Opera

[alanp]

Okay, I've used the Opera web browser since the nineties. More than a decade. It's interface and shortcuts are a familar friend to me. Doing the mouse shortcut of hold down right, click left to go back a page doesn't even require conscious thought by now for me.

But I'm honestly ashamed to say that I think I might have to change browser, after so many years.

They've abandoned their engine, and Opera is now Chrome with window-dressing (and admonishments of "Use an app for that!" when you complain about long-standing Opera features being neutered out.)

If I wanted to use Chrome, I wouldn't be using Opera.

Funny, how you can get emotionally attached to a program. I loved the hell out of X-Tree Gold in the 486 days, but time moves on.

[m-Kresol]

What?!?! Didn't know that. I've been using Opera for a few years now as well. Although Opera has stopped showing me lots of pics here.
My dispise for Google is bigger than my love for Opera. I'll change to Firefox then. What a pain in the butt!

[Muadzin]

I used to love Opera. If you combined the best features of Opera with FF you'd get the best browser IMHO. I loved how tweakable it was, just like FF, just in different ways. None of that minimalist Chrome bullshit. Which is perfectly fine, if that is what you want, just not for me. And then one day I upgraded, from version 12.81 I think to a newer version (16 I think) and WTF! Gone was my menu bar. Apparently Opera in all its wisdom had decided that it was no longer necessary so gone it was for good. When you install FF you're also not getting the menu bar, because everybody apparently think they have to copy Chrome in that regard. But at least its still in there and easily made visible again. Opera completely eradicated the menu bar!    Immediate downgrade to 12.81 followed. Later I tried it again with a new upgrade, to version 18 I think and now bookmarks were gone. Apparently Opera had now decided that bookmarks were no longer necessary as well, a useless throwback to the 90's, a Dodo of the modern age. One of their guys even said so on their forums, which I searched to find out WTF had happened to the Opera bookmarks options.

That was the moment I stopped using Opera on my computers and stick with FF only. Not even Chrome is that minimalistic and if they want to copy Chrome I might as well use Chrome instead. The beauty of Opera was that it was so tweakable. I still can't understand why they had to be even more catholic then the pope and remove everything that made it so interesting and usable to its users. I can understand a minimalistic start interface for people who want that but how hard is it to include all the past functionality and tweakability to be accessed with just a few clicks?