In a shocking revelation, Opera is now FREE.
Amazing.
But, perhaps, needed.
Even though I’ve fond memories of this browser from my dialup days (1997-2000), I’ve long since abandon it for Firefox. Opera, then often comes under 6MB, a tiny but amazingly powerful software that fought the giants Netscape (read: bloat) and later on Internet Explorer 4 bravely, much like David vs Goliath.
And I love Opera then. I even participated in the mailing lists to discuss issues regarding the latest releases. I was an Opera fan boy.
So I followed each release keenly. Then Opera came out with mouse gestures control that totally left the competition choking in dust.
Eventually, IE emerge as winner in the browser wars. The rest of us who irked at IE could only take refuge in Opera or (bloated) Mozilla.
Opera, knowing their position, went paid mode. There’s a free version though, but you got to tolerant the irritating banner at the top.
Then, came Firefox who did everything right. And the rest is history.
I guess Opera must have realised their market share is dropping. They have a very wonderful browser and still is the best out there. Unfortunately, they came late to capture the IE defectees. Most of us are already on Firefox and we see no reason why we should tolerate Opera’s unfamiliar interface (Interestingly, Opera significantly cleaned up the interface of this free version with just only one toolbar, mimicing Firefox’s simplistic approach). Firefox is good enough.
Opera should just concentrate on the small device market, something neither Firefox nor the other browsers can ever hope for a footprint on. Of course, there’s the Windows Mobile version of IE which is a joke on its own.
Enjoy the free version, cutting edge of Opera while they are still around. :)