this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2024
1048 points (97.5% liked)

Technology

59607 readers
3435 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] DontTreadOnBigfoot@lemmy.world 304 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (5 children)

Holy shit.

I thought this was just going to be a matter of poor security implementation or crappy feature sets.

Turns out they converted the company into a loan shark operation owned by Chinese ad companies

when the Opera browser continued losing users (due to competition from Google and Apple), the company shifted gears to building mobile apps that provided predatory short-term loans. The interest rates on those loans ranged from 365-876% per year, and loan terms from 7-29 days.

[–] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 152 points 10 months ago (10 children)

This behavior is just beyond batshit. Before anyone decides tl;dr, the article is well worth a read.

I had a hunch that Opera was circling the drain when I started seeing them sponsor Youtubers. A general rule of thumb is that no company that has anything worth a shit devolves to sponsoring Youtube videos. I had no idea about the predatory loans thing, or the crypto scam chasing thing, or the ripping off ChatGPT thing...

Back here in reality, there is no reason anyone should be using any other browser than Firefox. There is one organization left in this arena still devoted to protecting privacy, maintaining open standards, and a fair and open web for all. And it ain't Google, it ain't Microsoft, and it ain't Opera.

[–] fartsparkles@sh.itjust.works 77 points 10 months ago (23 children)

And it’s always been Firefox since day one. Out of the ashes of Netscape Navigator rose Firefox and Mozilla have been one of the only bastions of the free and open web ever since. I honestly don’t understand why anyone would use another browser.

load more comments (23 replies)
load more comments (9 replies)
[–] Zerlyna@lemmy.world 37 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Wow. Deleting the app now.

[–] takeda@lemmy.world 25 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, I was a huge fan but the moment they changed the engine it was just Chrome in different skin. And later the news that they were bought by a Chinese firm doing shady stuff just confirmed that it was the right decision.

I am sad that they did not open source the engine. Somebody leaked it, but no one serious would touch it for legal reasons.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] lone_faerie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 164 points 10 months ago (5 children)

I knew not to use Opera GX as soon as they started sponsoring youtubers. I swear, youtube sponsorships are like anti-ads. 9 times out of 10 they're doing something sketchy.

[–] CatLikeLemming@lemmy.blahaj.zone 71 points 10 months ago (1 children)

When I see a product I already use being promoted by YouTubers in sponsored segments, I immediately question if I should be using it, even if I'd have happily continued had I never seen that sponsorship.

[–] neshura@bookwormstory.social 40 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Absolutely true. I remember every YouTuber and their mother shilling out for LastPass a few years back. Now that their reputstion is kind of in the dumps after several "noncritical" hacks I see those same YouTubers shilling out for Dashlane.

It just gets worse if you try to think of any serious sponsorship program by companies that are, to date, trustworthy. There are none because they don't need them. Word of mouth is good enough for them because the customers they have will stay being customers for a long time. Long enough that they bring in more people just by being happy about the service.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] AnAngryAlpaca@feddit.de 32 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Lol, now that I think of it I had never seen a YouTube ad or sponsor where I would say "this is an ethical and fairly priced product without a catch that I would like to buy"...

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] alvvayson@lemmy.world 158 points 10 months ago (22 children)

PSA: The old Opera guys have a new browser, Vivaldi.

It's quite nice and I use it daily.

[–] Deceptichum@kbin.social 120 points 10 months ago (14 children)

It's just another flavour of Chromium though isn't it?

[–] nix@merv.news 41 points 10 months ago
load more comments (13 replies)
[–] sir_reginald@lemmy.world 54 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

It's a rebranded chromium with some extra bloat. Just like his older brother Chinese Chromium, Opera, and their edgy cousin, Microsoft Chromium. All following the example of Papa Chrome.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (20 replies)
[–] thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 139 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Opera invested $30 million in the crypto startup ICST that same year, and the startup's CEO was arrested four days later for financial crimes.

LOL

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 82 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

Explain why don't just clickbait me.

Man its fucking sad what's become of Opera. They gave us tabbed browsing, CSS, and lots of other stuff and then just like that, they became another uninteresting Chromium fork and its been straight to the shitter since.

[–] kautau@lemmy.world 50 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Many of the O.G. Opera devs founded Vivaldi after Opera was sold to Chinese investors. It's Chromium, but it has a considerable number of excellent power user features

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] ItsMeSpez@lemmy.world 63 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Hindenburg is an investment firm that researches publicly-traded companies and shorts their stocks if they find sufficient evidence of investor fraud before releasing its report.

What a wild business plan. I'm amazed it's legal.

[–] PilferJynx@lemmy.world 37 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It's kinda scummy to manipulate the market as such, but it's much more scummy to partake in the fraud.

[–] DScratch@sh.itjust.works 31 points 10 months ago (1 children)

They're like the anti-hero of this story.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] rambling_lunatic@sh.itjust.works 57 points 10 months ago

Stop using Chromium.

[–] hark@lemmy.world 57 points 10 months ago

I don't want to touch any Chromium-based browser. Firefox all the way.

[–] FrankTheHealer@lemmy.world 57 points 10 months ago (12 children)

Vivaldi has been a better option for those who love the feel of Opera. But Firefox is an overall better package imo

load more comments (12 replies)
[–] viking@infosec.pub 53 points 10 months ago (6 children)

Opera was effectively the first software I bought, back when they had a trial version in 2001. They had tabbed browsing and mouse gestures, a solid DECADE before they came to any other browser. Lightyears ahead of the competition and worth every penny. I think in 2003 they made it free, and I wasn't even mad.

I was forced to switch to Firefox at some point when a website I had to use for work was incompatible due to some Java applet that wouldn't load properly, and then slowly migrated over.

Shame to see what happened to this amazing piece of tech.

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] fixerdude2@lemmy.ca 50 points 10 months ago (4 children)

I stopped using Opera when the CCP bought up the company a few years ago.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] MeanEYE@lemmy.world 44 points 10 months ago (5 children)

I loved Opera's own engine. It was snappy and memory efficient. But their developers, at least back then, were very toxic. I remember them releasing a version which broke GMail and other Google products and they all collectively went on vacation saying it's a non-issue, instead of delaying the release. Any mention of this on forums guaranteed you a permanent ban.

They only have themselves to blame for user migration and all this controversy.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] fne8w2ah@lemmy.world 43 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Vivaldi Browser is headed by some of the original founders of Opera ASA and is a reasonably good alternative to Google Chrome, MS Edge, Safari and new Opera itself.

Alternatively, use Gecko-based browsers such as Firefox/Waterfox/Iceraven.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] jetsetdorito@lemm.ee 40 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] laurelraven@lemmy.blahaj.zone 28 points 10 months ago (5 children)

Opera died when they killed Presto and pretended they couldn't make anything like that with blink.

Then the old ones made Vivaldi and proved that was a damned lie.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] Fades@lemmy.world 35 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Just install firefox / waterfox / etc. and be done with it.

[–] derpgon@programming.dev 26 points 10 months ago (4 children)

...groundfox, and airfox! With all the foxes of infinity collected, I can finally be free.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] selokichtli@lemmy.ml 28 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (6 children)

They did some awesome browsers back in the early 2000s. I couldn't think about browsing the web without Opera Mini back then.

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] Localhorst86@feddit.de 27 points 10 months ago (3 children)

I fondly remember the old opera days, up until the latest presto version, 12.18. If you knew what you were doing, you were able to fully customize the entire browser, all of it's toolbars and context menus, it was incredible.

Once they switched over to the Blink engine, all of that was lost. It's entire USP gone, just like that.

I've tried Opera 2 or 3 years back, just to see what it is like, and it's just another pointless chromium based browser, offering nothing to keep me using it, and the more i see posts and ads from this company, the more I feel like I made the right choice.

I've also tried the "spiritual successor" to Opera 12, Vivaldi, but it too couldn't win me back over from Firefox.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Anarki_@lemmy.blahaj.zone 27 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

This is unlikely to get the Opera GX fanboys to switch.

Good article though. Fuck that noise.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] meliodas_100@lemmynsfw.com 26 points 10 months ago (17 children)
load more comments (17 replies)
[–] StorageB@lemmy.one 24 points 10 months ago (2 children)

The feature I absolutely love on Opera mobile is it will dynamicly wrap text and adjust the page layout to a single column when you zoom in/out. So for pages with small text, you can zoom in to see enlarged text and just scroll down to read - where on all other browsers you have to scroll horizontally back and forth to read the enlarged text.

Opera has been doing this brilliantly for at least 10 years, and I have yet to see this on any other mobile browsers I've tried.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Suavevillain@lemmy.world 24 points 10 months ago (7 children)

Firefox with vertical tabs works great for me.

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] bramblepatchmystery@slrpnk.net 23 points 10 months ago (5 children)

As somebody whose wife just downloaded opera onto the family computer I am horrified.

She's been complaining that the internet is slow and has blamed it on protonvon, so has resorted to turning the vpn off when using the internet or discord.

I remember after Twin Peaks season 3 came out, showtime was stating left and right how profitable the show was, and then accusations started flying that the show was so profitable because showtime was taking over the browser while people were watching and mining bitcoin in the background without telling people they were doing so.

I trust Opera about a thousand times less just because I had never hears of them until a week or two ago.

[–] Ashelyn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 24 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Opera has been in the web browser playing field for a long time at this point, but haven't been super relevant until the last couple years due to GX

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›