eWeek on 15 years of browsers. But no Opera.

December 26, 2005 · by Haavard

eWeek has had a look at the past, present and future of browsers, and mentions, among other things, the innovative Firefox browser which has brought new things like tabbed browsing and better security (fewer security holes?) to the market.

What the article fails to mention is a ten year old browser which has had tabbed browsing and better security for many years. Even on the third page of the article, it fails to mention the #1 mobile browser, Opera.

While Microsoft is creating its own mobile version of Windows and Apple has licensed some of its browser technology to handset maker Nokia Corp., some experts believe that the challenge of creating an application that works on handheld devices will change the appearance, and potentially the market, for browser technologies.

This is what Opera realized years ago, and that is why Opera has in fact been available for mobile phones for a few years already. Indeed, we solved the problem with fitting normal Web pages onto the small screen of a mobile phone, as well as a number of other things that prevented people from browsing the Web from their mobiles.

More recently, Opera has also become a mobile development platform, which is interesting considering the following paragraph from the article:

"But one of the very cool things that Flash and Macromedia's Flex platform can do is build interactive applications that are distinctly non-Web-like, but that you can adapt easily to the size of the screen that you have."

With Opera, you get a development platform based on well known open standards. You can give it a try yourself by signing up for the Opera Platform community group.

I guess this shows how important it is to get the word about Opera out there so that we keep it fresh in the memory of journalists, and also other people. We're going to step up our marketing, and I hope that all Opera users out there will contribute by spreading the word about Opera as often as possible!

Readers' comments 11

Left under the original article, as archived.

#26. December 2005, 03:07:15
dave writes:

opera is the best browser on the planet period
nzMM26. December 2005, 04:54:41
Says more about eWeek and its quality of reporting than anything regarding browsers. Doesnt it?
TreeGo26. December 2005, 05:12:56
Is eWeek as well known as is Opera? I've known about Opera for about 3 years now. I've heard of eWeek for less than a year.
shoust26. December 2005, 14:24:53
And this was the site which interviewed users about the opera 10 yr anniversary...
SerbianFighter27. December 2005, 16:47:29
If nice way doesn't work.. shout!
innbound1. January 2006, 05:45:42
Always amazing how major contributions can be obscured, over-looked or often even brushed-off and tucked under the rug. Some such things may be due to a lingering image of the contributors checkered past... but I don't think that is the case with why Opera often gets walked on (or brushed-pass) in the press. Opera's problem is that there is not much (if any) *fan-fare* about it.

IE has Bill Gates in people's mind's... people remember him getting hit with pie's and all kinds of press about his personal life etc etc IE's got some *wonderment* about it (beyond its being tucked into the most prevalent os on earth). Firefox has the entire open-source movement lingering in anyone's mind who's ever built (or tried to build a webpage, website or use a blog)... plus the really neat looking icon accounts for about 80% of subliminal reasoning for most people to first click the download button on their mozilla pages.

What's Opera got that's a lasting image in surfers minds? JVT swimming a few yards? The mummbling chef incident? A gay looking superhero wearing tights? Umm, that doesn't cut-it. People who use Opera are the one's who can look past all the reasons that people who use IE or Firefox can't. In %'s it shows. It is a sad truth but it is the exact same reasoning why rag-mags like Enquirer keep selling millions of copies of trash stories at grocery stores world wide... because they appear somehow *larger than life*. Don't get me wrong, Opera's stand on being the best by means of comparison with it's competition is *larger than life*... BUT, it just doesn't LOOK IT. That reality sucks - but it can't be changed unless Opera staffers have some idea's on how to change human nature and a means to pull it off. Doubt it, sorry guys, but you ain't gods yet.

K, there's the problem, so where's the solution? Ummm, not semi-nude photo's of haarvard (lol, not sayin you're not a good lookn guy H., but ummm >.>) or anyone else. Hype is just that Hype and that's surely not Opera's style (haarvard, I was joking man, you can relax now )... but, there are things that can be done and it will require JVT to do some travelling, meeting/greeting and actually some hand-delivering of the browser to a few key peeps. Nuff said atm.
haavard1. January 2006, 12:45:29
Jon travels a lot, and we have other people travelling around the world making deals. We didn't get two major contracts with some global home media giant(s) by sitting on our behinds
innbound2. January 2006, 12:45:19
Wasn't implying contracts. Or is it that you believe contracts are the way to become equal with ie's market share, ff's fame or either's respect in the press?

Hey, Happy New Year
haavard2. January 2006, 12:58:23
I was just explaining that people do travel around. It's not like Jon sits on his behind all day doing nothing. He does travel a lot.
#11. January 2006, 06:55:50
Arioch writes:

That is MOTD )))))

And this renounces me a story i heard: one person wanted to hire a secretary. One of the girls, came for a vacansy, sure messed 'secretary' with 'secretute'. She had a perfect body, pretty face, large blue eyes - and almost nothing behind those eyes.

His last attempt to help her whow some professional skills was asking if she feels comfort with [Microsoft] Excel. The gile was shocked and embarassed. She had stod up and moaned: ME ??? XL??? I do wear S !!!
#11. January 2006, 07:01:46
Anonymous writes:

Strange, when i tried to post it onto http://my.opera.com/Rijk/blog/show.dml/95500 no matter what i do i get HTTP 400 wrong request

IE 6.0.3790.1830, F5 and ^F5 do not help.

...and this 2nd message here - it cannot be posted with those very symptomes