Guardian: Browsing for browsers — Don’t forget about Opera!
Published July 17th, 2007 11:50 AM EDT By Daniel GoldmanCharles Arthur wrote an article for Guardian entitled “Browsing for browsers”. In it he mentions Internet Explorer (IE), Firefox, Flock, Safari, and uBrowser. But missing is any mention of Opera.
At the end of the article Charles wrote “Of course, if you’ve seen a really special browser - or general add-on - that you think we should know about, let me know.”
Since there’s no email address or other contact information for Charles on that webpage, I figured to let him know about Opera here. I’m hoping someone will forward him a link to this post.
In the article he mentions a couple necessitates and requirements for the perfect browser:
1.
“But in the shift from luxury to necessity, there is now one thing I do demand of any browser - and you should too, because as tabbed windows have become de rigeur, so we tend to have more and more things open at once.”
Does Opera have tabbed browsing? Check.
Opera, in fact, was the first to add the precursor to tabs, known as Multiple Document Interface (MDI), and was the first major browser to include tabs – long before Firefox and IE.
2.
“What happens when you quit your browser, or it crashes, and you had lots of work on the go? That’s when you need session restoring - which brings back the tabs and windows you had open, and reloads them.”
Check that too for Opera.
Opera actually invented browser sessions in 1996. When you close the browser, Opera will reopen all the tabs as they were when you last used it – it even remembers your browsing history, so you could immediately go back with the browser’s ‘Back’ button.
So here you go, Charles. I hope Opera is the next browser you download. Certainly if you have any questions, I’ll be glad to help out.
(Hat tip to Diego)
Update (2:32pm): Charles Arthur was kind enough to drop by and clarify his article. For those of you who emailed him, I hope it was a friendly one. (Btw, the IP address used to post the comment came from guardian.co.uk, so it’s not some prankster writing in his name.)
If you enjoyed this post, then make sure you subscribe to my RSS Feed.Perhaps I should have pointed out that I’ve used Opera many times over the years, on many different platforms including Windows, Mac OS, and lately the Wii as well as mobiles.
I didn’t mention it because it wasn’t germane to the general points about how some things have moved from being luxuries to essentials. Things like tabs, and session restoring.It would have been nice if someone had indeed sent a link to this blog - I had instead to find it myself, having seen an uptick in people emailing to mention it. Believe me, I know about it.
So now you can post your comments here, and I’ll see them.
Charles Arthur, The Guardian
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He must by a very big ignorant because you can find Opera in most ‘Browser Market Share’ pages so I really don’t believe that He just ‘mist it’.
– liar.
English is not my native language, sorry if I made some mistakes.
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Contact info:
http://www.charlesarthur.com/contact.php
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I can’t believe that Opera was left out by mistake. I hadn’t even heard of uBrowser, and I’m pretty sure he hear of Opera.
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If you’d like to comment on any aspect of Technology Guardian, send your emails to tech@guardian.co.uk
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Charles Arthur knows about Opera browser enough…
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I’m having a real hard time trying to figure out just what in the blue hell the whole point of that article was. The first bit looked like an ad for Flock, with the rest of the article not really covering anything note worthy.
Did they just post an article for the sake of posting an article? o.O
As far as Opera being missed. He linked to a number of Wikipedia articles that all mention Opera. And as ‘marol’ stated, Opera is mentioned in most arket share reports… then there are the speed tests, which also almost always have Opera included.
Looks like someone needs a new day job then.
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Perhaps I should have pointed out that I’ve used Opera many times over the years, on many different platforms including Windows, Mac OS, and lately the Wii as well as mobiles.
I didn’t mention it because it wasn’t germane to the general points about how some things have moved from being luxuries to essentials. Things like tabs, and session restoring.
It would have been nice if someone had indeed sent a link to this blog - I had instead to find it myself, having seen an uptick in people emailing to mention it. Believe me, I know about it.
So now you can post your comments here, and I’ll see them.
Charles Arthur, The Guardian
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Daniel, Opera did not invent Multiple Document Interface. Maybe Opera was first to use MDI in a web browser (I don’t know for sure), but Opera did not invent MDI per se.
Also I don’t agree MDI can be called a precursor to tabs. Yes, Opera had MDI first and included Tabbed Document Interface later. But both MDI and TDI interfaces were invented and used before Opera, both are indenpendent intereface types. It just happens that Opera implemented both.
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hog, I already changed the post text a few hours ago to reflect your point. Thanks anyways.
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I think the author should have mentioned at least something about opera in the article, since at least more than half of the features(including bittorrent integration) are already out of the box in opera, it spouts the kinda ignorant posts that “Firefox did this first”, “Mozilla did that” that could arise from reading the article.
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Tabbed browsing is a subset of MDI. It’s MDI with tabs.
But if Opera was the first browser to do MDI, it was the first browser to do MDI.
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Hi Charles,
I’m guessing that you didn’t quite like Opera, otherwise I think you would have mentioned it in your article. I can’t speak for the Opera team, but any feedback is good feedback, and it would help a lot in future development.
That said, I’m horrified by the state of affairs regarding Firefox. Some sites in some countries already measure it to have 50% market share, and it’s all due to viral marketing… If Opera wants to do something on the desktop, it needs to attract developers, and needs to indulge in an agressive marketing campaign. I would be surprised if 9 out of 10 people weren’t using Fx just “because everyone else does”. Maybe those people should be targeted. Not in the Daikatana style, of course
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By the unapologetic tone, and non-updated column, this sounds like a volontary omission by a gecko fanboy. Can we send him slow parcel goat cheese?
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Mmm… goat cheese…
But anyway, now that he’s here, he might be interested to learn that the integrated search and sessions (and proper zoom of course) were pioneered by Opera too. Not sure how Opera isn’t relevant since it’s basically the father of the modern browser. Sure, Firefox stole the limelight, but if you do a little digging beyond the Firefox hype you’ll find that things point towards Opera.
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So basically he didn’t mention the browser which pioneered most of the features mentioned in the article because…well, it’s not relevant to the article.
Professional journalism at its best.
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It’s not exactly fair to say that Opera hasn’t done its fair share of growing. Opera once, like Firefox, didn’t have bittorrent support. Opera once didn’t have sessions, integrated search, widgets, mail, newsfeeds, chat. Opera once didn’t have fraud protection. I wouldn’t say it’s fair to say that it wasn’t “germane to the general points about how some things have moved from being luxuries to essentials.” Opera is where those luxuries started. Among Opera users, features seen as luxuries by other browsers were seen as essentials by Opera users. And now, those features are seen by essentials by nearly all browsers. Opera is the backbone to your theme of your post. It would have tied it together and given it a lot more perspective and depth. Instead, your article makes it sound like new features popped up all of a sudden and became essentials by Firefox, Flock, IE7, Safari, and uBrowser.
Might I also add that your comparison of browsers is a bit unfair. You have three gecko-based browsers and 2 non-gecko browsers. That really isn’t much of a valid comparison to say that the luxury features are essentials across the board.
If you want professional-quality journalism, you’re going to have to show the readers the backbone of browsing and its lifelong history.
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Charles Arthur, could you elaborate on why you felt that Opera “wasn’t germane to the general points about how some things have moved from being luxuries to essentials”? It seems to me (and most Opera fans, I would imagine) that Opera was the browser that introduced many of these ‘essentials’, and therefore the mention of at least that much seems more prudent to me than failing to mention it at all.
Obviously that’s just my opinion, which is why I was curious about your reasoning.
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Opera wasn’t the first browser to have tabs; Netcaptor is the one.
Don’t steal credits from other browsers…
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@Gt4-kla
No-one said Opera was the the first browser to have tabs, Opera was the first MAJOR browser to have tabs though.
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so whats the meaning of “Major”?
Because Opera has too little marketshare, so in perspective we have Firefox as the major browser to implement tabs (the other major browser in the market is IE).
Or every known browser is a major browser? Flock isn’t a major browser, AvantBrowser too, Maxthon (MyIE2) too..
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Opera was the first MDI browser, if I’m not mistaken. And no, Netcaptor was not the first browser with tabs. I believe that was InternetWorks.
But despite having only 1 per cent market share in the US and only 5-10 per cent in Europe and Asia, Opera can be considered “major” because there is actually a lot of recognition out there. Even years ago, Opera was taken into consideration by sites when designing. Not as much as IE and Firefox today, but it was still the case.
Anyway, Cassidy, I am sure your arguments are really convincing him to write about Opera… Great one.
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Login will help - see http://www.theregister.co.uk for a simple one..
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> Tabbed browsing is a subset of MDI.
I’m afraid you are wrong. Many MDI applications don’t have tabs. If TDI would be a subset of MDI, all MDI applications would have tabs.
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Well, there is a reason that Opera has not increased its market share and that is the lack of a killer reason for the normal user to switch. Actually it has long been a disadvantage in terms of a steep learning curve and a messy, somewhat bloated user interface. It has been a lot better recently but there are still some things that do not contribute to the slipstreamed interface that at least I would like to see:
* There are three ways to search in a page: ‘Ctrl + f’ for a regular search, ‘.’ for inline search and ‘search in page’ in the search field, all with different interfaces.
* There are three ways to see your bookmarks: In the bookmark menu, the bookmark panel and the bookmark window, with different interfaces.
* Standard keyboard shortcuts are often incompatible with major browsers.
I think the philosophy to let the user decide what it wants is good for the power user, but as long as Opera is engaged to this philosophy, power users are the only users that Opera will get. I think Opera should learn a bit from Apple and Steve Jobs, who seem to know what is best for the user without trying to fulfill everyone’s whishes.
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I’m afraid you are wrong. Many Felidae are not domestic cats. If domestic cats would be a subset of Felidae, all Felidae would be domestic cats.
“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”
GT4-kla-
This market share stuff cracks me up. We now have (presumably) open source advocate/supporters who used to foster choice, innovation, anti-vendor lock-in, a level playing field, etc… now essentially defining “the market” as two browsers. You’re only willing to now look at the “marketshare slider” now that FF has a significant share. Now you want to use it to diminish other browsers. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
I thought the whole point of Firefox was to have a safe, fast, different experience? I thought it was “hey, we can do this better than the product that is out there?” - now that you have that, we’re back to looking at market share again just like IE supporters did in the past to minimize the competition? So whenever another browser tries to do something different, innovative, competitive…something that breaks away from the (in your mind) two major browsers, we’re just going to turn a blind eye and say “who cares, they don’t have any marketshare.” How do you feel about someone who sets the “major browser/marketshare slider” to the >50 percent? Do you really want two or three browsers deciding what works best as a client/interface to the web?
How about we all just focus on open standards and let proprietary companies, open source companies, some girl hacking away in her basement, etc, build their vision of a user interface and client browser and not force it everyone’s face that not everyone in the world is using the exact same product.
The tailors on savile row in London aren’t exactly the major marketshare of suit makers, but I’d much rather have them provide me with a suit then the Men’s Warehouse. *Regardless* of the quality of the MW suit, I’d rather have something that (seems) designed especially for me and fits me best.
I’d say Opera is a “Major Browser” if anything just based on the history of the company and the innovation and contribution they provide to the industry. Discounting that with marketshare numbers is foolish and irresponsible.
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No hog, you’ve got it the wrong way around. Tabbed browsing being in a subset of MDI means tabs require MDI but not the other way around (though most other browsers with tabs don’t implement the full MDI - eg. no arranging/resizing windows, no proper z-ordering)
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…isn’t that the philosophy behind extensions? I thought Opera *was* trying to decide what is best for the user by including bittorrent, mail client, chat, etc. Your issue is that Opera provides more than one way to get access to a feature? Look, I do usability work for a living- I know about overloading the user with options, creating a simple UI to get the job done. But there *are* power users out there. They want an interface that does what they want. Apple has failed miserably in adapting iTunes to manage podcasts by only allowing one “streamlined” way to download and sync podcasts, thereby treating every single podcast in the same manner, completely ignoring the many different types, frequencies and user choice for managing them.
Personally, I don’t find the Opera interface bloated- in fact, I find it pretty much invisible. I do everything with mouse gestures and keyboard shortcuts. Slowly, over the years of using Opera my toolbars are getting slimmer and less cluttered, I think less and less about the interface.
Is there a steep learning curve? I guess I would agree with that if you say that to use Opera “powerfully” (like I do) then yeah- it does. But isn’t it like that with any tool? I find it much more of a learning curve to research extensions and find out what would work best for me that I should install in order to get firefox to have the same capabilities that make it feel like the UI is invisible. With firefox I have to seek out the feature and then learn out to use and configure it. With Opera, it’s already there, I just have to figure out how to use it.
But out of the box? It’s just as easy to use for the novice as any other browser I would think. Finding a compelling reason to switch… that *is* interesting to explore….well, that’s a problem for Opera’s marketing department isn’t it? From an IE user perspective, what’s the difference between an out of the box firefox install and Opera? Speed, security, tabs, community,… it’s all there.
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1.8% market share. WooHoo!
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I don’t know whether or not this was supposed to be sarcastic but just in case: Cassidy was actually right. There’s no reason not to talk about Opera in the article, especially when the author explicitly mentions features first implemented by Opera.
The author’s comment in this blog was vague at best — he didn’t actually explain why Opera was left out and a bizarre experiment like uBrowser was mentioned instead — so it looks like the article was rather biased. He had the opportunity to clarify his point but he avoided a clear explanation…not sure why you think Cassidy’s comment was wrong…
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@FakeFanboy:
It is up to 3.5% in Europe:
http://www.xitimonitor.com/fr-fr/barometre-des-navigateurs/firefox-juillet-2007/index-1-1-3-102.html
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I don’t know why uBrowser was chosen. Certainly the 3D cube or sphere shapes aren’t considered “essential” features right now, so it doesn’t match the scope of the article very well.
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Quit the patronizing shite. I’m not trying to convice him, just pointing out the ilogical reasoning. Convince a journalist to do his job right?. Not my business.
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I agree that there was no good reason to leave out Opera, but attacking someone is hardly the way to convince them to change their mind.
@ hog
>> Tabbed browsing is a subset of MDI.
>
> I’m afraid you are wrong. Many MDI applications
> don’t have tabs.
I’m afraid you are wrong. TDI is a subset of MDI. All tabbed applications are MDI. All MDI applications are not tabbed aplications.
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I know it’s been said, but MDI means multiple document interface, meaning multiple windows in one containing main window of an application. Does a tabbed interface provide this? Yes. Tabs are merely a method of managing multiple documents, using the classical window menu (like in Photoshop) is another approach. Opera can do both if you want it to.
To me tabbed browsing without normal window controls (like in Opera) feels like an extremely limited implementation of MDI, useful in text editors, but not in browsers, but that’s just a personal opinion. Either way, Firefox and IE open their popups in a separate window, kind of seems to defeat the MDI interface to me.
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Just a quick note…if you’re unhappy with an article, don’t just write to the author. Write to his editors too
The Guardian also has a “how to complain page” at http://www.guardian.co.uk/information/guardianunlimited/story/0,,824307,00.html