Perhaps the greatest review... ever

June 5, 2009 · by Espen André Øverdahl

"In an ideal world, good things would get the attention they deserve and crap would disappear."

That statement is from the Opera 10 beta review by TechRadar's Gary Marshall. The piece is possibly one of the greatest reviews I've ever read:

"Internet Explorer 6, the gurning half-wit of the browser world, has nearly 17 per cent of the market. Opera, a truly great browser, has 0.72 per cent.

That's lower than Netscape (0.74 per cent), which was shot and turned into glue months ago.

To say that Opera is better than Netscape or IE6 is like saying having sex with the love of your life is better than being boiled in oil while being stabbed with knives, or living in Doncaster.

Opera is fast, flexible and free, and more often than not its features end up being imitated by rivals. And yet the stats suggest that on the normal web, Opera's less popular than Hitler.

Some of the statements are somwhat bold, but very funny.

It's well worth the read, so check it out!

Readers' comments 24

Left under the original article, as archived.

TamilFriday, June 5, 2009 8:36:16 AM
http://files.myopera.com/Tamil/Smilies/Yes.gif -
Originally posted by Gary Marshall:

anybody who thinks IE6 is a better browser than Opera 9 should be banned from the internet

Originally posted by Gary Marshall:

Don't just download it, have a quick play with it and dump it, though. Use it as your main browser for a few days.
Lorenzo CelsiFriday, June 5, 2009 9:08:09 AM
Ok but one should wonder why so few people know about Opera. The fact that Opera is better than ANY version of IE does not matter when nobody knows that Opera exists.
NicolasFriday, June 5, 2009 9:10:57 AM
Fabulous
FavFriday, June 5, 2009 9:19:21 AM
I think you miss the point, it's not the speed, features, etc. which Opera has, by the way.

It's poor sites compatibility and no marketing.

It's like saying: oh, I don't know why that crap product who spends millions of USD per year for advertising has like 99% of the market share and our better, faster product has 1% market share. No, we don't spend on marketing campaigns, nor do community contests (which doesn't require big investments, like ff dl day, fastest ff, etc.), but heck, we'd rather complain how other browsers suck and our is the best instead of spending money on actualy produt promotion or compatiiblity issues.

2c
AngelikiFriday, June 5, 2009 10:44:47 AM
fantastic!
very much deserved!!!

http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb107/ellinidata/applause/applause1.gif -
olliFriday, June 5, 2009 12:34:26 PM
DjiXas: Repeating others ranting or independant opinion? I suspect the first...
Lorenzo CelsiFriday, June 5, 2009 1:03:40 PM
Compatibility issues do not depend on the browser but on the Web site developers who do not care of a browser with less than 1% of market share. There was a time when almost no site worked with anything but IE and things changed for Firefox not because Mozilla worked on compatibility issues but because they gained enough share to force devs into testing for Firefox.

The marketing... I guess Firefox took advantage of a strong "evangelizing" community of power users and contributors. It is not something you can buy with money. Probably the fact that Firefox is Open Source and somehow focused on power users by design gives it an advantage over Opera. The fact is that "cool people" who may use Opera do not go installing it over their relatives and friends computers.
Jeff ™Friday, June 5, 2009 3:18:48 PM
Fantastic Review!
Barraco Mármol JerónimoFriday, June 5, 2009 4:17:31 PM
i think he's been honest.
TobbiFriday, June 5, 2009 4:20:32 PM
Great conclusion
Barraco Mármol JerónimoFriday, June 5, 2009 4:35:11 PM
anybody who thinks IE6 is a better browser than Opera 9 should be banned from the internet

+1
Charles SchlossFriday, June 5, 2009 5:15:07 PM
http://files.myopera.com/Tamil/Smilies/ThumbsUp.gif -
John PhoenixSaturday, June 6, 2009 8:33:38 PM
As a web designer i have been defacto forced to install the fox, as to have access to firebug and the faux ie rendering engine inside firefox. I do however use opera+dragonfly as my development browser at home and my personal browser at work. Thing is, firefox is distributed with almost all linux distros and ie is obviously packaged with windows. Where does opera see itself getting a foothold in the bundling with os arena. If opera were to say make their own linux distro (google did it with gos) or bundle with ubuntu on netbook it would go a long way. Just a thought.
VusumziSunday, June 7, 2009 1:45:22 AM
Firefox and the other browsers are American so thats why they popular even though they are mediocre than Opera. You should by now know that everythng that is American is well trumpeted even though its mediocre. Look at hw iPhone is well trumpeted bt if you gt hold of it ther isnt much there though its a good gadget i concur but i wont dump my Nokias for an iPhone they are the best. Everythng American if you check is imperialised and exaggerated, its the best like no other even though there are good and better products on the same category made or invented somewhere else! So Americans and all those who are fervent and loyal marketers and raters of American products wont recognise and rate any competitor no matter how forceful they are if they are'nt American!
ΩJr.Sunday, June 7, 2009 3:14:54 PM
I'm a professional web applications developer. My clients do not care to lose 0.75% profit due to their site not working in 1 browser. It's all about the money.

My clients DO care about the cost of development. Anyone familiar with the Pareto rule? 20% of the cost goes into developing for standards-compliant browsers. 80% goes into getting the already correct web site to work in whatever Microsoft happens to think is a web browser.

Then what you need is calculate the break-even point. How much money can you spend on supporting the monopolist's browser, while still making money in spite of losing profit by not supporting competitive browsers? Appearantly, that point is really, really high.
John BarnettSunday, June 7, 2009 4:51:42 PM
This is only my opinion, I think opera would get more of the market share if it could persuade PC Manufacturers to install it's browser when making PC's and consider letting opera integrate with some on line tools like Evernote (I know it dose now but not as good as Fire Fox)Diigo and Clip marks are all useful tools. Also Roboform . I prefer the Opera,however,I run Fire Fox at the same time in case I need to use any of the on line tools I mentioned above.I would dearly love to be able to use these tools in Opera and close fire fox reducing the amount of resources taken up running the two browsers.
Charles SchlossSunday, June 7, 2009 8:17:10 PM
My clients do not care to lose 0.75% profit due to their site not working in 1 browser.

Do the clients now that most all web browser now are web standards by defult
ΩJr.Monday, June 8, 2009 5:12:07 AM
Originally posted by WayOfTheBastard:

0.75%? Where did you get that from?

It says so in the original article by Gary Marshall:
"Internet Explorer 6, the gurning half-wit of the browser world, has nearly 17 per cent of the market. Opera, a truly great browser, has 0.72 per cent."

Did you read that?
ΩJr.Monday, June 8, 2009 5:14:57 AM
Originally posted by Chas4:

Do the clients now that most all web browser now are web standards by defult

We have our own "open the web" program, and are in the process of making them aware. Unfortunately, most of my clients are larger companies, that move slowly and adopt new technologies even slower. Most of them are still stuck with MSIE6, afraid that new versions will give them the same headaches and cost the same implementation effort, thus turning a deaf ear to optimistic messages about the newer browsers, even if from the same vendor.
Charles SchlossMonday, June 8, 2009 5:37:04 AM
OmegaJunior This may help persuade them: http://secunia.com/advisories/product/11/ IE 6 has a lot of holes in it, may lead to data breaches, also have they tought that code for IE 6 only works on Windows, that Linux and Mac and others may have trouble with IE6 code

You maybe also able to use this
dawnstrikeMonday, June 8, 2009 11:55:15 PM
TOTALLY agree with the reviewer.
MorghusTuesday, June 9, 2009 9:06:03 AM
Hilarious review. Enjoyed it immensely.
MartinTuesday, June 9, 2009 7:58:45 PM
Opera rules!!!
Sadly we still have a lot of convincing to do...
OlarinkoyesaWednesday, June 10, 2009 5:26:07 AM
Tamil
Good of you for that comment. Such peoples should be bound from internet "YES" Opera lead, even develop other to meet the standards then, why should they not be follower. OPERA HURRAH!