Why Opera Is At #5 ?

[zeon22]

I found a article on net on why opera browser is still at no5 and found it reasonable please comment to agree or disagree(with reason plz)

The top 5 browsers on the desktop (meaning not mobile) are, in this order:

- Internet Explorer (45.11%)

- Mozilla Firefox (29.98%)

- Google Chrome (17.37%)

- Apple Safari (5.02%)

- Opera (1.97%)

Opera is at #5 in the world browser market for a few very good reasons...

Internet Explorer commands the largest share of the market because it came bundled with Windows ever since later editions of Windows 95 (not including the recent EU decision concerning Windows 7 where it wasn’t and replaced with a browser ballot decision on OS install), and of course Windows is the #1 OS in the world as we know it.

Mozilla Firefox commands the #2 position because of blitz-style advertising they’ve been doing in an on-again/off-again fashion since the mid-2000s.

Google Chrome has market share only because Google is the #1 search engine on the planet.

Apple Safari while at #4 has that position largely because it comes bundled with Mac OS X.

Then there’s Opera. It does not come bundled with any major OS (Nintendo Wii’s OS isn’t for the desktop, obviously), nor does Opera blitz-advertise itself at all, nor does Opera have the advantage placing a big-ass button to install itself on the #1 search engine’s home page:

Anyway, the point is that Opera, even as good as it is, simply doesn’t have the "influence" so to speak to compete against the other major players; the fact it has 1.97% of the world browser market share is pretty impressive when that’s taken into consideration.

[toyo]

All the latest incarnations of these browsers will provide a very enjoyable experience on the web. Hopefully that 2% will be enough to allow Opera to innovate and provide us with improved versions. Even if they'll come with some amazing, unique new feature, it will be pretty pointless, as Firefox/Chrome will quickly copy it or offer it as an extension. Pretty depressing...

[Nima]

Opera is improving but not at speed of others like Firefox does, I myself think that both Firefox & Chrome and even IE9 is better than the latest version of Opera.

The engine, Presto is not as powerful as Gecko or Chromium, although I don't like Chrome but Chrome is better than Opera; test results show this.

[neeraj]

The thing is how you define the word "top" in "top 10 browsers"

Market share doesnt reflect the capability or performance of a browser so IE having highest market share simply coz it is shipped in Windows doesnt make it the TOP browser. Infact any person who has been online for quite some time wont ever use IE as his/her browser for daily needs except in some cases where IE is a must. That too is not a concern since other browsers have the plugins such as IETab for FF that renders IE complete useless.

I have used many browsers over a long period of my online presence and i use Firefox almost all the time. I find it fast reliable and easy to use, given you dont bloat it with useless plugins. I never supported Chrome mainly coz of the Privacy issues that they are always surrounded with. Safari we all know is mostly eye candy with resource usage reaching new milestone almost every new day.

The second browser that i think catches FF is Opera. Dont know why people say its not powerful enough. It has got everything that you need in a browser.The latest version has a powerful Javascript(Carakan) and page rendering engine(Presto 2.7) with optimal resource usage. Newer versions even support plugins aka extensions which will improve as the users increase.

So these top 5 lists donot reflect anything. Unless and until you test and work with each and every browser you wont get to know about it.

[toyo]

Opera is improving but not at speed of others like Firefox does, I myself think that both Firefox & Chrome and even IE9 is better than the latest version of Opera.

The engine, Presto is not as powerful as Gecko or Chromium, although I don't like Chrome but Chrome is better than Opera; test results show this.

I disagree. Read this thread. You probably don't use the browser much and never got around all of its features.

[Nima]

Opera is improving but not at speed of others like Firefox does, I myself think that both Firefox & Chrome and even IE9 is better than the latest version of Opera.

The engine, Presto is not as powerful as Gecko or Chromium, although I don't like Chrome but Chrome is better than Opera; test results show this.

I disagree. Read this thread.

Opera is a crappy browser, does not matter what others say, many of them are just simply advertising and not supporting; it's my opinion.

I also spend +85% of my time on Internet and of couse on Firefox, I know all of it, my computer usage is like 3~5 hrs daily on workdays and near 10 hrs on holidays.

[toyo]

Eh, what can I say. I'm sorry for my advertising then, it will not happen again. Promise.

[Patrick]

Opera is improving but not at speed of others like Firefox does, I myself think that both Firefox & Chrome and even IE9 is better than the latest version of Opera.

The engine, Presto is not as powerful as Gecko or Chromium, although I don't like Chrome but Chrome is better than Opera; test results show this.

I disagree. Read this thread.

Opera is a crappy browser, does not matter what others say, many of them are just simply advertising and not supporting; it's my opinion.

I also spend +85% of my time on Internet and of couse on Firefox, I know all of it, my computer usage is like 3~5 hrs daily on workdays and near 10 hrs on holidays.

Well someone is close minded. Have you even tried the browser?

[Nima]

Eh, what can I say. I'm sorry for my advertising then, it will not happen again. Promise.

I did not mean you yourself, sorry if you got upset for my speech (I was not in a good mood). :)

[Atasas]

Opera is improving but not at speed of others like Firefox does, I myself think that both Firefox & Chrome and even IE9 is better than the latest version of Opera.

The engine, Presto is not as powerful as Gecko or Chromium, although I don't like Chrome but Chrome is better than Opera; test results show this.

I disagree. Read this thread.

Opera is a crappy browser, does not matter what others say, many of them are just simply advertising and not supporting; it's my opinion.

I also spend +85% of my time on Internet and of couse on Firefox, I know all of it, my computer usage is like 3~5 hrs daily on workdays and near 10 hrs on holidays.

Phew... one massive barking with an argument, that your argument is your knowledge of one product and not other, besides support issue... what support is needed for a browser?...

Good you like something, but not justified bashing sounds absolutely unreasonable

[DKT27]

Cmon guys, I don't think the article is anything about which browser is better, it's about which browser is most used. Opera is modern browser, and honestly, it's the most competitive browser out there. In the end, it all depends on personal preference. ;)

[jtmulc]

The article quoted in the first really comes off as, "WAAAAh, we don't come with an OS, we aren't featured on the world's most popular search engine, and we don't advertise, IT'S NOT FAIR!". I can see the point of the first two arguments, but whining because Firefox advertises itself? That's how people find out about products, through advertising. It's not like Mozilla has a built-in advantage because they can advertise, anyone can do it, so doesn't Opera? I've been online since '94. I've known OF Opera for years, but could not tell you one thing that makes it different from any other browser out there. Why? Because there's no self-promotion, nothing to make me think of it. In fact, the first thing I DO think about when hearing something mention Opera is, "Wow. They're still around?"

Point 2: I've been online since '94. I've switched browsers multiple times. Back in the late 90s I was using Netscape because I wanted something that wasn't Microsoft. I switched to IE because I was tired of Netscape crashing all the time and losing all the windows I had open. When Firefox came out (I think I started at v0.9), I started using it because (a) IE had been unchanged from the time they destroyed Netscape, (B) Firefox was faster, © Firefox offered all these extensions people had written to make it more useful. Every time I have changed browsers, it has been because I was disgusted with my old one and found something better. I'm still happy with Firefox and I've yet to hear about anything to make it worthwhile to switch to Opera (see point 1)

[DKT27]

I'm not opposing Opera here, but I wanna correct the article.

This is what I'm seeing from long time (from time to time). It's from nsane.forums homepage:

But again it's not about which is better. It's about preference.

[rseiler]

The "article" doesn't even bother to get its own numbers right (I thought Chrome looked high and IE low). If you follow the link there, you'll see this:

IE: 49.3

FF: 30.97

Chrome: 12.54

Safari: 4.56

Opera: 1.96

Other sites have different estimates, but one thing they always pretty much agree on is Opera.

I think they shot themselves in the foot for over a decade by not having a free version of the browser that wasn't ad sponsored. It wasn't until late 2005(!) that they released an actual free version, and by then the alternative browser market had been lost. When a certain percentage of people became dissatisfied with FF a few years ago, the door opened slightly for a worthy new contender (Chrome) that had a simple UI (remember how horribly cluttered Opera's UI was at that time), was fast (Opera's Javascript was next-to-last until about a year ago), and compatible (Google's sites always work best in Chrome). Not that it would have mattered: Opera had been around too long without making an impression.

Another thing: for a browser that may in fact meet the most "standards," let's face it, Opera is the least-supported browser on the Web. It's not even usually their fault, but you will have more problems with it, particularly on advanced "Web 2.0"-style sites, than an IE, Webkit, or Mozilla-based browser. It's not even close. People want their sites to just work, and too often in Opera there are glitches or limitations. Opera doesn't even support Google Instant or the year-old revamp to Google Images, though there is an obscure workaround for the latter (maybe both by now, not sure). Just silly.

And then there was only releasing extensions a few MONTHS ago. Yikes. That's one of the fundamental reasons FF took off. Years late, again.

How about a bug reporting system that does its best to simulate a black hole? Or forums that don't tolerate dissent or sometimes even mild criticism?

I could go on.

[RadioActive]

Very interesting article, I've always been an Opera fan even though I'm not using it, actually I'm using FireFox even though I absolutely HATE it. For some it's a matter of convenience or ease-of-use and for others it's a matter of compatibility or stability. Personally, I been using FF for years now and I'm sure I will switch soon to either Opera or Chrome since I'm getting fed-up with all the crashes and memory leaks, but that's just me.

[KotaXor]

If it's any consolation, I use Opera on my Android phone (quite good, actually).....but uses firefox for the rest of my pc (because of the addon).

[Gabben]

If Opera wants a bigger market share than they have to do some advertising, maybe the same way Mozilla did. I think thats the only way. Now every browser has extensions, the browser developers copy the new features into their browsers. We can't decide wich is better so we have to choose by sympathy.

Also we cant decide wich is the fastest browser because every benchmark we run gives different results, i think most of the browsers are fast now.