Comparison of Opera and Firefox’s Web homepages
Published November 21st, 2007 1:13 PM EST By Daniel GoldmanThinkVitamin published a lengthy article discussing the good and bad of Opera and Firefox’s Web homepages.
Their conclusion:
“And somebody has given Opera’s site an amazing, almost Apple-esque facelift. I don’t know who you are, Ms. or Mr. Makeover Artist, but allow me to be the first to congratulate you creepily in a Vitamin article: you done good.”
As has been mentioned in the comments by numerous people, the author incorrectly claimed that Opera isn’t free. The article has since been updated.
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This wet floor effect gets boring fast.
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The opera site really is lovely - the web team have done a fantastic job with it. For completeness here is the IE site: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/default.mspx (ouch), and Safari: http://www.apple.com/safari/ .
Funny how Apple are always the shining example at the top of the tree though - both in this article, and in the video comparison of IE mobile and Opera Mini in the next post.
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I’ve come to accept that there are people out there who don’t yet know that Opera is free. However, it’s very discouraging to see so-called news sites increasing that number because they’re too lazy to read. The person or people who wrote this piece obviously visited the Opera web site, yet still managed to report incorrectly that Opera is not free. Sad.
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P.S. Even *after* editing to article to mention Opera is, in fact, totally free, the author failed to remove this bit of snarky text in the section labeled “Fast Forward to 2007:”
“(No deceptive “FREE!” burst here.)”
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I just wanted to show the Browser and Operation System I’m running
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I’m less disturbed by the fact that the author thought Opera was still charging for the browser than I am by the fact that she very closely analyzed the page and still thought Opera was charging for it, and that the “free” remark must be deceptive.
How many people experience the same cognitive dissonance while making a less thorough visit to the page, and instead of realizing that things have changed, come away with the same “smarmy ——, trying to trick me into thinking it’s free, when I *know* they charge for it, they did last time I looked 3 years ago!” impression?
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This article points out a common problem with Opera. I can’t tell you the ## of people who still think that you have to pay for Opera. A typical conversation may go like this:
me: Have you ever used the Opera browser?
friend: I don’t want to use a browser that I have to pay for.
me: It’s 100% free now, etc etc….
friend: The last time I used Opera you had to pay for it.
So it’s still quite common for people to assume you have to pay for Opera still… I honestly don’t know how you would fix that problem other then A) changing the name of the browser since Opear = pay for alot of people or B) educating more people on how it is indeed free.
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pdx77, I think we need to do more educating in blogs, forums, and elsewhere. I usually try to post a comment on blog posts that mention such inaccuracies.
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Whenever I browse to the opera.com page it’s always advertising Operamini as the main event and not the Opera desktop. Also it only mentions that OM is free in small letters below “Your Web Everywhere” and at the end of a paragraph of writing. Also the Opera desktop is advertised at the bottom of the page and there is no mention of it being free, so I don’t blame people who do not know that Opera desktop is free.
On a different note, I hate all that grey along the top of Operas home page, it doesn’t fit in with the rest of the page and doesn’t look as good as the top of the FX page.
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Hi Diego,
We’re just trying to better tailor the experience based on the visitor. Because you use Opera 9.24, we pitch Opera Mini as the main product when you visit opera.com. If you go in with another browser, or an earlier version of Opera, our desktop browser will be the focus. The same applies if you visit with IP addresses from certain countries. We’ll try to give you the corresponding language.
Your other comments are duly noted. We are already hard at work on a new Website that will be much improved.
Best,
Thomas Ford
Communications Manager, Opera
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Hi, thanks for the reply and full explanation, much appreciated.