Yes, we know WinSafari’s beta, but it shouldn’t be taken for anything else. And that was Apple’s mistake, and now it has rashly awakened the protective mother bear. Had Apple not tried to compare its speed and security to other browsers or push it out into the mass market (it’s beta, not a final release, you don’t want the whole world switching), WinSafari would have received better PR. And I think they’ve lessened their future likelihood of developing a product that people will want to try and use because of the negative PR.

This is a great day for Opera for increased awareness of alternative browsing and opening the web, but not such a great day for Apple’s WinSafari team.

Sorry to have to tell you this, but people generally don’t read help files!

You also seem to be confused about what your message is. First Opera is not listening to its users because it doesn’t allow you to dictate everything. Then their marketing sucks because they aren’t allowing you to dictate how they should do marketing.

Stop predicting doom and gloom just because Opera does it their way rather than your way. Opera has been doing browsers for more than ten years. How many browsers have you made with millions of users all over the world?

No assumptions, I invite you as well to read the historic comments with their reaction from Opera, sorting those from the press, advanced and novice users. As example: How long and why the program help has been so difficult to use? How many clicks do you need to reach the information compared with other browsers?

Opera desktop has great technology, it is the best, but every body in the industry knows it need serious improvements in marketing to deal with American products.

I may suggest read or ask people in the SW business before argue things that are not my ideas, just because I am not a fanboy does not mean that I do not want Opera desktop to succeed.

It seems to me that the kind of people who would appreciate Safari — normal users who just want a basic browser — are more numerous among Firefox users, so Firefox has a LOT more to lose than Opera. Sad, but true. You can keep telling yourself that this will affect Opera but not Firefox, but deluding yourself is rarely a good thing to do.

Firefox might have extensions, but Opera has the speed and integrated functionality that neither Firefox nor Safari can emulate. Safari might be faster than Firefox, but it doesn’t have a lot of functionality and no extensions. Opera is the best of both worlds, speed and integrated, streamlined functionality in one package.

So yes, Firefox has more to lose because it is precisely the fact that it’s just a basic browser by default which is a huge contributing factor to its growth. Now you get another browser which is much faster, and which is just as simple and easy to use, so if anyone is going to lose users it’s Firefox losing its “normal” users to Safari because Safari kicks Firefox in the butt when it comes to speed.

And Firefox is not a showstopper for Opera. Since Firefox was introduced, Opera’s user base (and market share, according to Net Applications) has actually grown. Opera’s revenues from the PC version grew by more than 140 per cent in the first quarter of 2007. How’s that for “showstopper”?

If you are saying that Opera has 1 per cent of the market because it doesn’t listen to its users, then you have simply not paid attention to Opera’s history.

Safari seems to be extremely lacking in features, and I feed disabled when I use it.

I feel the same way, to some extent with Firefox, but I can make Firefox behave sort of like Opera with extensions.

Sadly I can not give right now a single Web site to you, but I think you, as Apple’s user, may simply remember a few examples of AJAX and Flash ones working happily with Safari and unusable in Opera. HTML and CSS are not big deal within Web 2.0

@Trickster

You are right, I want them to hear their loyal users, at least those in this Web site. I invite you to do it and at the end, please let me know what do you think about that most browsers have gained market share percent and Opera stays with 1% as a geek niche product.

The main point here is marketing. Apple are just geniuses at marketing campains. Opera suck at it… This is why i think a lot of people will actually start using Safari - after all thay have got an Ipod and are planing to get a Iphone - but are not Mac users (thats a bit to extreme for most people…). Most of the converts will be using IE in the first place, but some will probably use Firefox and Opera. Not all Opera and Firefox users are hardcore fans after all. To me, I can’t see anything good about another competitor on the scene.

Safari is targeted at a very specific set of users. However, the potential for iTunes/iPhone integration is great. I know Opera is working on cross-device bookmarking but Apple may be the first to it. Identical bookmarks on Safari for Mac, Safari for Windows, and Safari for iPhone is a cool proposition. Imagine reading an RSS feed on your iPhone and then back on your PC, Safari knows what you’ve read. The possibitlies are great…

Opera has a different user base than Safari caters to, true. As well as the users that IE now has. And FF.

But, Opera is trying to get it on the market share, not fall more and more behind. For the non-techie, non-Opera users who might have switched to Opera for the sake of it, just because they were fed up with IE, they now have another option - a more stable option, one that is the IE of then Mac, and has a name for itself which Opera is still trying to build up on their end.

So, not only is FF a show stopper for the community Opera so desperately seeks, Safari has joined in on the fun.

Besides, I don’t think too many FF users will leave for Safari, mainly just IE users - FF’s extensions are something nobody else has or can even compare to!

some of the people at the Desktop team should officially comment on this

Comment on what, and why?

“Yes Safari is great, better than Opera”?

“Yes, Safari is trash. Really bad”?

Safari is a bad news for Opera desktop unless Opera’s team changes their way to make business, improving their marketing instead of justifying what they have done wrong, as do not hear end users from the interface design to promotional efforts.

Translated: “Safari is bad news for Opera unless Opera does what I want them to do.

I know that Opera Software ASA and Opera fans all over will turn this around to say it is a ‘good day for Opera’, but the truth is that Opera is now in trouble.

Opera is only in trouble if Safari takes over the entire browser market, and that is simply not going to happen. Safari is a very basic browser on Mac and Windows, and you can only get it for iPhone, which is just one player in a huge market with several mobile manufacturers.

Opera seems to be doomed…

It only seems that way if you ignore reality and assume that Apple has a monopoly on both PC and mobile phones.