as I open more windows. I tend to size everything like a page anyway, so I have room on the right for a panel (NeXtStep style) and some icons. KDE 2 won't let me do this properly like 1 did, which is my main complaint. Gnome can do it, but it's a pain in the ass to set up.

    I guess I'm stuck with the default for a little while...
  • Yes, it IS faster. The parts of mozilla that are slow aren't the parts that Galeon uses. As for the stability thing, try the latest CVS snapshot.

  • So why the hell is Opera $50?

    Ummm... because it's good enough to command a premium. Duh!

    Not an Opera user myself, but I've heard people say that its small memory footprint is a major advantage. That, and the fact that it's not integrated into Windows and therefore won't take the OS down when it crashes.

    IMHO, a bloat-reduced Mozilla could put the final nail in Opera's coffin, but don't hold your breath. Until then, some people are willing to pay for what FS/OSS doesn't offer.

  • It sucks ass. Here I sit, all day. Every page I go to I am constantly bombarded by popup and banner adds. It's getting increasingly hard to find any real content through the slogging mess of commercials on the web, and in real life. In Milwaukee, they are painting entire busses with advertisements. A browser that is littered with MORE advertisements is probly the last thing I want. I'll take IE.

  • > all kind of ad sucks, but it all boils down to this simple truth, will you pay for the software if you liked it? if you would, you can get it without ads in other words, quit whining.

    Bzzt. Learn to read. I paid for this software. I have no problem about ads in software I don't pay for (as I will pay for the ad-free version). But there exist no version of sherlock without ads. I was complaining about the idea of pushing ads in software you paid for. In that case the Mac OS operating system.

    Cheers,

    --fred

  • How to get rid of adds in Opera 5 (Score:3)

    by Lord Ender ( 156273 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @12:37PM (#578473) Homepage
    It is really simple. Just press F11 to go to full screen mode. Then the adds are all gone. Full screen mode looks a lot better than IE's version (no bar at the top or side).

    If you can memorize the keys to controll it without the buttons, this is the way to go.

    This download is only 2 megs! And it is so fast!

    Seriously check this thing out. If the ads bother you, just turn them off with F11.
  • Compaired to Netscape 4, hehehe.

    Compaired to something like Opera, both Netscape and Mozilla are about as fast as molasses. Especially on something like a Pentium 100 w/32MB ram.
  • Us slashdotters tend to argue, "I lose my privacy by signing up - bad thing." Privacy, like alcohol, is good in moderation. We give up a little of our privacy every time we go shop, every time we vote, every time we fill out ANY form. Anonymized privacy is fine - the companies don't know our name, just our preferences. If we start denying our preferences to companies they tend to lose track of what developments we really want. As long as I know that the company doesn't sell my information I am fine with clicking boxes indicating what I like so that the company makes more money to give me better products. It doesn't cost me money and I haven't told anyone anything that I wouldn't tell a random person that wants to help me, say, a hotel concierge.

    We need to get off our binging on our precious misnomered "privacy." I agree that real privacy is a good thing, that is, personal information like my social security number, what I like to do with my wife in bed, etc. But we tend to encompass too many aspects of ourself within that category when it come to the online world. We need to stop being hypocrites - giving out information in the real world that we refuse to give out in the online world.

    ---
  • I'm using a laptop.

    Multiply every price by 2-3x.

    I can't afford that.

    Cost of new laptop: $2000+

    Cost of Opera to make old laptop seem speedy: $0 (or $39 in ad free version, which I will probably pay)

    Thats about all there is to it for me. Opera is a lot cheaper then the new hardware it would take to make Mozilla work at something resembling a usable speed.
  • I think MDI web browsing is best suited to people (like myself) who tend to browse through lots of web pages while they work on other things. Now that I've spent a few years as a registered Opera user, I can't imagine going back to SDI browsing. Using IE/NS, my taskbar gets filled with a mix of pages and programs, and switching between work and browsing requires either a whole lot of alt-tabbing, or some very precise clicking on the taskbar (assuming your windows are maximized). MDI programs (like Opera) keep the taskbar relatively clean, so a few alt-tabs gets me to the program I wanted, and then then a few more keystrokes gets the document.

    Granted, Opera really should provide an option to run in SDI mode, but I suspect most people would adapt to MDI browsing fairly quickly if they give it a chance.

  • Mp3.com & SuSE ad's on bootup!! no thanks.. Just found the lines in the source and recompiled the kernel. :) I love open source.


    --------------------

  • Internet junkbuster, here I come! (Score:5)

    by Improv ( 2467 ) <pgunn01@gmail.com> on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @04:23AM (#578483) Homepage Journal
    This is awesome! With just a bit of netstat and
    some editing of my /etc/junklist, I guess I
    could get a free small browser... well, if I
    wanted it anyhow. I'll probably at least try it
    and see if I like it.

    To advertisers of the world: I will not see your
    advertisements anymore, and will be doing my best
    to free others as well. http://www.junkbusters.org

  • Both Netscape and Explorer come with zillions of built-in advertisments!

    We've got side-bars that pop open with 'helpfull' links. We've got pre-loaded (also 'helpfull') bookmarks! We've got a 'helpfull' button-bar.

    I'm not going to count the pre-set home-pages, but what about desktop links to MSN? Browsers that come pre-loaded on computers often have extra buttons to bring you to the manufactuor's web-page!

    This is a growing trend in comercial Software. Especialy monetarily-free software. I suppose they figure this is how they get thier money's worth. But every time I install something to my Windows box I spend at least twice the install-time just geting rid of all the obnoxious links, shortcut, start-menu items, start-menu groups, and worst of all: file reassociations!(Why would I want to open an MP3 with RealPlayer?) It makes me dread installing the latest verion of IE, WinAmp, or RealPlayer even if I think the upgrade itself is a good idea.

    At least the folk doing Opera are up-front about the advertising and provide you with a way to disable it(pay money). Eudora does this too by the way.

    -Andy

  • > This is Opera we're talking about here. They simply don't do that!

    Sorry. I haven't been clear enough. I was definitely _not_ supposing that they are playing such nasty tricks.

    The original comment I was replying to was "Opera does not force you to enter details about you: It runs by default with exactly NO information about yourself". This is simple-minded to suppose that software that runs on you computer can be trusted _only_ because you didn't fill private information.

    You have to either trust the software vendor, trust a third-party that audited the code, or use a product whose source code is avalaible and got good peer review. In Opera case, the software vendor reputation stand for itself.

    Cheers,

    --fred
  • > You paid money for the Sherlock software, not for the search engine service.

    Re-read the post. You'll find:

    "and yes, I know the reason behind the ads in Sherlock, but I don't care. A vendor should never push ads on my desktop"

    When you boot you Mac, it connects to apple.com ntp servers to sync the clock (you were aware of that, sure ?). You could argue that I paid for the OS, but not for the NTP service, hence apple could replace the boot screen by an ad.

    Accepting to use an-ad rigged Sherlock is a very sloppy road.

    Cheers,

    --fred
  • IE is subsidized, Netscape is subsidized, Mozilla is donated. So why the hell does Opera support its development by means of direct monetary compensation?

    Opera's move doesn't cater well to people who misunderstand the word "free." You can't get money from people who think they're already getting something for nothing. That's like trying to convince someone that the peanuts they give you on an airplane are actually more expensive than the peanuts you buy in the store, even though they don't charge for the peanuts on a plane.

    After seeing this story, I hope that Opera suffers for being upfront about where its resources to support its product come from.

    --

  • disappointed (Score:3)

    by Lio ( 102872 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @04:25AM (#578504)
    I registered Opera last year because I liked the speed of the browser and they promised to add some of the missing features soon: Javascript support had its bugs back then and forget about Java ... When they announced the version 4.0, I was very disappointed that I could not upgrade for free, because now they had added the features for which I had registered in the first place. Meanwhile, I don't care much about speed with an Athlon system now - I am going to try out the new version, but I doubt that it will convince me to pay another 50 bucks ...

  • Free+Ads a minus? I think not. (Score:5)

    by Trinition ( 114758 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @04:26AM (#578507) Homepage
    Opera is a great browser. I'm using 4.02 (for Windows, shhh!) to write this reply right now. It has a number of features that I love, like the MDI interface, zooming web pages, and the fact that if it crashes, it doesn't necessarily take Windows with it. I also like that when I re-open Opera, it remembers the last web pages I had open (a-la multiple default home pages).

    In my opinion, the big thing holding Opera back was that you had to pay for it. I showed it to a number of friends who agreed they'd use it if it weren't for the cost. After all, Netscape and IE were both free.

    However, Opera is a Norwegian company and probably didn't have as much money in the coffers as Netscape and certainly not Microsoft. How could they offer it for free? Well, by golly, free via ads is the next best thing.

    Personally, my concern is with the bandwidth those ads might consume. I've disabled the ads in AIM just because I dont want anything dirtying my bandwidth without my permission, no matter how small it might be.

  • I use Linux because it was the only thing I knew of that offered an alternative to Windows 95 which, at the time, was giving me no end of trouble and preventing me from using my very expensive laptop. After 18 months of relatively hassle-free computing I can clearly see the advantages of open source over closed source, but I have no qualms about paying money for a good piece of software. It's difficult to find, as most companies are quite happy to subscribe to the 'release a piece of shit and fix the bugs that corps complain about' development methodology.
  • Sure, Distributing the hack is likely to get you in trouble though.

    Last time I was in my dad's office I noticed he had a piece of foam-board duct-taped to the top of his monitor so it could flip-down when he was web-browsing and cover the add-banners. It's the same idea, just slightly lower-tech.

    -Andy

  • A friend of mine installed Linux simply because she despised Microsoft. She doesn't in any way like Linux, however (it's a dual-boot machine. Much of her time is spent in Windows). Her retort: "It doesn't work with any of my current software or hardware [well], and it's frustrating to use a command line".

    I personally spend a majority of my time in Windows 2000 for stability and security reasons. I don't mind paying a couple hundred bucks for software I know will run right, AND support my esoteric hardware, AND run a majority of the Win95/98 apps correctly.

    There are arguments for each (stability, security and not liking Bill), but notice that none of them have anything to do with actually LIKING Linux.

    If I had my way, I'd take Windows 2000, open source over rocks.

  • Now they're spyware. Fuck 'em.

    Opera is not spyware, and it'll never be. I know a few people there, and about all the techies there are members of Electronic Frontier Norway. Nobody would dream of adding spyware. You could take my word for it, or you could write some stuff to see what kind of information Opera sends out. They are very concerned about privacy.

    If you don't want the ads, pay for it, and they'll go away.

  • At the risk of being moderated down by mozilla utopians, I'd just like to point out that I've been using Opera almost exclusively for about 2 1/2 years and will continue to do so for three simple reasons:

    It's less bloated than IE/Netscape/Mozilla

    It's faster than IE/Netscape/Mozilla

    It believes in things called standards
    Granted, the third one counts negative for most people due to the fact that some pages are being designed based on "looks fine in IE" when if they simply adhered to the standards, it would probably "look fine" in ALL browsers! Now don't get me wrong, I'll be more than happy if Mozilla can ever take over as king in those three categories, but lets get real here, at the rate they're going, I'm going to be using Opera for at least another year.

    Anyway, that's just my $.02, you may now proceed with "Score:-1 Doesn't suck the dick of open source"...

  • > Giving up one's privacy to let light stream into your house through the window;

    How do you see the screen with all that light coming in from the big blue room? Eeeewww, gross! (sorry, couldn't resist ;-)

    > yet I rarely (if ever) hear you [Taco] weigh the success of Slashdot against the loss of privacy it has caused you.

    Actually, I think that'd be a damn good /. article. Not just to make your point that absolute privacy is a myth, but because I think Taco's take on the effects /. has had on his life would be a damn good read.

    Taco, you reading? How 'bout doing this as an "anniversary" article or to commemorate some sort of turning point in Slashdot's history on a slow news day?

  • I had tried previous versions of Opera before, but it cannot replace IE or Netscape in my case because I have to view pages in Japanese, that Opera don't render properly. I read in an FAQ last month that it was supposed to be done for next version, but apparently v.5 still don't support far-east languages (Chinese, Japanese), and there's no trace about it on their web pages. So anybody have a clue when it is supposed to be done ? I can't wait to get rid of the fat-so (IE & Netscape) !
  • Not a bad post, but if I may nitpick:
    1. "Media" is plural.
    2. The singular is "medium."
    3. There is no such word as "medias."

    Thank you.

    Zontar The Mindless,

  • Re:Slashdot IGNORANCE rears its head (Score:3)

    by FFFish ( 7567 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @02:49PM (#578539) Homepage
    Okay, now that was quite the over-the-top rant.

    Now that I'm a little calmer (though Taco still has me really pissed for putting such terribly misleading, ignorant information on a site that has so much influence), I'd like to rephrase a bit.

    I've been working on the beta software for the past three years. Opera's staff has always been top-notch: they take the feedback gratefully, deal with priority issues quickly, and really have the idealistic goals of creating a fully-compliant, robust, user-tweakable browser that is truly best-of-class.

    During the beta period of the adware, we beta testers hammered hell out of Opera management and programmers. We knew that adware would be a potentially flammable decision, and we made damned sure that Opera fully understood the need to separate the advertising from anything even remotely associated with personal data, including browser habit-tracking.

    We also demanded that Opera provide *EVERY* possible detail of the adware implementation, so that there could be no doubt that there were no privacy problems whatsoever. We did registry searches, binary file text searches, re-wrote the "welcome to" text, grilled them to death. We even halted release while we dealt with a few niggling details in wording.

    You can be damn sure that your privacy interests were fully represented.

    And then to have Taco shoot off his mouth without having a fucking clue how the advertising is implemented, without bothering to spend three minutes of his precious time actually reading Opera's well-detailed and highly informative privacy statement...

    ...well, hell, it's just too much.

    For all our efforts to make sure that there couldn't be controversy, we never accounted for the possibility that influential media personalities wouldn't actually *try* to be responsible.

    So, please, don't be a Taco: before you get your panties in a know about privacy, go [read the Opera privacy statement] [opera.com] and educate yourself.

    I'm not saying that the adware is wonderful; I personally don't like it being full-height, and I'm worried that they may serve overly distracting animations.

    But there are *no* privacy flaws, and it is a *wonderful* browser. It'll take a few days to get comfortable with it, but I am confident that almost everyone will find that its features will make it faster and easier to browser the web.

    --
  • Ah, but Mozilla, which is basically the same thing as Netscape6, doesn't have any of that evil stuff.

  • Re:Something's amiss with your ideals. (Score:5)

    by pointym5 ( 128908 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @04:31AM (#578542)
    Chances are that if you're down with non-free software on Linux, then you only use Linux because you have some irrational dislike of Bill Gates. That's pathetic.

    Entertaining and Slashdot-culturally-correct as it may be to spew righteous flameage at a strawman, that statement is just plain stupid. I'd say chances are most people who use Linux do so because they like it.

    Idealistic endeavors like the Free Software Movement should be things that believers adopt for their own personal reasons. Browbeating other people for not sharing your ideals is just plain wrong-headed. If you believe in Free Software, great. Write some. Make it so compelling that it'll dominate its space and drive out non-free competition.

    What we don't need is this stupid Free Software jihad mentality.

  • Commercials in everything... (Score:3)

    by don_carnage ( 145494 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @04:32AM (#578544) Homepage
    Advertising must really pay well, because Opera is not the only one putting ads in their product: Quicken and ICQ have also adopted such policies.

    For free software, I can see advertising as a means to help offset the costs of development, etc. Although it's rather annoying and a hit to privacy: you're still getting the software for free. The same goes with free internet service providers: you don't want the ads, then buy the product, ya mooch! 8^)

    But seriously -- if I start seeing manditory ads when I boot, I'm going to have to climb a bell-tower.

    --

  • fix netscape toolbar (Score:3)

    by mattdm ( 1931 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @04:34AM (#578568) Homepage
    no "My Nutscrape" or "Shopping" portal icons eating toolbar space)

    In your ~/.Xdefaults:

    Netscape*toolBar.search.isEnabled: false
    Netscape*toolBar.destinations.isEnabled: false
    Netscape*toolBar.myshopping.isEnabled: false
    Netscape*toolBar.viewSecurity.isEnabled: false

    --

  • Ads on buses (Score:3)

    by Noodles ( 39504 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @04:38AM (#578577)
    I gave up my privacy this morning by getting in my car and driving to work. I was forced to look at buses plastered with ads. And there were signs everywhere along the roads with ads on them. I feel so "dirty" now.

  • Changes other than ads? (Score:3)

    by Dr. Smoe ( 18220 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @04:38AM (#578579)

    I've seen lots of comments about the ads in the free version, and comments about how much people love/hate other versions of Opera, but can anyone comment on how things have changed for 5.0 besides the addition of a sponsored version? The web site mentioned better javascript support, some sort of intergrated search feature and an integrated instant messenger. Those last two certainly sound like unneeded bloat to me, so I was wondering if anyone had actually used this version and could comment on how it compares to the 4.x versions?

    Dr. Smoe

  • This is a failed business model (Score:5)

    by ajs ( 35943 ) <ajs@a[ ]com ['js.' in gap]> on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @04:38AM (#578580) Homepage Journal
    The free software/hardware, as long as you take the adds model has failed. Every company that tried it either had to adopt a different model or went out of business. See ZapMe for an example. The problem is that in order for this to make sense one of two things has to happen: advertisers need to trust your medium (e.g. TV) or you need to have millions of viewers (which is how TV got where it is).

    Opera has neither.

  • That's a really stupid move. (Score:3)

    by AFCArchvile ( 221494 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @04:41AM (#578597)
    IE is free, Netscape is free, Mozilla is free (well, not when it comes to the compile/build/configure/re-configure/delete/re-ins tall/fuss/head-pound/tweak time that you have to invest). So why the hell is Opera $50?

    Opera's move is equivalent to treason in the browser world. You don't charge for something that other companies provide for free. That's like charging $20 for a cup of water at a marathon when the tables are providing them for free.

    After seeing this story, I hope that Opera makes it onto this list [fuckedcompany.com].

  • Re:Something's amiss with your ideals. (Score:3)

    by Watts Martin ( 3616 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @04:41AM (#578600) Homepage

    In practice, many people are "Linux is great because it's free" types of guys. Linux has been attracting attention over the last year or so because it's being presented--marketed, if you will--as a viable alternative to NT: perhaps harder to use, but substantially more robust and with an extremely low cost of ownership. Being able to get "under the hood" and hack is, to most non-hackers, something that's interesting but only relevant to them if they know--or in a business context, employ--the Unix-savvy.

    When push comes to shove, people want software that does what they need. Many people have been attracted to Linux (and FreeBSD and cousins) because they can get the software that does what they need here for free--and I absolutely mean free in the sense of "free beer."

    Suppose the GPL requested a monetary donation to the FSF from anyone who used Gnu software without making other contributions (i.e., code, documentation, or bug reports). Perfectly reasonable from a "free speech" standpoint; how many users do you think would actually send in that money? I suspect it would be fewer people, proportionately, than those who register fully functional shareware.

    I don't think people "abandoned the goal of free software for the nebulous, hazy goals of the 'open source' movement," because I think most people who are using Linux were never concerned with free software in the RMS sense to start with.

  • On privacy (Score:4)

    by American AC in Paris ( 230456 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @04:54AM (#578607) Homepage
    Is it worth giving up your privacy for a free binary, or paying fifty bucks for the binary?

    I'd argue that if you want to use Opera for free, it is well worth giving up a small slice of one's privacy in return. I can think of several others, right off the top of my head:

    • Giving up one's privacy for the sake of getting to and from the grocery store;
    • Giving up one's privacy to let light stream into your house through the window;
    • Giving up one's privacy to go to the hospital and have that broken leg set in a cast;
    • Giving up one's privacy by walking across the street to greet your new neighbor;
    • Giving up one's privacy to enjoy a night at the bar with a group of good friends...
    The list goes on. Taco, you should know more than any of us that absolute privacy is a myth. You're famous amongst geeks, and yet I rarely (if ever) hear you weigh the success of Slashdot against the loss of privacy it has caused you. It is quite common for one's privacy to be the lesser consideration in a decision, and if you want to use Opera for free, then sacrificing a sliver of your privacy to do so legitimately is not that great of a concern. Of course, you could always pay full price or pirate the full version to protect your privacy, or simply stick to Mozilla, as I suspect you will. (Personally, I agree--though it's no major sacrifice to give up that privacy, I'm not keen on using an app with integrated advertising when a completely free alternative exists...)

    $ man reality

  • Re:Good for web authors (Score:5)

    by Masem ( 1171 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @04:44AM (#578608)
    IIRC, the Opera 4.x series was only HTML3.2/CSS1 compatible, though there were HTML4 and CSS2 features implemented but they refused to claim 100% adherence (unlike other browsers that say they are, but only support 50 to 90% of the spec). I remember the Opera people saying, when Opera 4 was announced, that Opera 5 would be the version with HTML4/CSS2 compatibility, regardless of the 4.x version number.

    The only thing that would make opera perfect is the ability to run it outside the MDI interface on all platforms.

  • Re:Something's amiss with your ideals. (Score:5)

    by mattdm ( 1931 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @04:54AM (#578609) Homepage
    Hmmm. This sure sounds like a troll, but I'll bite.

    Some of us just want software that doesn't suck. Open source is overall a superior method of getting there, but often closed methods produce pretty good stuff too. If a closed-source program sucks less than the alternatives, I don't have a moral problem with using it. I'll support the development of better open-source choices, but I won't feel bad about using something else until they're ready -- forever, if that's the way it turns out. And I certainly won't bash someone else for their choice.

    Games are a good example of something that seems to work very well with a closed-source develpment process. I've purchased several games from Loki, and I'm really happy with them. Loki does a great job of supporting good and useful open-source game-infrastructure [lokigames.com] projects, and that makes me happy. I don't see a reason to go demanding the source to Sim City.

    On the browser front, for whatever its worth, I still think Opera sucks -- fast and light is nice, but there's no attention to good interface design. So, for whatever its flaws, I'm posting this from a copy of Mozilla I built from CVS. I'm glad I have this option, but if you like Opera better, fine with me.

    --

  • Re:Piss off, Taco (Score:3)

    by mattdm ( 1931 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @04:57AM (#578628) Homepage
    He probably reads slashdot through a ad-blocking proxy, like a lot of the rest of us. :)

    --

  • Free ad-ware sucks. Costly ad-ware sucks even more (Score:3)

    by f5426 ( 144654 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @04:48AM (#578631)
    I dislike adware. But, if they want support Opera this way, then more power to them. I wouldn't use it.

    The worst ad-ware I ever been in contact with is the Mac OS. Sherlock for instance. I paid real money for this OS (well, I paid money for the developer membership), and they have the balls to try to send ads to my desktop. Launched Sherlock once, and never have launched it again (and yes, I know the reason behind the ads in Sherlock, but I don't care. A vendor should never push ads on my desktop)

    The is also the kind of not-so-gentle-reminder at startup that pisses me, like the Quicktime-4 "Upgrade" panel, or the Stuffit one. And often default installs tries to promote other products. This is equally true in Windows.

    What is strange is that free software is not totally immune to this (see the 3Com nic two line credits that contains a ad/promo9tion each time you boot). But at least, I can remove those if I want.

    I sincerly fear what my desktop will look like in 5 or 10 years. You can't get usefull info out of the web without ads (which you can hopefully block). Even google started to track links.

    Cheers,

    --fred

  • Remembering Cable (Score:4)

    by Shotgun ( 30919 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @04:59AM (#578634)
    When cable first came out in the '80's it was ad free, but the cost was prohibitive to most of us. Over time, the monthly rate had dropped, but now it seems that even the premium channels have as much commercialization as broadcast TV did in the '80's. Watching broadcast TV is a waste of time in the US now, unless you like to watch commercials.

    I see a pattern, and I see that pattern affecting software. Advertisers will pay to have software developed, and people will be more than happy to use the software for 'free'.

  • **not** spyware! read here for the **truth** (Score:5)

    by ChristTrekker ( 91442 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @05:51AM (#578662)

    There is no privacy infringement in Opera 5! This comes straight from Tollef at Opera, the guy "in the know" about the Linux port. He says if Opera puts out spyware, he and a good deal of other people he knows will leave Opera.

    OK, that said...I'm using my karma bonus (which I rarely do) so maybe this will get noticed. Opera is a good browser, and, I think, a good company. I registered as an alpha/beta tester for their Mac port, and have been following Opera for over two years now. I've been reading the opera.* NGs for the past week as info about Opera 5 has been leaking out. I know what I'm talking about.

    The ads are served independently of the web page. They are part of the UI. They don't tell anybody what you were looking at. They only report if the ad was clicked. You get to customize the ads you see...it's not based on your browsing patterns. Read the privacy policy [opera.com] if you're still not convinced. (That means you, CmdrTaco.)

    If you like Opera, you'll pay the $39 to register it and remove the ads. However, a free version is a great way for designers to test with more browsers, in particular, a very compliant browser. I see this as a good thing. If you're really paranoid, then fine, don't use it.

    Posted with Opera 5.

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