Opera browser, what happened?

What the heck happened to the Opera browser? I reinstalled windows, and installed the newest Opera and it has become a Chrome copy.
Where are all the options?

I've been using Opera since the 56K days mainly because it allowed me to customize the interface. Strangely enough, I prefer all my tabs at the bottom of the screen. I also have my buttons setup to browse a little more efficiently.

 

We are in the same boat.
I hate when they changed to a Chrome clone.
I had my speedial and everything that made Opera by browser is almost gone.
I keep a 12.06 version of Opera running,just to have back all the things i liked about Opera.

 

Apparently many people are upset from what I see.

I just installed/reinstalled the last five versions haha...still haven't found the last old skool version.

 

here you have http://www.filehippo.com/en/download_opera/15472/

 

thanks for the warning, Opera has been asking me to update for the past 5 months and i've been ignoring it, hate the Chrome interface

 

Give this a try,
http://www.opera64bit.com/download/international/Opera_1216_int_Setup_x64.exe
It's version 12.16, to my knowledge the last version before they moved to blink. Certainly the last version they made of x64, which is actually pretty fast and stable.

 

Opera looks more like Firefox than it does Chrome..... At least it did the last time I used it.

 

Firefox will be doing the same with Australis.

 

Still using Opera 12.16 here as well. I dont like their new Chrome copy.

Are they changing their engine as well or this is just a interface refresh only.

 

Alright got ver12 installed.
[Find] is my most useful button haha.


This is how my Opera is usually setup. I prefer my tabs on the bottom because I think it's faster that way when everything is in one area. Now I have to go bookmark sites again...

 

If you are wondering what this is all about,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blink_(layout_engine)
tldr; a fork of webkit called blink was/is being developed in a joint effort by both companies.

 

ah what the hell....Lets toss out all the hard work we have done in the past decade and simplify our layout...

 

Just the UI.

 

Not completly 100% true - Mozilla goes the same approach now as compared with Google or Opera - That design is more worthy as functions.

Therefor Firefox customizability functions get in a massive way removed and pushed to add-on authors. Who wants customizability in Firefox have to add for example the new add from Aris. But not only that, Mozilla seems to think also to reduce the value of xul in future versions and who made the Australis survey they see that Mozilla asks also users about the amount of how many use stuff like full themes or the userchrome.css, which is not a good sign if Mozilla starts asking such questions

There are no custom toolbars, no seperate navigation elements, no addon bar anymore. You can not move nav bar elements to the tab bar, no small icons, tabs on bottom is also removed.

If you believe Firefox is safe haven, think twice. They also have the long term wish to become another Chrome The problem is also alternative Gecko based browsers like Seamonkey, Pale Moon or Cyberfox may switch to that new design which will bring all that limitations, it is called Australis.

Once we had Firefox, Opera, IE, Chrome... Now it is only Chrome, Chrome clones and IE... A sad developement in my eyes. Thinking heavily that i will switch to the Otter-Browser which aim it is to recreate features of old Opera 12.16 customizability functions. But be aware, it is still very very alpha so far. But that is the best bet if you want a future browser with customizability.

Or you could also try Qupzilla. Midori is also a chance, but only for not Windows people, since the Windows Midori is rather unstable.

 

I quite doubt Pale Moon would follow Australis UI.

SeaMonkey to Firefox is akin to Netscape Communicator was to Navigator.
It's just a 'suite' with a vanilla Firefox browser tucked-in.
Cyberfox and Waterfox are just recompiled versions using different compiler optimizations using the same base code.
Pale Moon, however, has an extensively modified base to just incorporate the newest rendering/JS engine along with relevant security updates, but manages to keep the functionality of the 'original' Firefox UI intact.

Here's an interesting thread to read through.
It's 10+ pages, but it really shows Pale Moon's stance regarding Australis, and the dev basically says that Pale Moon is already a fork, just with a high-compatibility with Firefox add-ons.
Due to that, he can just implement Blink engine (for example) while maintaining the original Firefox UI functionality if Mozilla decides to kill Firefox off in the future.
Of course everything still remains to be seen, but at least the dev has given his word on it.

 

I know that already. Have taken quite a deep look into Pale Moon and Cyberfox.

It is also not really true anymore that Cyberfox is just a straight recompile, since that guys do add some new features and also have restored the old download manager which Mozilla has killed recently to come again closer to Chrome/Chromium.

But all that is a different thing compared to manage a complete different UI. The code complexity of something like that is not easy to manage. For that you have to own a much more deeper knowledge of the Firefox code base and that needs also serious manpower and time, and i do not believe that the Pale Moon Dev is able to keep up with that.

To maintain the old UI or a custom UI with each new Firefox code base beyond Australis you need a very long process of optimizing and bug fixing and code rewriting, because after Australis things will be completly different and the old UI code will be completly incompatible with the new Gecko versions and the Pale Moon Dev or also the Cyberfox Dev if he wants to try too will be facing serious problems.

Another point is the addon and theme compatibility. Even if it would be possible to maintain an old UI or a custom remade UI, fewer and fewer addons or full themes will work then with this modified Browsers.

I guess what will more likely happen is that the Pale Moon dev will switch to Australis and put Aris addon in the browsers core or at least parts of the code to be able to maintain removed customizability. He did also something like that to keep the statusbar function - a modified status 4-Evar version is inside Pale Moon's core. Nothing against that methode, because Pale Moon would still be playing in a way better league as compared with an Australis Firefox because Moonchild has also added other removed customizability functions back to his product.

But we will see. Anyway, since the complexity of an UI is really a league of each own, i still do not think that these guys will be able in maintaining the oldskool look without this add-ons help and if they refuse in doing so we will end with 2 other Chrome look-alike and work-alike browsers.

Sadly it is also wrong that it is simply being possible just to switch to the Blink engine. Take a look at Opera, again too much work and time consuming so that even an organization like that decided that it is more time and work saving to just trash the old engine with the customizability and just do what is more reasonable in such a situation, starting again from zero, even if the result of that process is a browser with only few customizations.

What will be an interesting thing is that for example the Slimboat/Slimbrowser makers have recently announced that they plan a fully customizable browser based on Chromium. If they succeed or if the Otter Browser project survives, this 2 will be the way to go in the future.

But Opera and Firefox.. Customizability with these 2 browsers... it is over more or less.

 

I've been using opera since the beginning, I even paid for it years ago, I still use it but I'm beginning to wonder why with its uniqueness going by the wayside.

 

2 words only.. Google Chrome... I consider it the ruin of the Browserworld. All other browser developers got so impressed by the amount of users which are drown to Chrome so it sees only natural that all others are cloning as much as possible to gain a similiar experience.

What all other browser creators do forget is that nothing beats variation. If all browsers do look the same, why not using the original which has started the trend first and is still unbeaten at it.

And on the second side of the coin.. i think the money which Google gives Opera and Mozilla is for sure not only for search integration into the browsers, Google company is no angel and they do not like competition, so it is only natural to influence the competition in a way that they become more close to Chrome. Pisses the original Mozilla and Opera users off and where do most of them wander.. to Chrome...

 

The reason why Chrome has a huge amount of downloads is because of them bombarding all freeware softwares with a chrome download. Now days if you download even Java, it asks if you want to install chrome, majority of the people just click yes to everything and so end up with Chrome. Hate chrome, keeps tracking you.