I really, really liked a lot of Opera's ideas. I think someone on that team really understood good UI design principles, at least at the feature level. If memory serves it included an IRC client at least, and maybe even an FTP client? Can't remember about the latter, but definitely the former.
Perhaps a bit "bloated" for its time, but it was always pretty sleek to use. In fact I don't exactly remember why it never became mainstream. Maybe it had too many quirks or lagged behind others in terms of the new features, which... isn't entirely its own fault.
Looking at it now, it seems to have an identity crisis now. It looks like it has Whatsapp integration, among other things, which is the absolute last thing I'd ever want my browser to have an integration with.
> Looking at it now, it seems to have an identity crisis now.
Opera was sold to a Chinese company in the mid-10s and introduced suspicious stuff like a built-in free VPN. It is basically ignored nowadays.
The original CEO started Vivaldi, which is an excellent browser in terms of features - tiling tabs [0] were a favourite of mine. Unfortunately it is closed-source and chatty [1], but I still like on devices where privacy is not a concern.
Yuck, what a disgustingly misleading front page then. I installed it today after it was mentioned and played with it and really like it, but this is worse than Ungoogled Chromium. I guess I won't be switching to it. Thanks for the heads up.
Indeed, it did include IRC client, FTP client, email client and download manager with torrent support (not 100% sure if all at the same time, because it has been many years and versions blur in my mind).
The funny thing is that even though it included a lot of features I didn't use (for example, I never used the email client, not because it was bad, but I didn't use POP3/IMAP in general during that period), it was still much more efficient than all competitors in terms of speed, memory usage and even download size (at some point it boasted to be the only browser that fit in a floppy disk, although of course not for long).
I think the reason why it never became mainstream is that it was a paid product for a long time, while all other browsers were free. It eventually became free, but by then, competitors were too entrenched.
I also dislike Whatsapp but depending on country, it might be a necessary evil. In Spain for example, not having Whatsapp practically means forgoing any socialization with non-nerds. It's so ingrained in daily life that being without it is almost unthinkable for most people. Anyway, the current Opera doesn't have almost anything in common with the original one. Different engine, company, team, vision and even continent (owned by a Chinese company), only the brand and a thin sliver of identity remains.
(The sad thing is that I use it, because I still find it to be the least bad option for my needs...).
I remember reading about Opera back in the day, the reason it was not bloated was that all these features were packaged as separate dlls and only loaded when if you tried to actually use them
Also for a long time one of their main marketing points was that it had really small binary size so you could download it fast. They really spent a lot of engineering in making it performant
Opera got sold and the people who used to work there now continue their work at Vivaldi. Love their browser: strong focus on keyboard users, fast, privacy oriented.
Perhaps a bit "bloated" for its time, but it was always pretty sleek to use. In fact I don't exactly remember why it never became mainstream. Maybe it had too many quirks or lagged behind others in terms of the new features, which... isn't entirely its own fault.
Looking at it now, it seems to have an identity crisis now. It looks like it has Whatsapp integration, among other things, which is the absolute last thing I'd ever want my browser to have an integration with.