A word about marketing at Opera
60 CommentsPublished August 22nd, 2007 2:25 PM EDT By Daniel Goldman
My colleague Haavard (who works on the desktop browser) brought up an important topic on his blog last week – Opera’s marketing efforts. I hear this often from many of our loyal Opera users. They often complain that Opera doesn’t do much to market the desktop browser (or Opera Mini). In other words “Opera’s marketing sucks”.
Being an insider at Opera for just about a year now, I have had the opportunity to see what Opera is really doing to market and promote the Opera browser. So I figured I’d list here some of our marketing activities and efforts that we do as a company.
Many of our activities in promoting Opera are behind the scenes, some of which you’ll never hear about. For example, we could spend countless days and weeks with a reporter on a single story or executive level interview. These big stories about Opera Mini in the New York Times or The Wall Street Journal, for example, don’t just happen on their own.
Not long ago we launched the first beta of Opera Mini 4. It was hugely successful both in terms of publicity and in number of downloads. We got lots of good mentions in the press, blog posts and social networking sites. And, mind you, this wasn’t even a final version, just the beta. Products don’t sell themselves. I can tell you that we spent months and months of planning for the launch of this Opera Mini beta – and it turned out a well.
Right now we’re planning the launches of our next major releases, Opera 9.5 and Opera Mini 4 (final). We’ve got an amazing team working on some really cool ideas for the launch. You’ll be seeing a lot more of this in the weeks leading up to the launch, and you’ll even have a chance to get involved in some of our campaigns if you want.
Before I get to the list, I just wanted to mention that our marketing department has gone through some major changes in the past 7-8 months. We’ve stepped up our efforts for both new browser launches and general promotion of our brand.
So without further ado, here are some of the things that we do to promote Opera (this list is in no particular order):
- We are reviving our developer outreach efforts. It’s very important for us to have web developers be aware of and test their sites in Opera. We recently hired a developer/writer to run our developer site, dev.opera.com, where you’ll see lots of good stuff in the coming months.
- With the Desktop Team blog, we have made the development process of the desktop browser more open to our fans and followers. This is by far the most popular blog we host on the My Opera Community site. This blog is one of the important places where we converse with you, our users.
- For the launch of Opera Mini 4 beta we produced an ‘Opera Mini vs. iPhone’ video — it was extremely popular in the blogosphere and on video sharing sites.
- We are producing more fun and informative videos to be released with the Opera 9.5 and Opera Mini 4 (final) launches.
- We send many of our developers, executives and others to speak at and attend industry-related conferences and events (worldwide). The audiences attending these events usually include developers, business contacts, and everyday internet users.
- We organize large Opera-user get-togethers, which we call ‘Opera Backstage’ events. These Opera Backstages have already taken place in numerous countries, with more of these events planned. In addition to the marketing team, these events are attended by our executives and developers. These events are typically attended by anywhere from 100-500 people.
- As I mentioned above, news stories about Opera in the press don’t usually happen by themselves. We have an entire PR department working on getting as much publicity for Opera in the press as possible, in multiple languages.
- We’re currently working on a new affiliate program, where our users get credit (and tangible rewards) for encouraging others to download Opera.
- Opera’s homepages, both www.opera.com and www.operamini.com are redesigned with each major release of a new browser version. This keeps those sites from becoming stale.
- Our marketing and IS departments are currently working on a major redesign of our website. The website’s design, usability and content are crucial in our efforts to increase Opera’s market share. After people read or hear about Opera, the site is what often convinces them to download and use Opera.
- We run ads on various tech websites and blogs to promote the desktop browser, Opera Mini and the Wii browser.
- We have (and continue to pursue) major distribution deals with ISPs and web portals to distribute the desktop browser and Opera Mini. Examples include T-Online, Clix and Onet.
- Opera sponsors many events and conferences, which gets our name and brand out to conference-goers.
- We also have booths at many events and conferences, where we demo and talk to people about our browsers.
- We run the My Opera community site, which has close to 1 million registered members. When potential Opera users consider downloading Opera, and notice our strong community of users, I’m sure this helps a bit in their decision to download and use Opera.
- We recognize that our users are very talented, and many of them want to help spread and promote Opera. To help those users, we have set up the Choose Opera group where Opera users can plan, execute, and show off group and individual projects that build awareness of their favorite browser*. (*Opera).
- We want everyone, not just English-speaking users, to have the opportunity to find information about and download Opera. To support that, we’ve developed localized versions of our website. For example, see ru.opera.com, cn.opera.com, pl.opera.com, and jp.opera.com
- Our developers, engineers and QA people often join in on conversations with Opera users in the official Opera Forums, Opera’s IRC channel and on blogs around the Web. This helps make the culture of Opera more open and accessible.
- To encourage people to learn more about Opera, we solicit questions from our users to be used in interviews that we publish with Opera executives, developers and others.
- We give out promo merchandise to our users and supporters that include: Opera t-shirts, pens, pins, phone straps, stickers, etc.
- We do outreach on many social networking sites. We are active on sites such as Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, and Flickr.
These are just some of the things I thought of off the top of my head. Rest assured, we are not just sitting on our hands waiting for Opera to become the next big thing. Also, know that we make a continuous effort to get feedback on how we’re doing. We are very aware of your concerns and suggestions (even if we don’t have time to publicly respond to everything we see online) and take them very seriously.
(Thanks to Lawrence for his feedback on this post)
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using
Very nice list!
Hope you soon can add to this list new Opera browser logo.
using
FataL, I would love to see a new logo too.
using
i most probalby could address every one of these points and show you that these are not really important, but id like to point you to count how many of these points are targeted at: geeks, already-opera-users, technocrats, CEOs of sorts.
how many of them are targeted at users,
that DONT use opera (and are not geeks [they use firefox already], are not CEOs [10ths of them out there] etc..),
users that DONT know about opera (LOTS of them),
and users that DONT want to use opera because it lacks certain features (autoupdate, autofll, spell check to name 3 the most asked for things in opera) that they were asking for YEARS!
opera wants to hold current marketshare, or increase it?
dev.opera.com is dead as anyone can see. 10ths of comments, one new article every month or so. a little too small efort when you want to compete with mozilla dev sites. these are huge, these are informative, these are usefull.
Kestrel hype, that was building up nicely was killed by opera itself. no new news, no leaks, no informations that would convince people, that opera 9.5 is the thing they were waiting for. normal users dont read CEO interviews, because most of them look exactly the same – lots of questions, and one repeated answer ‘we care about environment, and we are working on more exciting features’. no details, no dates, nothing. on top of that all questions related with kestrel were removed or ‘moderated’ from opera forums/blogs. VERY VERY bad move. probalby move that had more impact than any affiliate program you are going to do.
affiliate programs are not cool btw, sorry.
i’ve NEVER seen opera ad. and i frequent tech sites, and rarely block ads.
and milion my.opera users? accounts, not users. remove deleted, banned, dead accounts and count them again. this is irrelevant, but i think that most of my.opera users a) are using opera already b) came there to ask support question and never ever came back after recieing (or not) usefull answer (”clear your profile” is the answer to any problem it seems)
finally, i hope that these FUN videos you are mentioning, are better than that man-in-pants. guys, that picture, that one picture ruined opera cool-factor for years to come. each time somebody remembers it, he cant hide, that he thinks it was pathetic. it was, really.
suggestions:
look at what firefox does with ff3 relase. they regularly relase big, detailed info showing progress on new features/old bugs. these are informative, compared to opera ‘cool and exciting new features’ that say nothing, but smell ‘eau-de-flop’. users are tired of ‘new exciting features’. last time we were expecting something great, we got speed dial. most of us dont believe opera in that regard any more. really, look at what firefox does now with ff3. and learn.
it costs them nothing. it earns them a lot.
do what people were asking for ages – centralised userJS page. so developer community can concentrate in one place and grow. as for now userjs.org is dead, and people start to see, that mozillas model of mozilla.addons is better.
btw. not including extensions was a mistake in times of web 2.0 and user generated content/functionality. but it is a major flaw, and it is too late to fix it now. it cut off most of the active community, community that now is using firefox and is not going to move anywhere. that mostly were developers, the same people that now are making webpages, webpages that dont work in opera, because it isnt their browser.
and finall suggestion – fix the damn product! users, users counted in milions, DONT CARE why google apps work slowly or at all, they dont care why on most sites they get ‘restricted performance mode’ and ’standard mode’ instead of what they got used to in other browsers. they DONT care. along with spreading the word it is good to have REAL reasons to use opera instead of firefox. now, convincing someone looks like that ‘look at opera’, ‘but it does not work ok with (and here LONG list of sites, that work better in IE/FF)’. some users felt offended, when widgets and later speed dial arrived instead of inline spell check or auto-updates. or auto-fill. sometimes it is better to give people what they want, instead of what you think is great.
btw. for closest future it is most important to tell MORE about kestrel. and tell in details. what was fixed (firefox wont steal these), what was improved, how it was improved. people are REALLY waiting for this info. many FF users are waiting too, because FF2 wasnt and isnt that great. you have to convince them before FF3 launches, because FF3 rocks, sadly.
using
I think Opera Marketing is aimed at the wrong target: it should be aimed at the geeks and power users who can act as multiplier. And it should be more about people, to give Opera the image of something that’s created by people, and not by a company. Just for comparision, look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Opera_ASA_employees
Now, have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mozilla_developers
Notice something?
Also, Opera has to open up; not open source, but open up. The weeklies were a good start, but where are they now? Where’s the bug database? The roadmap?
Apart from that, start thinking outside your box: why was jsfunfuzz not created by Opera, and then distributed as an Open Source tool?
Another thing: since Opera 9, Opera is using Aspell for spell-checking: has Opera *ever* given something back to that Open Source project? Why not contribute there, or hire the programmer?
Don’t go Open Source, but think Open Source, and embrace it.
using
“We’re currently working on a new affiliate program, where our users get credit (and tangible rewards) for encouraging others to download Opera.”
How about giving credit to those users who help other folks at the opera forums, there are people there who do an amazing job helping out others and they don’t get much love from Opera’s side.
using
It seems to me that Haavard’s blog discussion was regarding the internet browser whereas your response and I would guess most of the marketing effort has been focused on the mobile/mini/wii markets. I believe that the company sees it’s future in these non-traditional markets. Not that this is bad, as that’s where the opportunities currently are (the browser war probably ended when FireFox became the world and Google’s darling), and if properly leveraged they may revive usage of the Opera internet browser.
Most of what you describe is standard stuff that should have been done in years past, you don’t provide indication that you’re ahead of the curve. And sadly you don’t focus on developing specific markets especially secure browsing or pressuring the developers to fix the stuff Sid mentions above – cripes people should use a product that won’t interact properly with Google or their bank!!!
using
“since Opera 9, Opera is using Aspell for spell-checking”
Aspell has been used at least since the Opera 6 series.
Regradless, I agree with your post, Opera needs a more transparent way of doing things, right now everything is dark and obtuse. Take the whole kestrel thing as an example, they have failed to deliver a public build in time (they said back in june that it would take only a few weeks), not a big issue since all software is delayed but they are unable to deal with the fact that people are asking when can be expected a new build; so instead of providing some sort of mini-roadmap they go to defcon-4 and no one from Opera says a word about kestrel. Not a very sensible way of doing things.
using
“spell has been used at least since the Opera 6 series.”
OK, I’ve given in and looked it up in the changelog: it was introduced with Opera 7.50: http://www.opera.com/docs/changelogs/windows/750b1/
using
I agree with Sid’s main points, he’s kinda right.
using
I think some people that choose Firefox do it because it is not proprietary software.
There is this romantic idea around, with Wikipedia and other collaborative stuff. And then there is Google and its overestimated services (except gmail and the search, they all suck) and its unwillingness to consider Opera as an option.
But Opera is still the best option around.
using
Daniel, by listing all of these efforts here, you (in my opinion) have confirmed that there’s something wrong with your marketing. If everything was OK, you would not have to tell people “hey, we’re doing so much”. Simply, people would see these efforts themselves then.
using
Great article, nice list. We will see what was done after Opera 9.5 and Mini 4 final releases. Waiting…
using
It’s so difficult to please the many,
After reading the article and the posts I must say that Sid has a point.
But on the other hand Opera does to.
They are trying more than in the old days, but clearly that’s not enough.
The question for us users to ask our self is, “Do we want to use Opera(a different kind of browser) or do we want to use IE”
Opera’s has it’s own idea’s on what a browser should be, and how it should work, if it didn’t than we didn’t need Opera, there would probably not even be an Opera.
Of course there are the sites that matter to people, than again I ask a question “should Opera abandon the standards so those site will work”
Would that help to create a better surrounding for websites?
Would that help to make Opera greater?
I say no, let Opera continue the path the are going now, caus it only is getting better and better.
but hey that’s just my vision
using
“We want everyone, not just English-speaking users, to have the opportunity to find information about and download Opera. To support that, we’ve developed localized versions of our website. For example, see ru.opera.com, cn.opera.com, pl.opera.com, and jp.opera.com”
Yes, and when someone would make a FREE hu.opera.com, Opera simply refuses.
using
I like Opera and I’ve shown it to many people over the years. All of them kept the browser and have abandoned IE or even Firefox. Since version 7.5 it’s my primary browser. I use Feisty (Ubuntu), Shrike (RH9) & Stentz (FC4) at work. My brother’s company uses Edgy for LTSP and all the PCs over there use Opera and the users like it. Of course, FF is still installed. If they want to use, they can.
I believe the users have to select the best browser. If you guys are not satisfied with Opera at all, try to find one the suits you. Ever heard of
Internet Explorer?
Well, back to topic. Opera Desktop marketing is good and it’s improving like Daniel said. I like the way Opera does. I got a lot of promotional stuff in here. T-shirts, pens, wrist-wraps, etc. I’m sorry, but this whole addon/extension “business model” doesn’t work with me. It brings instability and lack of memory to the OS. That’s my opinion.
using
I like the idea of a new logo and maybe even a mascot (or both). The current logo and unofficial mascot are cold, non-personal. Gray faux-shadow with highlights looks odd, especially on OS X (where icons arent forgiving 16×16 anymore).
Opera needs serious developer tools. The current error console is a joke! JS errors are useless or non-existant (everything is a “type error” and that’s it!) and it’s just full of noise messages from all sites and mail. Log can’t be really clered (it un-clears itself when you reopen that annoying window which obscures half of your screen and can’t be docked). I can’t work with this!
The dev.opera console is a poor hack compared to Firebug. It sort-of does all the same things, but every bit is missing some crucial detail (you have to search DOM tree – can’t click. You see CSS properties, but don’t see what applies them. You can edit CSS, but all properties are split into messy -top/-left/-bottom, there is XHR console, but you have to enable logging and can’t see headers without re-requsting resource, etc…)
using
the one big marketing gig that I remember as “vaporized money” was the community ad on times square. I strongly doubt that this ever had an effect, while it certainly cost big bucks. It was a supernice gesture and well received by the community, but all of these people already know Opera. I strongly doubt that many people have even noticed that ad (we all know Times square…)
using
See if you can get some feedback from Asa Dotzler. He’ll tell you how to improve if you can get past his negativity.
using
Ask and ye shall receive
The list of activities that Daniel posted should not be underestimated. Product Marketing is a lot of work from a lot of differently talented people and what Daniel posted is impressive.
(now, was that so negative?)
My feedback is “do more of what’s working and less of what’s not. repeat. when you get good at that, parallelize.”
Now, that’s a pretty simple formula if you can get your head around what’s working and what’s not working, preferably with a heavy emphasis on metrics.
But I can’t offer a lot more because I don’t know what’s working and what’s not working — because Opera doesn’t share any of that. Because Opera is mostly opaque, I, along with most of the Opera community, am left to speculate, and that’s generally not very productive, leading to lots of “you’re not doing enough” type comments rather than active participation.
I’ll conclude with one final note. Opera Software has about 400 people (Daniel, can you get any updated number here or do we have to wait ’till next week’s financials?) I’d wager that a non-trivial number of those people are in sales, marketing, distribution, etc. — the not-engineering side of things. Of that group (which I imagine to be somewhat more than the total number of employees at Mozilla) I’ve only ever heard from Daniel and Jon. That’s not really very participatory is it.
Participation is a two-way street (or maybe it’s three or four-way
and if Opera wants more user participation, they’re going to need to put more Opera people out there to engage those participants in the _dialog_.
- A
using
How about marketing for Opera Show? With all this interest in online office applications, maybe Opera Show could somehow fit into that.
using
Opera Show won’t be sucessful without proper tools. And don’t even mention Opera Show Generator 1.0.
using
I agree with Asa on his blog. Opera needs a new name. Or like Mozilla, which has effectively transitioned through “Mozilla Firefox” to “Firefox”. I don’t think that Kestrel or Peregrine would quite do for product names, but there really needs to be something new there that has independent catch and won’t be shadowed out by associations with classy performance art-forms with stereotypically large women.
using
“on top of that all questions related with kestrel were removed or ‘moderated’ from opera forums/blogs. VERY VERY bad move.”
Yeah, removing noise is a VERY VERY bad move
using
What Asa was saying about people and dialog what exactly what I was trying to illustrate with the Wikipedia links. But Asa says it better than me.
Apart from that, I fail to see what’s wrong about marketing that’s aimed at the current user base: how many “converts” do you know that converted because they’ve seen an ad? How many do you now because the read an article in some PC mag? How many do you know that were “convinced” by yourself, or another Opera user? That’s what I mean with “multipliers”.
using
bill: “I would guess most of the marketing effort has been focused on the mobile/mini/wii markets. I believe that the company sees it’s future in these non-traditional markets.”
Opera sees its future in all markets.
andol: “If everything was OK, you would not have to tell people “hey, we’re doing so much”.”
So you don’t want to know what Opera is actually doing? You’d rather have Daniel keep quiet about it?
using
hehe/mhm/Nelson – what is your input to the disscussion? we all know rhetorics, it doesnt help anything.
/*******
lack of transparency, keeping EVERYTHING secret looks a bit childish in 2007.
lack of contribution to publics (participating in w3c doesnt ring many bells in users minds). contributing makes company known.
if opera is going to relase 9.5 finall as a surprise it will flop. no number of ‘opera backstage events’ will beat fuzz created by users. fuzz that opera killed entirely in last weeks.
recent mistakes, that souldnt be there:
Wii Channel – why it hasnt got Opera written all over the place? why istn it Wii Opera Browser?
why i have that strange feeling that more people work on my.opera than on desktop browser?
total, complete, information blackout. kestrel is a tabu now in forums.
you;ve failed delivery. ok, it happnes. at least say why! what fix is so hard, what feature caused this, or if you want keep this secret, list fixes in 9.5 that people asked about, and you’ve FINALLY fixed them.
if, however, by any chance you’ve not included fixes that people were asking, tell them why. like ‘why “save page as” dialog doesnt remember my last choice?’. in most programming languages this change is not more than 10 lines of code. with comments.
in messages relased to users-fans avoid using ‘we are working on it’, ‘when its ready’, ‘exciting features’. we all know what that means, it means BS. and people no longer like that. we hear that everywhere and ‘our’ company should differ. if it is ‘our’ company..
btw. will you provide feedback on our feedback? it is sure good marketing practice to _talk_ with users, not provide statements.
using
sid is back with his trolling. Let’s set the record straight.
Opera has been spending real money on open standards and such since long before Mozilla even had a cashflow of their own.
Opera is a business, and in no position to dictate what another business does with their own hardware. Then again, Opera is both on the Wii box and shown several times in the actual Internet Channel. Trolls don’t care about facts.
This is of course just another lie from this troll.
Useless assumption. What is a ‘failed delivery’? That it isn’t released when a three-letter troll on a blog says so?
Hopefully they will know better than to respond to trolls. I am weak, sadly, and cannot resist to respond to this blatant troll
using
Hey sid, where are the answers to those requests for some actual examples for claims you have been making in other blog posts on this site?
Examples of Opera “always going upstream”?
Please respond. You said it yourself! “It is sure good marketing practice to _talk_ with users, not provide statements.”
Practice what you preach! ;D
using
According to Ofcom, the Office of Communications (UK), Communications Market 2007 survey
“Women aged 25-34 spend over 20% more time online than their male counterparts.”
Also
“16% of Britons aged 65+ spend 42 hours per month online – more than any other age group”
Does Opera, or Firefox, target these key group?
using
Steve, one of the really cool things about Mozilla, and Firefox in particular, is that with the availability of over 2,000 add-ons, the product can easily be customized to target just about any audience and much of the “work” of marketing can be easily distributed to the creators and supporters of those add-ons. I’ve got a blog post in the works that will talk more about this so stay tuned.
Oh, and so I’m not accused of trolling Firefox in an Opera discussion, I want to note that I’m replying to a specific question about Firefox from an Opera user, and I’ll offer up that Opera could work to incorporate a similar structure of distributed marketing and affinity group targeting with widgets, though I suspect it won’t be as powerful as full-fledged browser feature customization available via Firefox add-ons.
- A
using
My main concern of Opera is how cumbersome and difficult it is to use. For example, I wanted to know what was new with the latest Opera version 9.23. After more than 45 minutes ,I finally found out what I had to do:
Step 1: Click “Support” in Opera’s main menu.
Step 2: Click “Documentation”
Step 3: Click “Changelogs”
Step 4: Click “Windows”
Step 5: Click “Opera 9.23″
You have to click five times in order to get the information you’re looking for. Wouldn’t it be a lot easier—and more intuitive—to have the information ready as soon as you launch Opera with the new version, or detail the changes made in the new version in the “Download” page?
If Opera Corporation wants to increase its market share, it has to make a product for the guy next door, not an obscure program like it is now.
Make it simple and people will come. Otherwise, you will be stuck with a 1.1% market share.
Regards,
Omar.-
using
The guy next door won’t care about what’s new. He doesn’t care about changelogs. Not showing the changelog is simple.
using
Have you ever considered suing Overstock.com for generic use of an “O” as a logo, an Opera-like-ish layout and color theme, and running a “Have you hear about the ‘O’?” ad campaign that Opera should have run.
Furthermore, I think Opera Mini got tons of good press. If you had a head-to-head against the iPhone as an advertising campaign, you could have turned heads.
Also, you really should think of advertising the Opera as “Trustworthy for Wii, Trustworthy for PC”. That kind of advertising might transition some of the Wii’s new customers to Opera on their or their parents’ computers.
Finally, but still of great importance: GET AN AUTO UPDATE MANAGER LIKE FIREFOX AND IE!!! I don’t know why you deny the need for this feature, but you can’t claim to surpass your competition when they have something you don’t. Especially something that adds to security and easy of use.
using
Calm down, it will probably be included in 9.5; at least that’s what they told us in the desktop team blog.
Besides, Opera has a lot of things FF and IE don’t have (security wise too, a secunia clean record for example) so your logic is flawed; most people would prefer an application with no unpatched vulnerabilities (but no autoupdater) than other with an autoupdater but with a lack of patches to download because there are unpatched vulnerabilities not fixed by the vendor.
using
Opera’s marketing in action:
everyone and their dog are waiting for 9.5. weeks pass, silently, 100ths of 100hts of people refresh desktop team blog every friday waiting for it.
what opera does? says ‘no build this week’. ok, i understand this. but why there is no blogpost, but it is placed somewhere as a 160th comment to some quite old other blog post?
is it really that hard to reward your loyal fans (for how long? if kestrel takes more time than ff3 RC to arrive, noone will look at it, ff3 rulez, even in alpha stage) and post short notice – “no build this week, we are working on this and this, here is a screen of bug fixed/other thing” that bug can range from anything like cookie manager (multiselect), to improperly rendered webpage (like ms video site soapbox).
is this really that hard? no ammount of borring, geeky backstage events, that we really couldnt care less, would do you better, than opening a bit more.
imagine, you are using IMClient X, you like it very much, dont expect anything more from IM client than what X gives you. are you going to try product Y because 20000 kilometers away 50 geeks throw a party called “Y backstage event”? but i bet, you’d at least try to follow development of client Y, if it made steady progress.
using
The main issue with this whole kestrel thing is that Opera is shooting itself in the foot, they created the desktop team blog in order to provide a more direct feedback with the users, in other words no more old beta testing (a beta build, quite polished and released by “surprise” with no roadmap). That’s nice as long as you provide new builds every week, month or whatever (they are called “weeklies”, aren’t they?) or at least give some info to the users that are expecting a new build because you told them that it would be a new build available in the first place. Now, almost 2 months since the announcement Opera doesn’t provide any info at all and they even get fed up when users ask about kestrel (WIR and all that ****) — sorry but that’s unprofessional at best.
If you don’t have a reliable roadmap, say so for christ sake or just ditch the desktop team blog altogether and go back to the old beta testing system, no big deal.
Don’t keep people in the dark, it’s bad PR and, most importantly, is not honest when you were the ones who started all the kestrel hype.
using
The trouble is that people always want more.
a build on friday ones a week, if there a build suddenly on monday, they want one on friday and monday.
I believe that weeklies are weeklies that also can become monthlies, daylies.
They come when they are ready.
We are spoiled because in the beginning they indeed came every friday and if I recall that wasn’t supposed to happen.
And what’s with that checking every friday, never herd of “watch post” or “watch blog” than there’s no need for constant refreshing of pages.
Something new you’ll no it.
Stay cool, relax, and get a massage.
using
you really dont get it Berend. it isnt us, who desperately need more market share
and when company doesnt do things that it can do FOR FREE (yes, yes mozilla get some money from donators, we all know it, but as i say, this is a thing that costs nothing), things that are expected by opera users.
things, that most normal companies do – build hype. hell, no matter when duke nukem forevers arrives, it has its place in history
i repeat, if there cant be build relased, ok, it happens. software development sometimes sux. however relasing a short list, of what ugliest bugs were squished (i presume, that at this point you can tell us this, regression testing done etc.). there are bugs that repeat themselves VERY often in forums, bugs that piss people off completly. fixing them is not a new feature. firefox wont steal these fixes, so you can disclose some of them, to a) fill the time b) give us some more hope that there is reason in waiting c) show us, that you give a damn about what users want and expect
and btw, we dont need new features. we need standard features, like autofill/roboform, inline spellcheck etc. you know what im talking about.
using
Juwan said:
> Besides, Opera has a lot of things FF and IE don’t
> have (security wise too, a secunia clean record for
> example) so your logic is flawed; most people would
> prefer an application with no unpatched vulnerabilities
> (but no autoupdater) than other with an autoupdater
> but with a lack of patches to download because there
> are unpatched vulnerabilities not fixed by the vendor.
OK. Time to dispel you of some misconceptions:
Saying that a product has a “secunia clean record” is almost meaningless.
1. A “clean record” isn’t how secunia labels products. Opera, along with all of the other products listed at Secunia, has at best a “spotty record” if you share the rest of the world’s definition of “record” as “the known history of” and not just the state of things at this instant in time. Today there may be zero unpatched flaws known to Secunia in a particular product, but that hasn’t been the case for every day previous for every in use version of that product.
2. Secunia is not a list of all of the flaws known to the bad guys. It’s a list of all of the flaws known to the good guys. Why would a bad guy, who is getting away with exploiting some group of users give up that exploit by telling Secunia or someone else about it? They wouldn’t.
3. Secunia does not treat all reported flaws as equal. A Secunia report on a product with a list of zero known flaws is actually pretty much identical to a Secunia report with a list of 100 known flaws if those known flaws do not allow for remote code execution or disclosure of sensitive information. If criticality and impact are not taken into consideration, bug counts are virtually meaningless.
4. Secunia does not offer an apples to apples comparison of products. Secunia relies on the vendors and third parties for most of the information in their reports. That means that if vendors and third parties have different disclosure policies for different products, the list of issues at Secunia will carry that bias.
5. Secunia does not have any information on whether or not people actually use the fixes to the flaws that they report as patched. It’s not only possible, it’s a fact that many, many browser users are not using the latest patched version available and the numbers are certainly much worse per capita for browsers that fail to provide a usable update mechanism.
Because a “secunia clean record” is both a fabrication (see point 1) and even if it weren’t, because it is not the same thing as “no unpatched vulnerabilities” (see point 2) it is incorrect to use Secunia to imply that Opera has no unpatched vulnerabilities. Your whole premise is flawed.
Even assuming that your premise was true, that Opera had no currently unpatched vulnerabilities and Firefox had several, without taking into account the criticality and the impact of the known flaws (see point 3) it’s unreasonable to assume that “most people” would prefer one application over the other based on two raw numbers uncritically assessed.
Again assuming that your premise was not critically flawed, that a product has zero unpatched flaws today does not mean that it did not have unpatched flaws in the past (see point 1) Because on any given day, there are no risks to users doesn’t say anything about how many days in the past users were exposed to risk and it cannot predict anything about how many days in the future users will be exposed to risk.
Counting Secunia bugs, as Opera fans are want to do, is a fools errand. Opera has said that it does not disclose security issues found internally (though they seem to have made an exception in order to thank Mozilla for contributing security tools,) while Firefox does. Without an apples to apples comparison (see point 4.) bug counts aren’t helpful in educating users about staying secure with browsers.
An uncritical evaluation of all bugs ever reported to Secunia does not say anything about how long (see point 1) a period of time users were at risk before the flaw was fixed. Being at risk to two critical bugs for one day is a lot less bad than being at risk to one critical bug for a year.
But most importantly, it doesn’t matter if all of your flaws are fixed if all of your users don’t get those fixes (see point 5) Opera has had many flaws in the past and even though they’ve fixed the ones that the good guys know about, there are plenty of Opera users who haven’t gotten those fixes installed and are still vulnerable. Because Opera doesn’t have an automatic update system, there are still lots of users on Opera 7 and Opera 8 along with plenty of users on Opera 9.pre-23 — all of which are known to be vulnerable to at least one critical remote code execution flaw.
When Opera starts publishing data about how quickly Opera users are able to update using their broken system, or when Opera implements a real update system and discloses stats based on that, then we can talk about which users are safer. Until then, claims of user safety are a waste of time.
So, to sum up, given flawed and misleading statistics that don’t tell the whole story, yes, “most people” may prefer a less secure product over a more secure product. But that isn’t what users need. Users need the most secure product possible and they need that to be as pain-free as possible. That means that users not only need a product from a vendor that takes security seriously enough to patch the most important flaws quickly, but also a vendor that can ensure that they are always running that patched and safe version. For my money, there’s only one vendor doing that today.
- A
using
Berend said:
> We are spoiled because in the beginning they indeed
> came every friday and if I recall that wasn’t supposed
> to happen.
It turns out that it’s not terribly difficult to make builds several times a day and to make those available to your community. Mozilla’s been doing that for almost a decade.
That is, unless you don’t keep your code in sufficiently good shape to actually compile all the time. I know of some companies that let things get pretty broken for a while and then try to clean up at the end. That’s a dangerous way to go and can often cause serious slips in schedule.
Perhaps Opera cannot release a build because builds won’t even compile or aren’t sufficiently stable to even start up.
With Firefox, you can download at the very least once a day and always get a build that will at least start up and not have any critical browser functionality broken. That’s just part of our development model and on most days, you can get builds 5-10 times a day that mostly work. If that’s not enough for you, you can always pull the source and compile yourself and see every single change as it’s made, in near realtime.
- A
using
Besides marketing, I feel Opera’s documentation team (assuming there is one) is another place where they can use some work.
using
@Omar:
I use Opera for ten years and really don’t care about market shares and hate pure marketing buzz.
I sincerely hope Opera wants to increase software quality, performance and standards support instead of market share
Is growing market share make Firefox or IE better, easier to use ?
Opera users can discover whats new in 9.23 version in few second only (tip: use a search engine
) where you need more than 45 minutes with Firefox…
I don’t think automatic backgroung update is good for “security”, it like anti-virus programs, just designed to feel secure…
@Berend: +1, i’m very patient and i’ve tested ie7 and firefox3
…
@+
–
Pierre
using
I study in an international university in Bangkok, Thailand. I think the best way to advertise it here will be to offer a cheap USB drive with Opera USB version preinstalled. Add an option to easily change GUI language, easy instructions to use Gmail POP3 with it. Also, combining it with a proxy service (like Freegate) would also make it very popular, as internet censorrship is common in this area (Thailand, Myanmar, China, etc).
using
@Asa
1.- You are using my post just as a straw man, you have an agenda against Opera’s security policy and that’s fine but it has nothing to do with my post which was meant to show how flawed was the original post. Read it carefully and you will see that I was pointing out that having an autoupdater doesn’t mean per se that the users are more secure than users of another product that doesn’t have it; the secunia advisories is just an example of how the autoupdater is meaningless when the vulnerabilities are not fixed by the vendor, nothing more. All your drivel about security, opera fans, internal policies and all that is completely uncalled for.
You really need to chill out before posting on blogs (yours included) because you sometimes come out as a knee-jerk zealot. No offense intended.
2.- What does the Mozilla build process have to do with this post?. Anyway, FYI it has been said many times that they automatically generate new (and different depending on the code branch) builds every day, it’s just that they only made them public when they think that the build is suitable for worthwile testing.
using
Asa
It doesn’t matter if you can update Firefox automatically if you are not competent enough to fix all flaws
Firefox has had many updates in the past and even though they have an automatic update mechanism, they still leave security holes open for ages. “A lot of users” are not still vulnerable. ALL of them are!
using
ASA, there are internal build which are working pretty good. It DOES compile, as you can see I’m already using it.
using
Or, perhaps, you are completely wrong.
using
If it’s compiling and usable, why not let your most dedicated users test it and give feedback?
They clearly want it pretty badly. Since it being functional isn’t the issue, what is? I really can’t think of any other reason you all wouldn’t share more regularly with your devoted community.
- A
using
@Asa Dotzler: this is from the desktopteam
[quote]When we release a build with as many changes as Kestrel, we want to make sure that our users are able to use the build as much as possible, so we can get the best feedback possible. We have strict quality standards that have not yet been met.[/quote]
using
berend, yeah, I read that. I don’t buy it. We’re not talking about release to customers, we’re talking about involving the Opera core community in testing new features _before_ they’re fully baked. The longer in the development cycle they wait, the less real impact Opera testers are able to make. If that’s their goal, then I certainly understand them wanting to wait. If it’s not their goal and they’re really as interested in having the Opera community participate in meaningful ways as they say, then there’s no harm, and only good, in letting those participants see it before it’s “ready”.
- A
using
I understand that quality is low priority over at Mozilla (v2 confirms this, sadly), but Asa will just have to accept the fact that other companies do have quality standards to meet.
It’s like the security holes that remain open for ages in Firefox. Mozilla doesn’t need to make money, so there’s no need to make a great product or fix those flaws. They get free money anyway. Good enough is sufficient. And in the case of Firefox 2 (v1 was great), bad is apparently sufficient over at Mozilla.
Maybe Opera strives for perfection. Maybe that’s why security holes are actually fixed, and the product is made somewhat stable before the public gets to test it.
using
Or maybe Opera doesn’t really believe that you all should be a part of the process at this point. That makes sense but it’s at least worth acknowledging.
- A
using
Opera has officially announced that there will be Kestrel weeklies, and yet Asa concludes that “Opera doesn’t really believe that you all should be a part of the process at this point”. Hats off to you, Mr. Dotzler. You have reached a new low. If you want to make your own company and product look better, the solution is to fix those security flaws and improve your product. Making up things about a competitor isn’t going to plug the holes in your own sinking ship.
using
firebot, I’m not making any thing up. People on this thread are complaining that Kestrel weeklies were due a long time ago and speculating why they hadn’t happened yet. Opera engineers responded that kestrel builds weren’t stable enough for them to be offered to the Opera community.
How you can’t see that as Opera saying that you all cannot be a part of the testing Kestrel process at this point is beyond me.
- A
using
“Cannot be a part of the testing Kestrel process” means that you are claiming that there will be no weeklies, previews or betas to test before the final version is released. As everyone knows, that is wrong, because there will be weeklies. Opera Software has officially announced this fact.
How you can turn a delayed Kestrel weekly into users not getting to take part in the testing process is beyond me. But then again, I don’t speak the Mozilla Spin language.
Shouldn’t you be unbloating Firefox and plugging all those security holes or something instead of making up stuff about Opera?
using
It strikes me as odd that a public spokesman of Mozilla corp believes he can fool the readers of this blog that he’s dearest interest is to get the Opera users more involved in the testing of Kestrel and not the fact that Mozilla maybe very curious about what Opera is up to… You haven’t started planning for Firefox 6? Need items for your roadmap?
Asa you talk about transparency, but people here see the transparency of your agenda. Is this really how Mozilla marketing is conducted.. Trolling on competitors forums/blogs? Are you really that sleezy?
using
Because I work on another browser, I’m not allowed to be a part of the Opera community? Wow, nice exclusive club you’ve got yourself. And what did you do to earn the keys to the kingdom and the right to close the gate on contributors?
My dearest interests have little to do with browsers at all — I’ve got a life outside of work
but I am sincere in hoping and advocating that Opera become a more open and participatory organization. I hope the same for the Safari/WebKit teams — and for Mozilla where we can still do more.
The Web depends on browser vendors sharing a set of goals that include free and open standards, user participation, and vendor cooperation. Mozilla has already begun to demonstrate how we can work together (see the recent security tools release from Mozilla) to make the Web a better place for users.
I’ll repeat that I’m glad the people doing the actual work of producing browsers at Opera don’t share your closed-minded attitude. Did the Opera Desktop team tell Mozilla to take their security tools and shove it? No, they embraced Mozilla’s helpful tools and used them to improve Opera’s security.
One day, more of the Opera fans who have knee-jerk reactions will follow the lead of the Opera developers and embrace Mozilla and Firefox as allies in a shared fight for a free and open internet which benefits all of the world. It’s still early though and I don’t expect you all to have taken full note of the direction Opera’s actually going.
- A
using
Spinning, spinning, spinning, out of control
using
Impressive how you manage to weasel your way out of lying about Opera, Asa. I see that you are a spin master of hitherto unknown proportions. Let’s return to your claim, contrary to all known facts, that Opera users “cannot be a part of the testing Kestrel process”. Then explain to me how catching you lying means that you cannot be part of the “Opera community”. Which community is that, by the way? The one where you make up stuff about Opera, or is it when you try to talk yourself out of having to explain Firefox’s many long-term open security holes?
using
i have an idea for the new name for the browser: multitorg ^^