Opera’s founder and CEO Jon von Tetzchner posted his thoughts on the Choose Opera blog about new Google Chrome browser, which was released yesterday.
Read: Choice in the browser industry – By Jon von Tetzchner
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Q: What is Opera?
A: Opera is one of the most powerful Web browsers around. A Web browser is the program that allows you to view Web pages. Opera is well known for innovation for PC browsers and bringing the full web to mobile phones and devices.
Q: Is Opera free?
A: Absolutely free.
Q: Why should I download a browser? Doesn't my computer already come with one for free?
A: It's about getting more out of the time you spend on the internet. Opera is designed to be much faster than these browsers and gives you powerful features that the default browser lacks. Default browsers like Internet Explorer are also more likely to be subjected to dangerous software such as viruses and spyware.
Q: Will Opera keep me safe from fraudulent websites and malicious hackers?
A: According to Secunia, a respected firm that tracks security in browsers, Opera has the best reputation and track record when it comes to browser security. Keeping our users safe from security vulnerabilities, fraudulent websites, and malicious hackers is a top priority for Opera. Opera is maintained by hundreds of engineers, developers and security experts who are constantly looking to make the browser even safer.
Q: Doesn't Opera copy all of their features from other browsers?
A: Absolutely not. In fact, many of the features that are popular in other browsers today were invented and pioneered by Opera a long time ago. Opera invented the precursor to tabs (in 1994), Page Zoom (1994), was the first browser to block pop-up ads (2000), first to add a Search field in the browser toolbar (2000), Sessions (1996), deleting private data (2000), Mouse Gestures (2000), User JavaScript (2005), BitTorrent support (2005), Widgets (2006), Speed Dial (2007), and much more.
Q: Does Opera support extensions, such as those found in Firefox?
A: Much of the functionality provided through Firefox extensions is already built directly into Opera, so you don't have to download additional extensions in Opera. In addition, Opera is highly customizable and supports all standard plug-ins.
Q: Can I also use Opera on my mobile phone?
A: Yes. And your Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS or almost any connected device and mobile phones. Opera Mobile oftens comes preinstalled from the manufacturers, but if it doesn't you can install Opera Mini which runs on nearly all phones.
Q: This all sounds great, so how do I download Opera?
A: -- Opera on your computer
-- Opera Mini on your phone
-- Opera Mobile on your phone
-- or learn more about Opera at www.opera.com
using
despite the rumors, i’m finding Chrome’s speed to be inconsistent; it seems to alternate between going lightning fast and then hanging for no apparent reason…
using
Interesting thing is that they used webkit instead of gecko. But webkit is the other most standart compilant rendering engine on the market, beside Opera’s so it shouldn’t be that a big suprise. Finaly a player whose has enough marketing capability to realy hurt IE market share. If others are pursuaded to switch, they might try out other alternatives as well. I hope we don’t get a second ms in our neck too soon.
I welcome gears integration, it would be great to know some timeline as well. Silverlight is working most of the time with an user javascript, but a native and more stable support would be better.
using
It seems to be a fast browser but It has nothing new.
using
What puzzles me a bit is that Opera’s flagship (or only?) product is being beaten in speed by companies like Apple and Google whose focus isn’t browser (although I do realize that webkit is a third-party open-source engine, not their creation).
Opera 6.06 is unusable in today’s web ecosystem, but is still one of the fastest browsers I’ve ever used (I can’t tell if it is faster than Chrome or not). I hope the Opera team can beat this new benchmark. Opera 9.5 is not slow by any stretch, but top speed would be another selling point for O.
NetApplications is tracking Chrome usage: http://tinyurl.com/5ejrsy – I don’t know if that 1% is temporary or not. Anyway, I look forward to Opera’s future work.
using
Apple’s focus is definitely speed. They don’t have a whole lot of features to work on, so the spend all their time tweaking Safari’s speed. Apple is focusing heavily on the browser.
using
A well thought out response Mr Tetzchner, I like common sense.
using
I do not see Chrome as a competitor for Opera, neither by IE because it is not an Enterprise product, then, FF is the target, I wonder what are those folks thinking since they get the most of their money from Google.
using
I like the tabs in title bar, but nothing new.
using
I think it’s funny that so few people realise what a memory hog Chrome is. This whole “new” concept of creating a new process for each additional tab may have some advantages, but the only two browsers that currently implement it (IE8 beta & Chrome beta) are wasting so much memory that it’s just not funny anymore. And if it wasn’t for flash and other crappy plugins, which constantly crash even the most robust browser, you wouldn’t even need a concept like that.
Especially now that these so called “Netbooks” are become more and more popular, I wonder how Chrome and IE8 (and even Firefox with a bazillion addons, with which lots of FF users can’t live without) perform on these machines. I guess you can run into problems if your browser is already taking up 500MB RAM and you’ve got flash and javascript driven sites running in 4 different tabs at the same time (youtube, myspace, gmail, whatever) and are running Office in the background.