Talk:Opera (Internet suite)/Archive 2

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Extlinks

The body of this article is full of extlink spam. I'm going to clean it up, and cut down greatly on the extlinks section as well, unless someone beats me to it. Arvindn 06:42, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Latest releases?

Is a list of the latest releases of the browser really something that belongs in an encyclopedia entry? I'm a huge Opera zealot, but people can find the download links on their own--I don't think this is something that belongs here. Zaxxon 21:59, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Good question. I just cleaned it up a lot, removing loads of overlapping, self-promoting links serving no purpose in getting to know Opera better from an encyclopedic point of view. TomAnd 07:28, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Screenshot

What about a new screenhot? There is now version 7.54 and 8 beta. --ThomasK 11:02, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC) Should'nt screenshots of browsers depict the Wikipedia front page?

Cleanup

!! Wikipedia does not work very well anymore with Opera :

Version 7.11 Build 2887 Platform Win32 System Windows XP

Will be good to update wikipedia so the left menu bar does not fall right at the bottom of each articles !!

Greetings LF

This article need to cleanups. The article is too concentrated into features, and there are too many features listed here... Maybe split into "Features of Opera (web browser)"?. --minghong 07:13, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Minghong: Please DO NOT move things around like you just did without looking at how it makes the article look! Its terrible! Reverting.

Edit - Made a new features page here

I agree minghong. This article does need to be cleaned up. I think it looks better now. Maybe we should take the current version, make a temp page, and improve on it. If we edit the whole thing, I think this has featured article potential. If needed, I'll create the temp page, and i'll just put a link to it at the top of this page, so people can work on it --Zeerus (E T C WFD) 17:07, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

employee blogs

Do we really need an entire section on employee blogs. That information is hardly related to the article itself, and can be found on the Opera website anyway. Besides, there are so many blogs that it would take forever to list them. Pretty much every employee has one. It is just a waste of space, and should be deleted. I suggest getting rid of it and then supplying a link to the Opera.com page that lists them all. --Zeerus (E T C WFD) 17:24, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

Agree. --minghong 05:12, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I am going to remove that section, along with any links related to earlier version of Opera. As Opera 8 is the newest version, I don't think we need to include links like # Days to becoming an Opera 7 Lover. There are others too. --tex^t_tonic 13:07, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

Yup. But I think there should be a table of release history (which was removed by someone in the earlier edits), like that of Firefox. --minghong 15:47, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The 1 million download challenge

Uh, is it only me or is this a serious POV? I'm one of bigger Opera fans around, but the entire swim thing was pretty obviously a marketing spoof. Can someone rewrite this so it doesn't contain solely marketing-speak? --qviri 23:34, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't know that it would have encyclopaedic merit even when re-written. It was, as you say, just a silly marketing spoof. I'm going to remove it, although if anyone wants to make a case for reverting or rewriting, I'll not re-revert. KeithD (talk) 08:28, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Gmail Support

Gmail does still not officially or fully support the Opera browser. The rich text-editor can still not be used, and sometime layout issues are experienced. In the official Gmail help pages Opera is listed as a browser for which the plain interface should be used. Sgd 05/09/05

I seem to be able to use Opera 8 ok with gmail, as long as I don't press the "Back" button... but instead use the menus on the left. Fosnez 13:42, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

It seems as far as the newest opera browser (Opera 9) goes Gmail operates just fine. But it seems some of the browsers weekly builds sometimes have problems with opera's own page.[1]

Robert Maupin 22:34, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

opera download free

It appears the full version is available for free download! opera download Smautf 10:36, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

There should be a section about this. How do they plan on making money now?

Already much of their income does not come from the Desktop. Much of their advantage is in the mobile/small-screen market where they have corporate arangements; also integrating their rendering engine such as in their Adobe deal. See the market adoption section for a little detail. --jnothman ^talk 08:22, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

This article from The Register claims that 45% of their income was from Google advertising. ~~helix84 11:33, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Opera license

To prevent edit war, I put a discussion here. I'm not against Opera,

Roger: That is your first lie in this text. You are a Firefox fanatic.

but Freeware is not a type of software license.

Roger: That is the second lie, freeware is for all practical purposes and in the minds of the public in general a type of license. For reference take a look at the types of licenses the pricelesswarehome.org site describes. We who help to maintain that site are the participators of the newsgroup alt.comp.freeware, and we are experts on what a license is.

"Freeware" does not in any way describe the license -- merely the price charged for the right to use the software.
Explain why the license used by opera is not proprietary.
Word of advice: Lay off the insults and ludicrous accusations, they aren't going to help your case and are seriously frowned upon here. - Motor (talk) 00:11, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

It should be changed back to proprietary, which is the most suitable one for this moment. The current infobox doesn't show the price of a software, so this is the problem of the infobox. Discussions and changes should go to Template:Infobox Software and Template:Infobox Software2. --minghong 01:34, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

"Proprietary" is already covered by the freeware description: "Freeware is typically proprietary, distributed without source code, and carries a restrictive license." On the other hand, "proprietary" doesn't (and shouldn't) say anything about whether or not something is freeware. As such "freeware" is an accurate and correct description of Opera's license, while "proprietary" would be misleading. Not to mention the negative connotations of the word "proprietary". -edit1 20 Oct 2005

Why is proprietary misleading? As I've explained on the template talk page, adding a "cost" field is not a good idea. I don't see a problem with having the license as "proprietary" and mentioning that it is a free download in the article introduction. - Motor (talk) 22:21, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

It is misleading because it doesn't give the reader a correct and useful information about the license. The software type is proprietary, the license type is freeware. By the way, a guy working for Opera said yesterday that the Opera license is freeware, when he heard about this discussion.

"Mentioning" that it is a "free download" is another way to badmouth Opera, because that is the so much hated expression for payware which poses as freeware. When people see that they immediately think payware. The addition of that line is definitely intended sabotage. It cannot be explained in any other way. Roger4911 00:54, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

First of all, you haven't said why "proprietary" is misleading, you've just defined the word "misleading". Second the "software type" for Opera is a browser/mail etc etc, not a license. You start off by accusing people of "lies" and being "fanatics", then vandalism, and now "badmouth", "sabotage" and now you're on my talk page accusing me something barely coherent to do with having a discussion *about the infobox template* on the infobox template page. I've think wasted enough time with you already. - Motor (talk) 08:19, 21 October 2005 (UTC) Just one more thing: if you wish to change the wording of "available for free download", in the article copy then do so, let's see what you can come up with. However, I don't see how "free download" and "freeware" are any different. I've had self-described freeware before now that's loaded with spyware and crippled. But let me restate this: if you start on about sabotage/vandalism again, I will simply ignore your talk contributions in future. - Motor (talk) 08:30, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

"Proprietary" is misleading because:

1. It has negative connotations

2. It does not mention the fact that Opera is freeware

3. It's irrelevant to most people, as in normal computer users who we would presumably want to use Wikipedia as a source of information. They want to know whether it's freeware or not, and couldn't care less about open or closed source. -edit1 21 Oct 2005

This is a meaningless catch-all statement. Arguably "freeware" has negative connotations too -- most things classed as "freeware" are worthless junk in my experience. I'll repeat myself: Freeware does not describe the license, merely the cost.
The article mentions *VERY* clearly that Opera does not cost anything. This isn't a matter of not mentioning it, it's about "freeware" not being suitable for the license field.
Normal people reading this article *do* know that it's free, since it is clearly mentioned in the INTRODUCTION section of the article, where only the most important and relevant information belongs. In fact, it is broken out into its own paragraph especially so it cannot be missed. Perhaps we should put it in 30 point bold right at the top? - Motor (talk) 09:28, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with both Minghong and edit1. The infobox should cover its license and its cost (and I'll raise this at the template talk in a minute), but that if there's only one category at the moment, then freeware is the more informative. Proprietary software may or may not be gratis, whereas freeware (according to our article) is "typically proprietary". I would favour the infobox for Opera saying freeware, but then changing it when the infobox is (hopefully) updated. KeithD (talk) 13:43, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Freeware is typically proprietary, distributed without source code, and carries a restrictive license. For example, a license might allow the software to be freely copied, but not sold, or might forbid commercial, government or military use. If we are to change "Freeware" to "proprietary", then all other software which is Freeware, Shareware, etc. should be changed to "proprietary" as well. --LBMixPro ^{(Speak on it!)} 05:29, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Internet Explorer currently says: proprietary EULA, and that's also "free" in the same sense as Opera. I personally don't think the license field adds anything when talking about proprietary software -- it's only meaningful for open source software. Ideally the "license" field would be optional. The exact nature/terms of a proprietary license should be discussed in the text because they are different for virtually every piece of software in that category. - Motor (talk) 08:19, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

IE is not free. It is part of Windows, which you pay for.

Splitting hairs. - Motor (talk) 09:41, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Also, "proprietary" still doesn't mention the fact that Opera is freeware, while the freeware definition does include "proprietary".

I don't care. "Freeware" is not a license. It's the cost. Did you read the discussion? Someone suggested adding "Cost" to the infobox, which, IMO, is a very bad idea for reasons explained on the infobox talk page. - Motor (talk) 09:41, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Also, you cannot ignore the fact that "proprietary" has negative connotations, which is why I guess it is so important to some to make a point that Opera is "proprietary" rather than "freeware".

Here we go again... same thing applies to you as it does to Roger. If you start making wild accusation I will simply ignore your talk page contributions. - Motor (talk) 09:41, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

And finally, most people don't care about whether something is proprietary or not. The relevant information Joe Blow needs is whether it's freeware or not.

Which is quite clearly stated in the article introduction. - Motor (talk) 09:41, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

If Wikipedia is going to be a decent source of information it needs to take normal people into account and not become a tool for religious zealots to wage ware against licenses they disagree with, and only include information which makes certain types of software look good at first glance. -edit1 21 Oct 2005

Right, thanks for letting me know quite clearly how you are approaching this article and other editors. I'll know how to view your contributions in future. - Motor (talk) 09:41, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

It seems to me that before we can decide one way or another with the specifics of Opera, we need to deal with the wider issues of the template. The conflict we have here could/should be negligible with a template that is appropriate to all types of software.

As I've stated at the template talk page, I now agree with Motor that tracking the specific cost of software isn't appropriate for Wikipedia, but I still stand by my earlier thoughts here that the infobox should state whether something is freeware, shareware, and so on. With proprietary software, this information is often of more relevance to people than its license type. With open-source software, the license type is more appropriate, as that's where the variable is. Hopefully we can solve this on the template talk page.

I think what I'll do is be bold, and go for a lily-livered compromise here, for the meantime. I'll change the license type to "proprietary freeware". I know it's not perfect for a number of reasons, and is a fairly clunky phrase, but hopefully it balances the need for accuracy against the need to quickly provide the information that users are looking for in the infobox. If we can all live with the downsides to that phrasing temporarily, it should free us from this very specific conflict here, and allow us to find a way to resolve the wider issue. KeithD (talk) 10:42, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, comparing other browser infoboxes, IE has "Prop. EULA", which is close enough to what Keith wrote. Dillo says GPL, not "Open Source". Open Source is a distribution method, and GPL is the licence to the distribution method. That's what Freeware is! It's not a licence, it's a distribution method. I agree Proprietary is the best thing for the licence. About the cost in the infobox. It should instead be "distribution method". (Unsigned comment by User:Lbmixpro).

"Open Source" is not a distribution method, it's a class of software license (or, if used in other contexts, a method for creating software)... so is "Proprietary" -- whether you think "propreitary" has negative connotations is another matter, it is a valid entry in the license field. "Freeware", on the other hand, is simply a word invented to describe stuff that's given away for nothing. It tells you nothing about the license, and its presence in a "license" field is nonsense. It's no more valid than putting "Spyware" or "Malware" in there. I've left the current compromise as "Proprietary freeware" (even though it is just as inaccurate as "freeware" alone) because, at this moment discussions/actions are happening in the template itself to try to find an answer to the larger problems... and leaving it as-is will hopefully quiet things down while a broader solution is found. - Motor (talk) 15:39, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't think Proprietary has any negative connocations, instead of it's inability to edit the source code. Open-source software is more of a set of licences which allow modifying the source code. Would "Freeware" be to proprietary software, as the Sun Public License is to Open-source? --LBMixPro ^{(Speak on it!)} 18:25, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

- Motor, you really need to calm down and stop attacking people... (Unsigned comment by User:Fixxif).

User created who has only edited the opera article Ah... smear tactics. I haven't attacked anyone -- quite the opposite. If you care to read through this talk page you'll find that I've refused to respond to that sort of thing. User Minghong was called a liar for trying to start a discussion, and rather than have a reasonable discussion there have been wild accusations about other editors being zealots or involved in religious wars, with no apparent justification.

There is a discussion going on right now on the infobox talk page about how to solve this general problem (Note: Opera discussions here, infobox discussions there) and improve the infoboxes. - Motor (talk) 10:01, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

New Infobox

As per discussion on the software infobox page, this is a trial of the new template for proprietary software. The old infobox contains an entry for "license" -- which is an important attribute for Free/Open Source software... but not when using an infobox for proprietary applications, such as Opera. For example: OpenOffice (license=LGPL) is important information. Microsoft Word (license=Microsoft EULA V6) is pointless -- though that doesn't mean "unimportant", it just means "a complex subject not suitable for quick delivery in an infobox". I have used the old infobox as a template for this new one... which means the removal of the complex and unwieldy template-based versioning. This one only tracks the stable release version -- on the grounds that it is simpler, more friendly to newbies and preview releases are not appropriate information in an infobox. - Motor (talk) 19:55, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Just to make myself absolutely clear: I deliberately did not based this new infobox on "infobox software 2". For two reasons:

Preview releases don't belong in an infobox. Infoboxes are there to provide the basic information as a summary. I don't personally think Wikipedia should be tracking preview releases anyway, but lots of people want to -- and there's nothing stopping them doing that within the article itself.
The "Infobox Software 2" template solves no real problems while making editing more confusing and difficult for newbies and completely different from normal wikipedia editing. - Motor (talk) 07:53, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

The only difference between Template:Infobox software and Template:Infobox Software2 is the preview release. What's the use of software2, if preview releases don't belong in an infobox? Also who else says preview releases don't belong in an infobox? We must come up with a consensus before we go further with this. I believe preview releases are valid, because it shows the developer is actually doing some work with the app. I've seen infoboxes which use special WP templates in order to optionally display information, such as Template:pwstatbox. Maybe we should bring the idea of using a template similar to it software, so we don't need 5 or so templates which serve generally the same purpose. --LBMixPro ^{(Speak on it!)} 08:12, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

"Infobox Software2" uses templates within templates to create an awkward and complicated scheme for editing the version number that solves no problems and makes the simple act of updating a version number radically different from editing anything else in the article. I've expressed my concerns several times about this (and its effect on newbies... as if templates weren't confusing enough for them already), and I reverted the addition of "Infobox Software2" from the OpenOffice.org article a while back. As for the "preview release" field, I'm willing to be convinced, but I don't see why a preview release is important enough to be in the infobox. The infobox is not for "showing that the developer is still working on an app"... it is just to give a very short and standardised version of the most important and relevant information across a block of related articles. There's nothing stopping anyone from discussing preview releases, forthcoming uber-technologies, or how fast the developers of the application can code... or, in fact, anything else at all, in the article itself. - Motor (talk) 08:46, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

The reason for another template to be edited for the version numbers is because that template is being used on other articles such as Comparison of web browsers. In contrast, the template simplifies matters, so one doesn't have to update both the article's infobox and the other articles which depend on an accurate version number for the app. If we are to scrap the preview release, we should scrap the stable release as well.--LBMixPro ^{(Speak on it!)} 20:02, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Motor. That template is getting "template bloat". --minghong 12:30, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

General criticsm of the article

Is it just me or does this have way too many links? it sounds like an ad! (comment by User:Naelphin, copied from article).

No, you are quite right. There are a few things wrong with the article, starting with (as you pointed out) the huge case of over-linking in the introduction. The article is also quite fannish in places, and large parts of it read like a list of features added by fans of the software -- the accessiblity section, for example. - Motor (talk) 22:15, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

I also think there are much too many links in the introduction, but as long as the text of the introduction remains such, it is correct. So I vote for a simpler introduction, with these features in a bulleted list. Maybe something like:

Opera is a cross-platform internet suite, developed by Opera Software of Oslo, Norway. It has gained a leading role in browsers for mobile phones, smartphones and PDAs with its Small Screen Rendering technology. It is also used in iTV platforms, and its core layout engine, "Presto", is integrated into Adobe Creative Suite. Opera is available as a free download.

The suite consists of:

I'm not sure about the necessity to mention Oslo here, when it's in the OS article. The external links at the bottom of the article are also excessive, even to a fan like myself. --jnothman ^talk 00:31, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

My first-draft suggestion:

Opera is a suite of internet applications, developed by Opera Software of Norway. It is designed to run on a variety of platforms, such as Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. The suite contains applications to handle most of the common internet-related tasks such as browsing the web, sending and receiving emails, basic contact management and real-time chat.

Opera has gained a leading role as the browser for mobile phones, smartphones and Personal Digital Assistants, and is also used in Interactive television platforms.

Opera is available as a free download.

Cross-platform is jargon. There's no need to document every single part of the suite since this is the introduction (listing every bit belongs in a more detailed section later in the article). Just cover the basics in a general way. Drop some of the pipe-links (why iTV, when Interactive Television is much clearer). Discussing the layout engine in the introduction is completely unnecessary (again, that's for later in the article). No need to link "mobile phone" etc etc. All the introduction is supposed to do is provide a non-technical easy to read overview of the article to allow people who are skimming to get the general idea what it is and what it does. - Motor (talk) 01:13, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I like the second one. But the jargon words are wikilinked to their respected articles, so one doesn't need to assume what cross-platform is. I agree it shouldn't be in the lead paragraph, but it fits best in the infobox, since we really don't want to list every single platform Opera runs. (We don't want to mislead people into thinking Opera doesn't run on QNX or BeOS.) Also, I realized that not all of Opera's apps are free. If I recall, the cellphone versions of Opera still require payment. Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia, and it is encouraged to be bold with our edits. My draft would be like this.

Opera is a suite of internet applications, developed by Opera Software, based in Norway. It is designed to run on a variety of operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. The suite contains applications to handle most of the common internet-related tasks such as browsing the web, sending and receiving e-mails, reading RSS feeds and Usenet messages, basic contact management and real-time chat.

Opera has gained a leading role as the web browser for mobile phones, smartphones and Personal Digital Assistants, and is also used in Interactive television platforms.

The lastest desktop versions of Opera are available as a free download, while trial versions are available for mobile phones.

--LBMixPro ^{(Speak on it!)} 20:33, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Yep, I think that's an improvement generally. Regarding "cross-platform". I agree it's suitable for the "OS" parameter of the infobox where brevity is vital, just not in the article copy. Jargon is something to be avoided whenever possible. Just because it's wikilinked doesn't excuse it. Articles are supposed to read well without the necessity of reading other articles first -- an impossible goal in practise, but an important aim nonetheless. Criticisms: the linking of "internet suite" seems rather pointless to me (the target article says little or nothing). We'd be much better off with a choice of words that doesn't require linking. My second-draft:

Opera is a collection of computer applications for handling many common internet-related tasks. Although best-known for its web browser it also provides applications for dealing with email and usenet messaging, basic contact management, and real-time chat.

Opera is developed by Opera Software, based in Norway and it is designed to run on a variety of operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. It has gained a leading role as a web browser for mobile phones, smartphones and Personal Digital Assistants, and is also used in Interactive television platforms.

The latest desktop versions of Opera are available as a free download, while shareware trial versions are available for mobile phones.

note 1: I left out RSS... I'm not against including it in the intro, but I'd rather find a way to describe what RSS does in non-technical terms rather than just use the term "RSS". note 2: I stated "computer" explicitly in the first line. It may seem a bit redundant, but it establishes very quickly the area into which the article falls. Some article use a style like "In computing, 'Opera is...", but I think that's rather ugly. note 3: again, I see no reason to link mobile phone... smartphone, perhaps, PDA and interactive television certainly, but mobile phone is overdoing it. note 4: I split out the pipe linked shareware bit. I try to avoid pipe-links when possible. They mess up the source and make it very confusing for anyone who is new to editing.

I'll leave it for now and see what comments there are, but tomorrow (or maybe someone else will do it first) I'll replace the intro and we can work on it in the article rather than editing the talk page. 'night all.- Motor (talk) 21:11, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I edited it to this. Once someone gets used to edit WP, confusion wears off. Anyways, style guidelines don't recommend redirects and rather use pipes. I realized important information about the presto layout engine would be omitted if we stick with either version we wrote. If someone doesn't know what RSS is, they could simply click the wikilink to the specific article about it. That's what wikilinks and articles are there for, right? --LBMixPro ^{(Speak on it!)} 08:42, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

That's rather the point... once they get used to editing they aren't newbies any longer. Everyone starts somewhere, and an unnecessary pipe link is confusing for someone try to get started. What about the printed version? I mean, look at iTV in the printed copy, what does it tell you?

Layout engine: If you read back over the discussion the layout engine information was deliberately left out of the introduction because it's not important... at least, not important for the introduction. The idea isn't to cram every current use of opera into the introduction (same goes for IBM and its 'multi-modal browser' but to provide a quick overview and an easy starter for the article. I've moved information about the layout engineto later in the article.

As I tried to explain about RSS, Wikipedia introductions are supposed to read clearly and for a wide audience without having to click on other articles and understand those first -- and how would someone do as you suggest with the printed version? That's the reason I wanted to remove the use of RSS and find a way of describing it in a non-jargon non-technical way. I've also replaced "email and usenet" with just "messaging", and "online chat" for IRC.

Finally, can you point me to where in the style manual it recommends using piped links? The most I can find is Manual_of_Style (links) that "pipes are preferred over redirects" -- which a) I was already aware of b) I agree with but only up to a point (would you always pipe link alternative spellings for example)?- Motor (talk) 10:42, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Cleanup and Merge

I've added merge templates to both this article and Opera browser features. I can't see any reason why there needs to be a separate article to document the features of the web browser, and as the template says, I suggest "browser features" be merged in. There's just not enough to warrant an article alone. Opinions? - Motor (talk) 18:58, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I think it'll make the article too big, and if Firefox has it, why can't Opera? The article isn't a stub. That's the only reason why I'd merge anything. --LBMixPro ^{(Speak on it!)} 20:31, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Merge? Are you kidding? I'm planning to split even more content from this article. --minghong 07:55, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

To what end? The article isn't anywhere near being too big. As for the point made above about "why should firefox have it" -- answer: it shouldn't IMO, but what does Firefox have to do with this. I'm not editing the firefox article at the moment, and this isn't a competition to see which browser can create the most spin-off articles. I'm trying to make the Opera web browser article as readable and well-organised as possible -- which includes documenting its features fully and accurately within the article about it.

We need to decide what this article is going to be: an article on the web browser (as its name suggests), or an article on the Opera suite with separate articles on its components. As it stands (and stood before I started editing it), it was neither. If it's an article about the web browser, then the article about its features should be merged in. If it is going to be separate articles on the components then some major reorgansing has to be done. - Motor (talk) 12:58, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Because splitting allow us to expand more about the history, features and criticisms of the browser. It is also more well organized. --minghong 17:20, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Image:MergedOperaArticle.jpg

A merged article will make the article too large.

Until Opera goes the way of Mozilla, and split their suite into separate products (eg. Firefox, Thunderbird, NVU, Sunbird, etc...) then that's when the article would focus directly on a component of the suite. But as far as I see, it's best if we summarize the features in a subsection, then go into detail on another article, as it is right now.

Not if you "merge" rather than dump the source text directly in. There is a huge amount of redundancy. I mean, the "Opera browser features" article contains information on the M2 mail client (which already has its own entry here *and* its own article). There is an entry for Tabs in this article, and one in "opera browser features" -- which adds absolutely nothing. Same goes for sessions. The Accessibilty entry here has far more detail than the two lines in "opera browser features". "Voice interaction" too. There are parts of "opera browser features" that are more like a howto than a wikipedia article (what are we doing documenting which keys to press for keyboard navigation, zooming and what the default mouse gestures are)... that's what opera's help system is for.

The "Opera browser features" article is the very definition of pointless. IMO, it should be merged in (and I'll be glad to do the work)... there's no point having redundant articles spread around... not only is it awkward for people looking things up (again, think printed version), it also requires information to be maintained in two places for no good reason. When (and more importantly if) we face the fortunate situation that someone adds enough history and detail that the article becomes too large, then we can look to split things up.

If I remember correctly, isn't the RSS, Usenet and Email all integrated into M2? If we were to separate the articles, it'll most likely be Opera (internet suite), Presto (layout engine), Opera (minibrowser), Opera (web browser), MultiTorg Opera, Opera Mini, and M2 (email client); all part of an Category:Opera Suite category, with Opera (internet suite) as the main article. --LBMixPro ^{(Speak on it!)} 18:32, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't see much point in Opera (minibrowser), or Opera Mini. Those belong as part of the browser article until they get too big. Right now there's no need for them. Even the pre-existing MultiTorg Opera is just a stub and a quote and should be merged.

Leaving,

which means to begin splitting things up, we'd only need to start with creating Opera (internet suite) and work from there. - Motor (talk) 21:29, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree, and I see your point. If we are to elaborate on features of the suite, might as well split the article into these four, then explain their features in each article. This will leave the main article open for functions around the suite as a whole, such as marketing strategies and crits. It'll evenually solve both a cleanup problem (redundancy, uneven focus on each component of the suite), as well as our merge problem. But as the article stands right now,it needs some cleanup. As you said, there's lots of redundancy, as well as some unencyclopediac statements. I'd write in a way that it'll be made for print, since there's a project which aims to have some of the best WP articles available for print, so I'd move any statements in the article such as "Release versions are available at: http://www.opera.com/download/" to the external links section. As well as some grammar fixes. Is there a more professional way to say "...application for dealing with many of the most common internet-related tasks..."?

Ok, I'll outline one view of how the set of articles should be structured,

Opera (internet suite)
- Introduction
- Components - list the parts that make up the suite with a brief description of each and a link to the article covering it.
- Origin - (which will be a copy/paste+clean up of the history section from Opera (web browser)
- Versions - possibly a table marking the date, version and major features of each release
Opera (web browser)
- Introduction - what is a web browser (simple description), how does it relate to Opera (internet suite), used in mobiles, smartphones, TVs etc etc
- Features - tabs, sessions, voice control, gestures etc
- Standards - CSS etc etc.
- Major Add-ins/Plugins?
- Opera Mini etc etc and how it is used in mobiles, small screen rendering etc etc
- Compatiblity - Yahoo, GMAIL, the MSN controversies.
M2 (email client)
Presto (layout engine)
- Introduction - what is it, how does it relate to the web browser
- Development - when did it start/who did it/why was a replacement for the old layout engine required/why is it separate from the browser
- Features - what does it offer (there will inevitably be some overlap with the web browser here)
- Licensees - who uses it (Adobe for a start)

Comments? - Motor (talk) 14:15, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

I've done a conversion to the ref/note system -- and collected all the sources together in a "notes" section. It's a tiresome finnicky job though and I'm sure to have made some errors and typos, so I'd appreciate anyone giving it a good check. However, I haven't verified whether the link provided originally actually backs up the claim made in the text. I also spotted a lot of POV language that needs redoing and plenty of copy that needs a good cleaning.

I've also made a start pruning ext links (starting with the official ones). We only need one link to my.opera.com. google groups isn't official, and isn't really needed anyway. the swim one million download challenge should be mentioned in the history and ref/noted (but I've left it for the time being). - Motor (talk) 09:18, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

I've culled down the external links a little more. I don't think we need more than the main fan collections. And the one Opera community web and IRC link. --jnothman ^talk 11:23, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Just a quick note... I removed the usb-opera ext link because there was no justification given for why it should be included. IMO that should be the basic requirement for adding ext links to any article. If the person who added it (or someone more tolerant) wants to make a convincing argument why it should be included, that's fine... but it's not for others to have to go hunting around figuring out why something added anonymously with no explanation should be included. You added it, you explain it (BTW: The site linked to needs a lot of work). Just adding an ext link with no explanation is how these articles turn into link farms. - Motor (talk) 10:55, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Merge disputed?

"Why are we merging when we are splitting"

Well, we may be splitting the article into internet suite, browser, mail and layout articles... but that doesn't affect Opera browser features -- that article remains completely redundant, and in large part, a poor quality copy of the information here. The idea behind the split was to remove the need for that article... we don't need any more spin-off articles just for the sake of it. - Motor (talk) 20:24, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

If that's the case, can we give it another template, other than merge. I would like to VFD it out of existence once we get these other articles together. Because each feature will be described in its own article. --LBMixPro ^{(Speak on it!)} 21:07, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, merge describes the process I'd planned to follow after waiting a couple of days to collect any more objections. Over a number of small edits, move (or remove the redundant) stuff into this article (allowing everyone to see what was happening) and when finished redirect the article here. Hence... the mergeto and mergefrom templates. A VFD would just be a waste of effort, and I doubt that clogging up the VFD process with it would be appreciated. - Motor (talk) 21:33, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

I find it bizarre that there exists an Opera browser features article - surely the Opera browser article is covering its history, features, and use. To my mind the only other article that might be justified is one about Opera ASA (the Norwegian corporation that creates Opera) and maybe, just maybe, a history article (a la History of Mozilla Firefox). Opera is a major business product used by millions of people, so it certainly deserves detailed coverage in Wikipedia. If the page were to become unmanagably large then it would make sense to split it. But it is not yet that large - and in fact could be smaller if a good cleanup were undertaken. El T 11:40, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

History and development

Around 1992, Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner and Geir Ivarsøy were part of a research group at the

That has annoyed me for quite a while, "Around 1992" is really vile... was it 1992, or 1991, or 1993... if we can't pin it down, we should replace it with "in the early nineties". Does anyone know for sure? - Motor (talk) 11:01, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

How about "the early 1990s"? --LBMixPro ^<Sp ^e ^ak|on|it!> 20:12, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, I'm not going to worry about it now. I posted a note asking for someone to provide a reliable source for the early history information, but no luck. So I'll be removing it tomorrow anyway, unless someone adds a ref overnight. - Motor (talk) 22:15, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Market share

I'm reading the gemius page, and I can't find a reference to Opera (admittedly this is possibly because I can't read Polish). The front page contains a table headed: "Przegl\u0105darki" which contains IE 6.x, Firefox and IE 5.x... someone needs to explain where the figure of 6.5% of the market (600,000 users) in Poland comes from (preferably in English, the language of the article), or I'm going to remove it. - Motor (talk) 13:22, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

So, what's needed is:

A source for the claim that StatMarket "is the primary source for international browser usage statistics.".
A source for the StatMarket quote

Can anyone help with this. Without at least some of this information I am probably going to remove the StatMarket historical share information completely.

Additionally this would be nice to add:

If StatMarket is "the primary source blah blah", then what do they rank Opera's market share as in 2005?
Some hard information on the market share of Opera on mobiles/PDAs etc etc
Information about whether the Opera still reports as IE by default. I'm sure I read somewhere that it was changed -- and if so, it would be useful to have some information on what happened to the market share after the default was changed.

- Motor (talk) 19:14, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

It still reported itself as IE in 8.5 by default. Not sure about 8.51. It's not supposed in 9.0 from what I've heard. It is possible to differentiate between IE and Opera; their signature is not identical. But you have to know to do so in advance.

Theshibboleth 21:28, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Market share #2

Quote: "As of October 2005, usage data gives Opera's share of the browser market as being between 0.2% and 1.2%."

These stats do not seem to take into account many European countries where Opera has more than five per cent market share. If these are US stats (as they seem to be), they should be stated as such. - Pompoms 17 December 2005

MultiTorg Opera

... is a stub article and a quote. I've merged in the useful information. In five days I will redirect it here unless someone either expands the MultiTorg Opera article considerably, or gives a give good reason why it should be a separate article (given that it states it was never publicly available). - Motor (talk) 11:36, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

The article has now been redirected. - Motor (talk) 12:06, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

History

We need reliable sources for the facts in the history section, or they'll have to go. Anyone want to step up and provide them? And ideally, something to fill in the gaping 8 year gap... - Motor (talk) 19:10, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Opera and Links

HOW COME OPERA SEES EVERY LINK ON WIKIPEDIA AS AN EXTERNAL LINK???? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.154.99.210 (talk • contribs) 11:10, November 14, 2005

Which version of Opera are you using? Opera 8 works fine with me, but Opera 9 beta has a bug with it's rendering engine which has an effect on the way it shows links based on URL. Check the link here. [2]. Also, this is a place to talk about the articles of Opera. You might get better support answers at Opera's community forums. --LBMixPro ^<Sp ^e ^ak|on|it!> 05:36, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Standards

With bolded comments.

Version 7.0 introduced the faster and more powerful Presto layout engine what's a layout engine? It needs explaining what it is and why it matters... and preferably a source for when it was introduced. Opera introduced a completely new browser, which supports the standards of the older Elektra layout engine and has almost full support for the HTML DOM should have some explanation of what it doesn't support, possibly in an endnote. The ECMAScript engine, a major failing in previous versions, is now the fastest of any web browser. I removed this. You need to provide a reliable source for this claim.

I know you don't like pipes and such, but this is the best time to use one. It's easier for the layout engine article to explain itself, unless we add one sentence to briefly explain it, such as: "The release of version 7.0 improved the rendering of web pages to support better standards using a new layout engine called Presto." of course, you can improve it. --LBMixPro ^<Sp ^e ^ak|on|it!> 19:59, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't mind pipes at all, as long as they are used when appropriate. However, all that's different in this version is a separated "layout engine" and "Presto layout engine" and the addition of "rendering web pages". Naturally it's easier to let the layout engine article explain itself, but that's not what writing a good article is about, this article needs to read well alone. We should be explaining the basics in here... we don't have to go into technical details, just explain what it is and what job it does, and why it's something that requires a mention in the article. IMO, we should be avoiding things like "rendering web pages" -- I know it just rolls off the keyboard for technology geeks (I do it myself all the time), but it's horrible technobabble. Incidentally, this brings up another subject -- the Presto layout engine article is a rubbish stub... anyone want to improve it? - Motor (talk) 20:33, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, what would be a layman's term for it? "the way the program displays web pages". And one other problem is how web standards do not matter to those outside the web design community. To the general public, all they see is a web page. They aren't concerned about how it's done, as long as it's done. But I think we should talk about what makes layout engines different from each other, and why.

Well, what would be a layman's term for it? "the way the program displays web pages". You could start by explaining that web pages are a description of how the page should be displayed on your computer. That it's a complex business and has evolved into certain standards (a term we don't bother to explain at the moment) over the years and a number of pieces of software have emerged: gecko, the IE layout engine and the one used in Opera (Presto). About how Opera takes this "layout engine" and provides visible controls for which web pages it should display, and how it's available seperately for use in other software, such as Adobe's stuff. [this bit might be better in a section describing how Opera works]

Once you've laid the groundwork, you can give a basic explanation of CSS (or perhaps gloss over it as an CSS is an important standard for defining how a web page should look) -- you could then mention that one the inventors of this important standard is an Opera employee (and preferably why that is important too). They aren't concerned about how it's done, as long as it's done. You mean someone coming to Wikipedia curious about Opera isn't interested in a basic description of how it works?

No, but I was thinking about the nearly-computer-illiterate end users who will use opera and say "How come this page looks good in IE, but it looks like crap in Opera? Opera's broken, and I'm going back to IE." --LBMixPro ^<Sp ^e ^ak|on|it!> 21:39, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

If the layout engine is mentioned here it should be explained what it is and what it does in as non-technical but informative way as possible. There is already an article about the Presto layout engine which can go into more technical details if necessary, but it's a central part of Opera so explaining what role is plays is important -- particularly if we are to have a standards section. But I think we should talk about what makes layout engines different from each other, and why. I'm not interested in seeing the article fill up with stuff about what Opera's layout engine does/doesn't do compared to others, if that's what you mean. This isn't a "Comparison of" article, it's an article about Opera. - Motor (talk) 11:27, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

There's no need for comparisons, since there's already an article for it. I was looking toward a simple explaination that Opera doesn't depend on other rendering engines, since it uses its own. It would also help to know why it uses it's own engine when similar browsers like Avant Browser don't. --LBMixPro ^<Sp ^e ^ak|on|it!> 21:39, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

IE 7 = The Phantom of Opera?

Ouch. Are there more confidential news sources?

Update: Opera recently confirmed that Microsoft has not approached the browser maker and there is no active acquistion deal between the two companies currently - from your link. Microsoft wouldn't touch Opera. --LBMixPro ^<Sp ^e ^ak|on|it!> 20:26, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Opera.com would probably mention being owned by Microsoft if it were true. --Evice 00:36, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Market share #3

Opera is always identified -- as this shows

This information is very outdated. UA.ini is not even mentioned. UA.ini settings of 5 or 6 will COMPLETELY hide Opera. To overcome malicious targetting Opera has to ship with a cloak for many blocking websites by default, some of them huge ones which are used by "browser stat" sites.
Even if someone can take extreme steps to remove that ID, then I still don't see how that can be a reason for undercounting

You don't think that not seeing a browser at all will lead to it being undercounted? Weird...
There is no evidence to suggest that Opera is undercounted by the web stats sites. If you have some, provide it. Just including vague claims that the stats are wrong is not good enough. - Motor (talk) 13:39, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

The main reason Opera is undercounted is not that it hides itself completely, but that Opera consistently uses less connections to retreive data than MSIE and Firefox. For example, both MSIE and Firefox prefetch data: on visiting many sites these browsers will access many resources in the hope that this will speed up browsing if the user choses to visit these next sites. Especially sites that use links with the rel="next" and rel="prev" relationships will be subject to this overcounting. Jordi·✆ 12:15, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Just in case there's any doubt -- this (above) is for discussing the questions over market share stats. I repeat: there is no reliable evidence to suggest that Opera is undercounted (note: even if you can with extreme effort cloak the UA string)... suggesting that it is without providing reliable evidence is just misinformation. If you can provide a reliable source showing that it is undercounted... fine... otherwise, your additions are not justified. - Motor (talk) 23:27, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Another topic not even mentioned is that Opera actually has close to 6% market share in Europe and (parts of) Asia. The 1% is because a) most stat sites are based in the US, b) most tracked sites are US-en based, and c) Opera has very little adoption in the US compared to the ROTW. Jordi·✆ 12:15, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

See http://virtuelvis.com/archives/2005/05/statistics-nonsense for some more information. It is very easy to duplicate the tests given there and come to your own conclusions. Jordi·✆ 12:24, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

You don't think that not seeing a browser at all will lead to it being undercounted? Weird...'

As I made clear, and as your link showed, you have to take extreme steps to do it. The idea that this leads to significant undercounting is complete nonsense. In addition, adding claims that *web stats services* (which is where the figure we quote comes from) don't count Opera even though it is clearly identified is pretty bold -- it requires a certain level of incompetence from them... and to add it to this article you need a very reliable source.

Had you read the talk page first, you would have seen this mentioned before. You can add in usage data from Europe/parts of Asia if you like, but it has to be from a reliable source. Handwaving hype isn't good enough.

http://virtuelvis.com/archives/2005/05/statistics-nonsense

Is a blog entry and pure heavily disputed opinion... no different from what you posted here (and on top of that it in no way supports the claim that Opera is undercounted compared to other browsers because of caching). We need *reliable* sources for information added to Wikipedia. What you keep adding is practically disinformation meant to suggest that the market share quoted is "probably" wrong. If it is wrong, *fine* but you need to provide realiable sources to show that this is the case -- not just assertions. If you keep adding unsourced claims, I will keep removing them. - Motor (talk) 12:43, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Being able to completely mask the UA string with a relatively complex method that only one or two people use does not significantly alter the market share statistics of Opera. Other browsers can probably do this too, i wouldnt be suprised if there was a firefox extension for such a thing.
However, i do agree with one point made on this page: that Opera caches pages more, so less hits are made to the web servers. -- jeffthejiff (talk) 14:35, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

But the tracking sites measure vistors (different IPs), not hits. This "caching" business is a point that has been made and debunked many times. To the best of my knowledge, Opera's caching makes no difference to how it is counted -- this is quite apart from the fact that I've never seen any real information on how Opera's cache is somehow "more efficient". It's just a claim that's thrown around whenever the subject of market share comes up. At the very least, it would take something a lot more substantial than a blog post that simply reiterates the same old stuff before I would consider including it. Indeed, this "caching " point is made in the blog post comments -- the blogger then dodges the issue by claiming to be talking about statistics in general... and that a proxy will hide lots of users making stats unreliable. A fair point, but moving away from his initial claim that Opera is undercounted... as this will undercount all browsers, not just Opera. It comes back to the simple point that there is no evidence that Opera is undercounted, and including it in the article without a reliable and respected source to back it up is simply disinformation.

As for the market share figures themselves. We quote Usage share of web browsers -- if anyone has problems with the figures, they should be arguing it out there really. - Motor (talk) 15:08, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh yeah, i didnt think of it measuring the IPs rather than the hits. Oh well, I have no quarrels with the market share quotes of Opera though or whatever. They're probably not 100% accurate, but its the best indication we've got and its industry standard to use such quotes. -- jeffthejiff (talk) 15:52, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Will you listen for once? WITHOUT ANY TWEAKING NECESSARY OPERA COMES CONFIGURED WITH UA.INI IN PLACE FOR A NUMBER OF WEBSITES. Jordi·✆ 17:18, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Which websites? You are throwing around claims that you cannot justify. I keep reverting the article back to a simple statement of market share as quoted from Usage share of web browsers. I'm not going to let you include unproven claims here. Let me make this perfectly clear: You haven't provided any evidence to justify a conclusion that Opera is undercounted -- and adding the weasel word "probably" doesn't help. The most you have done is *claim* that there are small number of websites configured in newer versions of Opera to report *WITHOUT* an Opera ID at all -- and exactly like IE/Mozilla's user agent. How do you know this has affected the stats on Usage of web browsers? You don't. The rest of the claims made in your addition were also unsourced (Europe/Asia share), have been debunked (or at the vert least are the subject of considerable controversy) such as the caching business.

At the moment, it's a grand total of 22 websites, based on the current contents of ua.ini (install Opera 8.51, then run help/Check for Updates and look for the file.) With a value of 4 it will pretend to be Mozilla and hide Opera completely (14 sites, mainly banks plus ebay.com, mac.com, and gettyimages.com), and a value of 5 will pretend to be MSIE and hide Opera completely (8 sites including slate.com, scandinavian.net, msn.co.jp, and a few banks). Values of 0, 1, 2 or 3 all include "Opera" in the identification[3]. While Ebay and Slate are probably high-profile, I doubt that they skew the stats as much as some people suggest. --Kelson 18:55, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

It's now reaching the stage where I'm simply going to advise you to take your argument to Usage of web browsers... let them argue with you over usage data. When/if you manage to convince them that Opera is undercounted, we can include the revised figures here. NOTE: If you want to include stats that show, as you claim, Opera has a much larger base in Europe/Asia -- this is fine, *if* you provide a reliable source for those figures.

Just because it is a blog it does not mean it is unrealible. Mozilla fanboys treat "the Asa blog as the bible, after all. Jordi·✆ 17:18, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Just because it is a blog does not make it reliable enough to use as a source for your claims on Wikipedia. And what does Mozilla have to do with this? If the Firebird/Mozilla article is abusing sources in the same way you are, then I suggest you go over there and do the same thing I am doing here... making sure that unreliably (un)sourced stuff is kept out of Wikipedia. - Motor (talk) 17:42, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Removal of the Market adoption section

If you claim the figures are misleading, take it up with Usage share of web browsers. The section quotes that article... it will also include the places where Opera is used heavily (mobile phones) and where it's technology is used in other applications. Incidentally, it would be nice to have more detail on Opera's share of the mobile market. - Motor (talk) 17:59, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

The problem here is that Opera has 5+ per cent market share in many European countries, so what are we supposed to believe? - Pompoms 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd quibble with the "many" part of that statement as being vague and possibly extending the Poland figures without justification. Putting that aside, I'm not sure why you see this is a problem. Global share is 0.2 to 0.9... in Poland it has managed to reach 5%. These two pieces of information are not contradictory. Which brings up another point: this assumes that the ranking.pl website quoted is reliable. We really need English language references.- Motor (talk) 22:25, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

It is VERY reliable. Gemius (the owner of ranking.pl) is the biggest Polish stats provider. Their stats "catch" about 10 milions of Polish web browser USERS (identified by cookies) every week from various pages. They also operate in a few other central/east european countries: Czech Republic http://www.rankings.cz/, Lithuania http://www.ranking.lt/ and Ukraine http://www.ranking.com.ua/

Motor, you can find some information about the company in english here: http://www.gemius.com/English/index.php

Some of their clients are listed here: http://www.gemius.com/English/sub.php?id=ofirmie_ref&idm=ofirmie (most of the biggest Polish portals / services etc. etc.)

Wish list - IE quick tabs

IE 7 quick tabs is damn good. It's everybody's wishlist(I love it).

Many said they will go back to IE again as long as Opera 9 doesn't provide this new Amazing feature.

Other browsers using Presto

The Wiki article lists EPOC products inclucing the Psion Series 7 and netBook as using presto but in fact they shipped with either Opera 3.62 (the first completed port for any platform to emerge from Project Magic) or Opera 5.1x (Elektra) as an extra on a CD in addition to the standard EPOC browser that was often in ROM. None of them had Small Screen Rendering.

Older Symbian communicators, Series 60 phones and UIQ mediaphones shipped with Opera 6 (Elektra), and the first releases of Opera 6 for the Nokia Communicator didn't have SSR as we know it either. There was also a cut down version of Opera 6 licensed to Motorola for a Symbian product after SSR came along that had SSR and some other features removed. It's only in the last couple of years, by which time the 'EPOC' brand had been dropped, that modern Symbian devices have shipped with Presto, be it as a free copy of Opera 7 on the accompanying CD or an unbranded version of Opera 7/8 that forms part of the device's default Internet suite (the mail client comes from Symbian, not Opera). I'm also not too sure about the Sharp Zaurus SL-5000D, which originally shipped with Opera 5. I know some later Zaurus models came with Opera 6 and some SL5000 users upgraded to that version though I'm not sure if there was an official ROM upgrade that included the new Opera or if it was unofficial versions 'borrowed' from the newer Zaurus ROMs.

I'm not sure how people would like the wiki page modified to reflect the above, if at all. This is the first time I've read the entry to be honest!

If you can find yourself a source to cite for the above information, you should just go ahead and change it and note where it came from. - Motor (talk) 23:28, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

About the new Criticism section

Criticism

While the point about minor updates is a valid one, I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere. The problem with pages non-compliant to W3C standards is mentioned elswhere in the article. I'm tempted to revert the change, but as a passionate Opera user I'd like to hear other people's opinions. - Discombobulator ^talk 21:04, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned, the section can go altogether. It adds nothing that isn't already in the compatiblity section... and the bit about updates is trivial. Quite apart from that, I dislike "Criticism" sections generally... any criticisms can be dealt with in the copy of the relevant section of the article... a criticism section just encourages people to add, well, crap. - Motor (talk) 22:50, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

"While the point about minor updates is a valid one, I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere." So why it could be in Criticisms of Mozilla Firefox article for several months/years and why it could be there even now? I think this critic is objective because size of updates or new verisons of Opera - (number of updates/upgrades) x ~ 4 MB against ~ 5 MB + (number of updates/upgrades) x ~ 0.5 MB (Firefox). "The problem with pages non-compliant to W3C standards is mentioned elswhere in the article." I think that this problem should be there, because it is consistent with same section in Mozilla Firefox article." If not, so there should not be in Mozilla Firefox article. Maybe this issues shloud be discussed on [4] too. --Ptomes 16:53, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

We're not making this article to match Firefox, we're making it to be an article for itself. If Firefox is criticised, it doesn't have to mean Opera's criticized for it too (even if logic would dictate otherwise). Unless you provide sources, I'd call that original research. The [Firefox] article doesn't have a Competibility section, does it mean we should remove it from Opera's? The W3C problems are already perfectly well listed and explained there. - Discombobulator ^talk 19:48, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Criticism is fine, if it's sourced properly, valid and informative. Explaining Opera's compatiblity problems is fine, in the correct section. However, I disagree with having a criticism section by itself because it just becomes a dumping ground for people with a gripe to add one line of whining. As for comparing this article to the Firefox one... not relevant as far as I'm concerned. IMO, the Firefox article shouldn't have a separate criticism section either, let alone an entire criticism article... but since I'm not editing that article at the moment, I'll leave that upto to someone else. - Motor (talk) 20:51, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Internet Suite

We've been over this sort of ground before... Internet Suite tells the reader nothing. Expecting them to click on a link to find out basic information is not good article writing, for a start you have to consider those who are reading printed versions too -- check the style guidelines for some examples. This opening paragraph has to tell the reader what Opera is, and what it does in a simple and clear way. If you can suggest a better opening paragraph, that's fine... but if you put this back to "Internet Suite" again, I will simply remove it... again. - Motor (talk) 16:51, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I just moved the article back. Such a move should be discussed here first, obviously. --Conti|✉ 20:12, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

About deletion

I've recently deleted the section about the "Adobe CS2 and Dreamweaver MX" as well as the "Other software using presto engine"

The former section is irrelevant and is already in the Presto article. The latter section is not correct at all, some software actually use the Elektra engine instead.

I think the idea was to cover the whole Opera suite in this article, and if things got too big... then consider splitting it up. I'd rather see Presto (layout engine), and the awful M2 (e-mail_client) article brought into this one until that happens. As for the whingefest Criticisms of Opera, I'd like to see that axed along with Criticisms of Mozilla Firefox and Criticisms of Internet Explorer they add absolutely nothing of value to Wikipedia... they exist only provide a outlet for moans-of-the-minute from frustrated zealots and trolls. I've said this with regard to other articles too, including KDE and GNOME. Including criticisms in an article is fine (if valid)... but there is no need for a seperate Criticism section -- let alone an entire article -- as they both just encourage people to add crap (usually by including a link to some whining on a mailing list about a bug), rather than build up the article(s) by weaving relevant information into it. Usually they just end up in flamewars and feature comparisons. See Criticisms of Mozilla Firefox for a classic example. It's got a diffrent sections for zealots of each alternative browser to have a go at it. - Motor (talk) 16:40, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Infobox 2

I've said all this before on various articles, but: IMO, Infobox 2 solves no problems, ont he contrary it causes them. It complicates editing version numbers by making it unlike editing anything else. Arguments that it avoids having to change version numbers in more than one place simply don't justify it... at best it is a sledge hammer to crack a nut. At worst, it is adds a layer of complexity and template tricks which confuse newbies (not to mention including a big "DO NOT EDIT THIS PAGE" comment as the first thing any newbie sees when editing the page)... and all for no good reason. Along the same lines, Preview versions just aren't important enough to be in an infobox -- for the same reason why I wouldn't use a preview screenshot in the infobox (unlike including preview details and discussion in the article body... where it would be welcome). The infobox is there to deliver the relevant information quickly... and preview versions just aren't relevant for most people. - Motor (talk) 16:12, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Of course it solves a problem, the problem of the person editing this infobox not editing the other places the version number appears in. Perhaps you could create an Infobox 3 template that solves all problems, and we could use that. Until then, I suggest using the less problematic Infobox 2 to resolve the problem of contradictory information. -- Schapel 03:24, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Why would I create yet another redundant "Infobox" when the first InfoBox already does the job? As I explained above -- Infobox 2 solves no real problems. It was originally introduced so that edits to version numbers don't show up in the page history. I have no idea why anyone thought this was a good idea, since edits are suppposed to be what page history shows. As for the matter of version numbers in different places: "Infobox 2" just creates problems by complicating editing and confusing new editors for, at best, a minor reason that could be solved with a simple HTML comment. How many other places is the exact current version number and date of Opera useful? I'd guess it's probably one place Comparison of web browsers. And because of that, the editors want to force a complicated un-Wiki system that actively discourages new editors on the editors of other articles. Wikipedia isn't a relational database and abusing templates won't make it one -- nor is it even required. I'm sorry, but Infobox 2 is just unnecessarily complicated and over the top solution to a very minor issue. That's why I removed it from the other articles I edit too and will continue to do so until someone gives a good reason why I shouldn't. - Motor (talk) 08:47, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Footnotes

Not long ago I converted the article to the note/ref template system to clean up the links used as references within the article body. A new system is now available to make this simpler and avoid orphaned or misordered footnotes Wikipedia:Footnotes. It's more straightforward, and the references are embedded in the text right next to the place they are used. I've converted a few articles already myself... but I'll not get around to this one for a while. Does anyone feel like doing it themselves? It's easy enough, but you do have to ensure that the information is converted correctly, and fix any mistakes in the original note/ref system (misordering and the like). Thanks. - Motor (talk) 11:26, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Done... at least I think so. I've checked it myself, but with this sort of thing it's easy to overlook errors. I would appreciate someone else checking it too. NOTE: The source for "1996: The first public release was Opera 2.1 for Windows, released as shareware" was given as the BBC's community edited HHGTTG, but this isn't a reliable source as far as I'm concerned. Unless I'm mistaken, it doesn't cite where it got that bit of info from. I've remove the cite and replaced it with a "fact" template for the time being. - Motor (talk) 16:07, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Original research

This edit, while well-meant is original research, I'm afraid.. So I've reverted it until a reliable source to cite can be found. - Motor (talk) 19:35, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

External links

I removed quite a few external links, and I thought I should explain why. First, I don't think Wikipedia should be linking to unofficial packages of Opera (the click and run one, and the USB version). Second, news/fan sites: I've cut it back down to one... more in line with the guidelines regarding ext links. - Motor (talk) 12:10, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

As I said above. I don't think Wikipedia should be linking to unoffical builds of Opera. As for the category "Portable Applications", I have less objection to that... but the name is confusing. "Portable apps" seem to be a bit of a neologism (although technology is full of these anyway)... the name "portable application" suggests and application designed to be portable in the computer science sense... while true about Opera, it is quite misleading. - Motor (talk) 20:50, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Extant MSN Problems?

We need a reliable source that states that MSN still sends faulty CSS to browsers IDing themselves as Opera. I know it's true (I tested it) but I can't add it because it violates WP:NOR. --M1ss1ontomars2k4 04:00, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the verify tag because the article, in it's current state, is "right"... in that it is quoting a source. That doesn't mean you are wrong, just that the article as it stands is verified. See WP:VERIFY "Verifiability, not truth:

"Verifiability" in this context does not mean that editors are expected to verify whether, for example, the contents of a New York Times article are true. In fact, editors are strongly discouraged from conducting this kind of research, because original research may not be published in Wikipedia. Articles should contain only material that has been published by reliable sources, regardless of whether individual editors view that material as true or false. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth."

Can anyone help him with a reliable reference to show that MSN is still sending faulty CSS to browsers IDing themselves as Opera so it can be updated? - Motor (talk) 19:48, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Screenshot change?

Should we change the sshot to 9.0? I can do that, if needed. --M1ss1ontomars2k4 | T | C | @ 05:56, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Opera 9.0's shot is already featured lower in the article. It should be featured as the main screenshot once it's an actual release. --LBMixPro ^<Sp ^e ^ak|on|it!> 07:34, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

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