I wonder if it's something as simple as the name 'Opera' (why?) Having said that Firefox and Chrome are pretty lousy names too, it doesn't seem to have done them any harm.
Opera seems to face the chicken and egg problem. Many websites that are specifically optimized for some browsers don't work on Opera. They don't consider opera for its low user numbers. And users are not not easily attracted to a feature rich browser where some sites don't work. I've used Opera for many years but when they had a bit of a buggy release (I think it was around Opera 10) I switched to Chrome, albeit with some sad feelings (I miss fast forward the most).
Just some days ago I tried to sign up to Hulu on my wife's macbook and suddenly the input fields didn't work anymore. It's probably a bit of an outdated version (10.x), but still.
I had a whole host of problems with the 10.x line. My PowerPC cried when I updated from an earlier version. It certainly felt like beta software.
Looks like they are back on track. I like the renaming of the upcoming release. A little sad to see Unite go. Perhaps it wasn't the right time - it always looked like a bit of a security nightmare.
I never understood what they wanted to do with Unite. A browser might also be a good E-Mail client, but an OS? As long as you can't boot directly into it like Chrome OS, it doesn't make much sense IMO.
I really like the idea of having a server running in your browser (providing it being secure!) NAT and firewalls, and non 24/7 up time being a problem, but not a show stopper.
Open services should be easily accessible/usable in the OS layer and across networks, but I guess they currently aren't - without some skill.
If I take my laptop around someone's house and want to share a few files - how easy is this? If I want to just play some tunes, or a video from my laptop on someone else's PC or set top, how trivial is it? Not very. At least not for the mythical average user.
A decentralised web sounds good to me also. And lowering the barriers to web publishing where you have control over the content in my eyes is a good thing.
Unite though feels like a component that could live happily outside of the browser (again ideally in the OS layer). The email client could be standalone also. Unless they want to go the Chrome OS way.
Yeah Opera had a bad patch then. I think it was because they started to integrate with the native OS desktops.
I remember trying to sign up to ebay - I had to move through three different browsers - then swap Operating system and move over to Internet Explorer - because of some weird bugs!
That's not poking a hole at any of the other browsers, but it's to say that quirks can be found in all of them (even if that's through fault of the page author.) Under those circumstances it's just easier to move over to another browser.
