Review of CNet
Originally posted on Sunday, May 22, 2005
CNet seems to like to turn a harsh eye on Opera, but does it critique hold up?
I don't think it does, and I'm willing to bet you won't either once you look closer.
Reader's Rating of CNet's reporting on Opera: 6.0
The Good: Well, I didn’t find any typos
The Bad: Obvious slant and bias towards Firefox, hypocritical view of ads
What’s it for: Technology articles
Who’s it for: People who want bite-sized opinions given to them without the weight of too many facts or impartial reviewing
Business news: Executives may appreciate short, simple articles, unless they were hoping for some sort of actual investigation
The Bottom Line: CNet is clearly enamored with Firefox because it’s free and has extensions, or Internet Explorer because everyone uses it
Here are the first few lines:
Line 1: If you don't mind paying for Web browser features found nowhere else, Opera 8's the browser for you. [two lines of review: 7.0 editor’s rating, 8.3 readers’ rating] The good: Customizable interface; built-in RSS reader and mail client; pop-up stopper.
So far so good, but then this:
The bad: Only paid browser on the market; weak technical support.
Well there’s a serious flaw there. First of all, OmniWeb is another paid browser that is on the market. Safari and Internet Explorer only come with recent versions of their respective operating systems. The latest version of Internet Explorer only runs on Windows XP, and the latest version of Safari only runs on Panther and Tiger. Microsoft had said that there would not be another standalone version of IE, then said there will be, but hasn’t said what versions it will support. My guess is XP and maybe 2000.
So in reality, Firefox is the exception as a truly free browser.
As a paid browser, Opera has always been on the cutting edge of browser innovation and was once considered the best alternative to Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (IE 6) until Mozilla Firefox came along. Still, Opera 8 offers a few features found in neither IE nor Firefox. If you're an early adopter, you won't mind paying. For the rest of us, however, there are better free alternatives to IE, namely Firefox.
If this were a college paper, I would expect that the review would be given an “F” for this line alone. Why? Well, when I went to college, my professors would have required that some sort of argument or evidence or some kind of support be given for a statement such as why Firefox is better. Is price really the only consideration? Is it the most important? I would argue that it isn’t. And unlike CNet, I’ll give my reasons.
If price were the only consideration, CNet ought to be saying that we should use Wordpad to Word, and FreeBSD or Linux to Windows. I haven’t seen them say that. Why? Because there are other considerations, such as ease of use and productivity.
If you are in a corporate setting and using Internet Explorer, you have to take into consideration time lost due to security issues, obviously. Patching the latest hole every few weeks takes time. Are you paying your IT staff? Compare that time spent versus the cost of Opera.
What about Firefox? Well, you either need to restrict users ability to load extensions or worry about security issues or conflicts. How many users are using how many extensions? Are they going to break with the next release? Is there going to be a new one that breaks an existing one? When someone reports a problem, how many different variations of the browser and extensions are you going to have to troubleshoot?
Realistically, I suspect many places will restrict the ability to load extensions, or they should, or they won’t provide tech support for them except in their default state. So users are going to be on their own for support. Or your IT staff is going to have to spend time trying to debug them.
Comparatively, with Opera your users get the features they need built-in, all installations are the same, and if you need it, the cost of official tech support is built-in. (CNet had some things to say about Opera’s tech support, which we’ll address later.)
A free version of Opera also exists, but it includes a small advertising banner across the top of the browser window. As adware goes, the Opera banners are innocuous. Still, with screen real estate at a premium, we didn't like the added distraction at the top the page.
Absolutely! How dare they! Screen real estate is VERY IMPORTANT and NO ONE OUGHT TO ABUSE IT WITH SOMETHING LIKE AN AD.
Hopefully CNet will read this review and mend their ways, because they have (*GASP* *SHOCK* *HORROR*) a huge banner ad at the top of their review page:
![[CNet banner ad, 728 pixels by 90 pixels]](/images/cnet-top-ad.jpg)
I can’t imagine how this slipped by. Oh, and they also split the ad up over five pages so you get to load all the useless (that is, unrelated to the actual article) HTML 5 times. Or you could try the printer friendly version which certainly wouldn’t have ads, right? Wrong. Same image appears there too.
Other sites, such as Wired, which also shows ads on the “printer friendly” pages, are smart enough to make the ads disappear when the “printer friendly” page is actually printed.
As Jesus (sorta) said: “You hypocrit, first take the ads out of your own website before you criticize someone else for their ads.”
Like Firefox, Opera offers tabbed browser windows and a built-in Google Search bar in the upper-right corner.
Actually, like Opera, Firefox offered tabbed browser windows and a built-in Google search bar.
Opera uses no code from either Internet Explorer or Netscape Gekko
Mozilla’s rendering engine is called Gecko (not Gekko) and it is not referred to as “Netscape Gecko” (nor Netscape Gekko) it’s Mozilla Gecko. Since the article was written by Dan Costa and Robert Vamosi, who clearly are so enamoured with Firefox, you think they might have bothered to do enough research to get the name right.
We were able to browse the Web using Opera 8 with few compatibility problems. Sites using JavaScript caused some problems, but even then, the pages lost only some functionality. At MSNBC.com and Slate.com, for example, the preview menus would not work, but we could still click them to get to subsections. Opera says it adheres to W3C standards, but evidently some Web site operators optimize for IE 6 compatibility and not international Web standards.
You might have thought this would be a good place to mention that Microsoft has lied in the past that Opera did not support standards are purposefully blocked Opera from properly viewing MSN. Is something like that happening with MSNBC? Who knows, but I wouldn’t put it past them. As for Slate, I haven’t checked but wouldn’t be surprised if it was using IE6 specific code either. Opera works with the vast majority of sites out there, but there’s only so much any browser can do if a site wants to prevent users from having choices.
- MSN.com shuts out non-Microsoft browsers wherein they claim to block Opera “to encourage people to use browsers that support standards”
- Analysis of why Opera really didn’t work with MSN which was because they were purposefully sending incorrect markup to Opera and no other browser.
- Microsoft behind $12 million payment to Opera believed to have been an out-of-court settlement over the MSN fiasco (unfortunately the terms apparently required Opera to remain mum about where the money came from, but really, who else is going to hand over $12 mil without batting an eye?
I’m not sure what to do with this sentence:
Opera says it adheres to W3C standards, but evidently some Web site operators optimize for IE 6 compatibility and not international Web standards.
I’m not sure if this was meant to be sarcastic or just reveals a significant lack of knowledge about the reality of the web. The key word that is confusing me is “evidently”... does the author not know about the vast number of sites that don’t come anywhere near adhering to the standards? Can anyone writing about browsers really not know about the plague that is “Best viewed with”?
Given that it's a paid Web browser, Opera's technical support could be much better. In addition to many tutorials available on the Opera Software Web site, technical support is limited to an online knowledge base. We found the entries informative and helpful. Paid users of Opera have access to e-mail support. This seems a little stingy; if you have to put up with banner ads on your browser, you should also get your e-mail questions answered. There is no phone technical support available for Opera, and calling the company directly can be expensive since it is based in Oslo, Norway.
I’m not sure if I want to call this untrue or just misleading and confusingly written.
He starts off by saying that the tech support could be better. Then he says that there’s an online knowledge base that was informative and helpful. Um, what?
The phrasing is at least confusing if not improper. He starts off saying it’s a “paid” browser and the only support is an online knowledge base. Then, two sentences later, he says that there is email support for paid users. I think what he meant was “Given that it is an ad-supported browser, Opera’s technical support could be much better.” What he seems to have been trying to say is “users who are using the ad-supported version should get free email support.”
if you have to put up with banner ads on your browser, you should also get your e-mail questions answered.
However, there are other alternatives. First, Opera also comes with an IRC program and you can often find Opera employees online willing to give you help (see Day 13: Chat for information on how to setup and use Opera Chat). There’s also My Opera web community and opera-users mailing list where you will also find not only Opera employees but also very knowledgeable Opera users.
I would give this review a “D”. There are basic facts wrong, unsupported statements, and glaring oversights. The rating of 7.0 is extremely low for a browser which is praised for absolutely everything except price. Here are all the positive things they say about Opera:
- [has] Web browser features found nowhere else
- a ton of great technology
- a supersmall footprint
- has always been on the cutting edge of browser innovation
- Opera 8 offers a few features found in neither IE nor Firefox.
- sophisticated and reliable
- [the new user tutorial] is a great feature, although the Opera interface is intuitive and Explorer-like enough for consumers to use without any training.
- enlarge any Web page by as much as 1,000 percent. This is a boon for users who are visually impaired and those of us who spend lots of time reading Web pages.
- any Web page can be stretched or shrunk within Opera without losing any content on the page
- Many little things within Opera are easier than with IE. Hit F12 to see a list of your current browser preferences. This is handy when configuring Opera's built-in pop-up blocker on the fly.
- When it comes to features, Opera offers pretty much everything found in IE 6, plus tabbed Web pages, an RSS reader, and more built-in security.
- Opera 8 comes with a built-in RSS reader that makes it easy to sign up for and manage feeds; it's one of the better RSS readers we've seen
- [HotClick] takes time to get used to, but it can be very addictive.
The negatives are basically that it has ads/isn’t free and don’t work with some sites.
How does that leave Opera with a rating of 7/10?!?!?
See also: “IE vs. the World” on C-Net
Comments
On May 22, 2005 at 08:49 PM, Toman wrote:
Hillarious read :-D
On May 22, 2005 at 09:08 PM, Dominic Lague wrote:
Hmm... looks like he is, to put it in the common tongue, "pwned"! Very good analysis of that utter rubbish which cnet seems to be publishing more and more of by the day! Keep up the good work!
On May 23, 2005 at 12:59 AM, Ilya Birman wrote:
How does that leave Opera with a rating of 7/10?!?!?
Well, you said that - because there's Firefox, which is (no-one-knows-why) better.
Ugh :-)
On May 23, 2005 at 03:28 AM, vinczej wrote:
And on other correction to the comparing
of the 8 browsers:
Deepnet Explorer is free ONLY FOR NON-COMMERCIAL USE!
On May 23, 2005 at 05:30 AM, kL wrote:
Did you send it to Cnet? To person who paid for this article?
On May 23, 2005 at 02:43 PM, ThePast wrote:
Very well written, a true pleasure to read for all of us that are sick and tired of reviewers that are underqualified even for paginating a small town newspaper.
I give your review of the review the user rating. 10/10
And Dan Costa's review recieves a 2/10 rating.
On May 24, 2005 at 04:50 AM, Aluvus wrote:
I decided to actually test functionality with Slate and MSNBC in Opera 8, to see if I could replicate the reported errors.
Funnily enough, the menus system on Slate worked fine (although it rendered '4's instead of what I took to be intended as -> arrows). I say I took them to be intended that way because I was unable to get the menus to work properly in IE 6. They produced repeated run-time errors.
The MSNBC page does not have anything I would describe as "preview menus", but never mind that. The page looks almost exactly the same in Opera 8 and IE 6. The only difference? Opera doesn't make the little blue boxes on the left-side bar light up white.
But wait, there's more! I also tested those same pages with Firefox 1.0.3. On the Slate page, Firefox was unable to expand the menus from the left-hand bar. Instead, it merely made their names light up, the way IE 6 did MSNBC's left-side bar. It did the same on MSNBC.
So perhaps Mr. Costas got confused during his research and confused a Firefox rendering bug with an Opera rendering bug.
On May 24, 2005 at 01:28 PM, Paulo wrote:
Awesome review of the review. Its sad that a piece with so many holes gets published by the likes of CNET.
On May 25, 2005 at 05:20 AM, Dave wrote:
As a Firefox user I have to agree that the rating for Opera was unfair, the use of Opera over Firefox is mostly a personal preference and therefore both browsers deserve high ratings.
Netscape 8 coming in at second place was an even bigger joke as it takes all the ease of use benefits of Firefox and fills the browser with useless crap while adding the extra security holes of IE into the package.
This day and age IE6 should have gotten a 5 at best, it looks a joke compared to all modern browsers.
On May 25, 2005 at 10:04 AM, TjL wrote:
Dave - Thanks for the comment. It’s always nice to talk to another reasonable user of another excellent browser.
On May 25, 2005 at 10:40 AM, Oliver wrote:
"Opera says it adheres to W3C standards, but evidently some Web site operators optimize for IE 6 compatibility and not international Web standards"
Quite easy to understand: Set "United Nations" for "W3C" and "US interests" for "IE 6" and you do have a nice example of Bushism :-) We do not care as long as it is not from or in favour of the USA ... Opera is from Old Europe you know ...
On May 28, 2005 at 03:37 AM, angelblade wrote:
Well there’s a serious flaw there. First of all, OmniWeb is another paid browser that is on the market. Safari and Internet Explorer only come with recent versions of their respective operating systems. The latest version of Internet Explorer only runs on Windows XP, and the latest version of Safari only runs on Panther and Tiger. Microsoft had said that there would not be another standalone version of IE, then said there will be, but hasn’t said what versions it will support. My guess is XP and maybe 2000.
I don't know about OmniWeb (never heard of it), but Safari and IE are free. Saying that they only run on select OSs is a faulty argument, because Opera needs an OS to run too. Why not say that you need to buy an OS in order to use Opera? Why not say that you need to buy a computer to use Opera? Heck, why not argue that you need to pay your ISP and waste time in order to download Opera? Your argument is way flawed. The delta-money of installing IE on Windows and installing Firefox on Windows is $0.00, i.e. free.
Perhaps you're right, this OmniWeb browser has to be paid for. Safari and IE, however, cost just as much as Firefox does: absolutely nothing.
If price were the only consideration, CNet ought to be saying that we should use Wordpad to Word, and FreeBSD or Linux to Windows. I haven’t seen them say that. Why? Because there are other considerations, such as ease of use and productivity.
When all other features are equal, price becomes the only consideration. You can trump up Firefox's supposed shortcomings all you like, but that's apparently not stopping Firefox's adoption rate in the workplace, for the simple reason that, unlike your exaggerated claims, those problems are trivial compared to Opera's cost.
Absolutely! How dare they! Screen real estate is VERY IMPORTANT and NO ONE OUGHT TO ABUSE IT WITH SOMETHING LIKE AN AD.
Exactly. And, as an amateur deskmodder myself, Firefox gives me a lean, slickly-skinned working space that an ad-supported version of Opera simply cannot hold up to unless I turn off everything and leave myself with an ugly, barebones interface. CNet has ads, but I don't see how harping incessantly on this is supposed to help. Maybe you were hoping to draw attention away from Opera's shortcomings?
Opera serves ads and wastes your bandwith and real screen estate. Firefox gets tough, and BLOCKS ads. I think the difference is clear.
On May 28, 2005 at 10:28 AM, TjL (tntluoma.com) ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://operalover.tntluoma.com/nav-commenters.gif)
wrote:
angelblade: someone as free-obsessed as you ought to know about Linux and FreeBSD, which are free.
When all other features are equal, price becomes the only consideration.
Well then we can talk once Firefox’s features become equal to Opera’s.
Firefox gives me a lean, slickly-skinned working space that an ad-supported version of Opera simply cannot hold up to unless I turn off everything and leave myself with an ugly, barebones interface.
It’s astounding that Firefox’s interface is “lean” but Opera’s is “barebones”... I’d describe them exactly the opposite way.
CNet has ads, but I don't see how harping incessantly on this is supposed to help.
I’m not sure I have the ability to explain irony and sarcasm to you, but C|Net’s author was saying that Opera was taking valuable space on the top of the screen with an ad, but CNet has a much larger ad at the top of their screen, even the printer-friendly version.
You like Firefox, that’s fine. It’s definitely enjoying a current swing of popularity, which is great... the more people we get away from Internet Explorer, the better. But Firefox’s features don’t match Opera’s, so saying price is now the only consideration is way over-stating the case.
And since you can’t use the latest Internet Explorer or Safari unless you have one of the most recent versions of the operating system, they aren’t free. Opera can run on just about any operating system, which you already need to have to use any browser and an ISP which you already need to have to use the Internet, which is why I didn’t state those in my argument, because they are irrelevant. Operating systems are not irrelevant. There are a lot of computers out there running Windows 95 and 98.
On May 28, 2005 at 12:58 PM, angelblade wrote:
Well then we can talk once Firefox’s features become equal to Opera’s.
Well, no offence, but I think you're rather behind the times now, mate.
{{you're welcome to your opinion}}
I’m not sure I have the ability to explain irony and sarcasm to you, but C|Net’s author was saying that Opera was taking valuable space on the top of the screen with an ad, but CNet has a much larger ad at the top of their screen, even the printer-friendly version.
So C|Net's taking up space too. They're hypocrites, but that doesn't change the fact I have to either put up with ads in Opera or cough up $40. Pointing out C|Net's hypocrisy is a valid argument and all, but that's going to make the ads in Opera disappear because?...
{{I never said it would, just pointing out that they were claiming all this outrage about ads when they did it too.}}
It’s astounding that Firefox’s interface is “lean” but Opera’s is “barebones”... I’d describe them exactly the opposite way.
With the ads, I have to strip away almost every browser interface element to match the amount of realscreen estate Firefox offers, so yeah, barebones. In Firefox, on the other hand, I can compress just about everything I need into one toolbar, earning myself space without having to sacrifice the buttons and menus I need, so yeah, lean.
It may sound astounding, but it's what you'll come to expect from other browsers after using Firefox. :)
{{I expect more than Firefox can offer after using Firefox. Get it? Every bit as much as you are convinced Firefox is better, I’m convinced Opera is better. I’m convinced it’s worth more than Firefox. I’m convinced that not having to deal with extensions is better. I’m convinced that the user interface is better and easier to use.}}
And since you can’t use the latest Internet Explorer or Safari unless you have one of the most recent versions of the operating system, they aren’t free. Opera can run on just about any operating system, which you already need to have to use any browser and an ISP which you already need to have to use the Internet, which is why I didn’t state those in my argument, because they are irrelevant. Operating systems are not irrelevant. There are a lot of computers out there running Windows 95 and 98.
They're not free? News to me. I don't remember paying Microsoft any cash just so that I could install and run IE. You're confusing between system requirements and price here, in which case every single freeware program on the face of this planet will suddenly become un-free (because they require CPU processing power, OSs, RAM, HDD space, etc.)
{{No, you’re reasoning is entirely flawed. You have to have a computer and RAM and HD space, yes, but Microsoft and Apple have decided that you had to upgrade to a newer version of their OS to run their software. It’s not free. You can call them “bundled” if you want, but they aren’t free. The price is part of the operating system.}}
On May 29, 2005 at 12:40 AM, angelblade wrote:
I never said it would, just pointing out that they were claiming all this outrage about ads when they did it too.
Well, then, so perhaps they’re hypocrites, but at least they’re right about the ads. :)
{{Being hypocrites does diminish the impact for me.}}
I expect more than Firefox can offer after using Firefox. Get it? Every bit as much as you are convinced Firefox is better, I’m convinced Opera is better. I’m convinced it’s worth more than Firefox. I’m convinced that not having to deal with extensions is better. I’m convinced that the user interface is better and easier to use.
I’m cool with that. I was just laying down the facts, that’s all, but at the end of the day people are going to like what they like. :)
Regarding realscreen estate and interface, there’s also the issue of skins. I like Opera’s ability to apply skins without a browser restart, but there are just so many more good skins available for Firefox. The majority of the skins for Opera seem to be for casual fun and play instead of serious deskmodding, and Firefox just looks so much sweeter when I can skin it to fit my overall desktop theme. (Anyone know where I can find a good Royale or Milk skin for Opera?)
No, you’re reasoning is entirely flawed. You have to have a computer and RAM and HD space, yes, but Microsoft and Apple have decided that you had to upgrade to a newer version of their OS to run their software. It’s not free. You can call them “bundled” if you want, but they aren’t free. The price is part of the operating system.
Well, then, I guess this is where we disagree. Plenty of freeware I know won’t run on older OSs - AveDesk, for instance, crashes under Win95 for me, but I’ll insist on calling it free. I don’t pay Microsoft a single cent should I decide to run IE over any other browser on my machine - for practical purposes, I think this applies to a large majority of people, for whom your argument remains a mere technical issue - and that’s free enough in my book.
In short, free for me is when I don’t have to shell out cash. Different programs have their respective system requirements - but that’s just how software works.
{{Cool. You don’t have to shell out cash for Opera :-) or AIM or CNet or MSN. You just have to put up with ads.}}
On May 31, 2005 at 08:43 AM, sbctheo wrote:
Wow! This article here is great!! Actually, I used to be an IE - user using the Avant Browser shell/skin. I have been using this browser for more than 6 months and it seems so slow regardless of the updates they made so I searched again for a new browser. And then came Firefox, which is free. Its good, better than IE in terms of security but its kind off slow as well and it does show some problems displaying websites. I decided to search again. Then came OPERA 8.0, which is FREE but it does show advertisement if you dont register or pay for it. Well thats ok with me because it doesnt install any spyware or malware on my system. One thing I also noticed is that its better compared to IE and Firefox.
Opera 8.0 operates way faster than IE and Firefox (thats on my own experience). One thing I also liked is the fact that the browser is highly customizable in terms of how it loads stuff and how the user GUI looks like.
I saw an article here that users should give OPERA 30 days to completely trust and like the browser. Well for me, it took only 15 minutes of my time to fully customize and get a grip of how this WONDERFUL browser works. I dont mind the ad showing on top because its now affecting the browser's performance.
ALL I CAN SAY IS I LOVE THE OPERA BROWSER! Out goes IE and Firefox for ME!
On June 01, 2005 at 12:25 AM, Shawn wrote:
Well said. Don't forget Opera can also run on 14 or 15 different Linux distros, FreeBSD, Mac, OS/2 and others.
I've used Firefox for about a week, and switched over to Opera. Been using Opera for about 18 months now and love it.
If you're not using Opera, which I definitely think everyone should be, I hope you're at least using Firefox and not IE, Deepnet, or other IE wrapper.
On June 02, 2005 at 06:44 AM, Jeff wrote:
I luuuurv both Opera & Firefox. But Opera is robust, fully-loaded but nevertheless ubuerly fast right out of the box. Firefox on the otherhand, with even it's "bare" first time install, wouldn't even get par with Opera's abilities. Then throw in more extensions and you'll just end bloating it up. Opera gets to be my main browser.
On June 03, 2005 at 02:33 AM, Wessonruger wrote:
angelblade wrote:
With the ads, I have to strip away almost every browser interface element to match the amount of realscreen estate Firefox offers, so yeah, barebones. In Firefox, on the other hand, I can compress just about everything I need into one toolbar, earning myself space without having to sacrifice the buttons and menus I need, so yeah, lean.
Why waste time compressing, stripping and closing! F11 does the trick with one-push results. It works in Opera and firefox.
A funny thing also happened. To verify my test, I had to go and download a fresh copy of Opera so that I could get an unregistered ad-supported default version for my test. I then opened up the same web site in each browser (Opera & firefox each in default mode from a fresh installation). I enabled all of the toolbars available in each browser, and then I hit F11 and wa laa!
Opera's ad disappeared, and only the web content was visible. Firefox had almost as much screen real estate as Opera. However, the navigation bar was still present, and the scroll elevator was still present along the right side of the screen.
Not a lot of difference in the total amount of "screen real estate", but chock up another one for Opera.
Hang around the forums and Opera Community for a while. You'll soon learn that Opera can do just about anything you want. If it doesn't, post a question, and your likely to find an eager Opera loyalist ready to fix ya' up, because we love what we do.
On June 03, 2005 at 11:32 AM, Token User wrote:
Anyone else find it odd that C|Net didn't pick up on the fact that if you pay the ads disappear, and you get email support, but if you don't pay you get ads (I have mine set to text ads) ... so he is comparing (and confusing) different distribution models.
On June 03, 2005 at 01:45 PM, Robert wrote:
Before firefox/firebird/phoenix, I used Opera, and I loved it! It was much quicker than Mozilla and I loved mouse gestures(I now have an gesture extension for ff)! Opera users and FF users need to stop fighting. It's IE we hate not each other.
On June 03, 2005 at 11:42 PM, Wessonruger wrote:
You're exactly right Robert. I actually use both FF & Opera, however I prefer to use Opera, since I've been an avid Opera loyalist since v3.x. ...BigGun
On June 05, 2005 at 05:52 PM, Richard Grevers wrote:
The truth about screen real estateI'm guest-writing an article (Toolbars) for the 30 days series for Tim, and as part of my research I set up clean installs of Firefox 1.04 and Opera 8 (and I've never tweaked the interface of my seldom-used copy of IE). I got out my trusty screen calipers and measured.
Lo and behold, the total height of UI of Firefox and Unregistered Opera was identical. Firefox might appear smaller, but what they giveth at the top, they taketh away at the bottom of the screen. The only thing Firefox displays which Opera doesn't in this configuration is a status bar.
On June 13, 2005 at 01:34 AM, Tropos wrote:
Don't want to repeat any discussion, but want the following to be said. Anyone knows how much your IE or Safari costs? No, because it comes out of the box, part of your OS. Therefore it is free? ...
Interesting case could have been the WinXP N version which is released in Europe. Unfortunately the EU and Microsoft could not agree on a version without IE. Accordingly to MS because of WU necessities. It would have been very interesting to see what WinXP would have costed without IE included.
On June 13, 2005 at 10:38 AM, TjL (tntluoma.com) wrote:
Tropos - well I suspect that all those who have previous versions of Windows (before XP) and want to use IE7 will be aware that it is not free.
On July 07, 2005 at 08:49 AM, alastress wrote:
Nice review. Firefox has a mission and it is doing it well - take the market share out of IE. Great if other people use it.
For me, I'll stick with Opera. Firefox's plugins are both their strong point and their weakness. Without plugins you have nothing. And you have to be technically 'oriented' to do your search of good plugins before you have something usable. But everytime to you install a buggy plugin you are in problems. And sometimes they are not easy to uninstall.
For me, Opera is stable and fast. Provides 99% of the functionality that I want and is improving all the time. Just give me a Flash Ad Blocker and we get the 100%. :-)
On August 05, 2005 at 04:17 PM, kirin wrote:
Another paid browser: http://www.icab.de
And another: http://www.irider.com/
Could someone explain me one thing?
I paid for my house, my car, my clothes, my computer, my food. I never saw any open source bread. So why shouldn't I pay for my software?
It's great that there are free alternatives, and Firefox is a good one, but does that mean that all must be like that? Don't software developers deserve to get paid? Isn't that a real job?
I am a computer engineer. Should I make my work for free from now on? By the way, do all paid-software-haters work for free?
Today, I saw ads in TV, in most Internet sites, in the mail, in e-mail, in billboards, in buses, in the subway, in the paper, in magazines, in the radio.
Wrong world to avoid ads... And is $34 (paid only once) that much to have access to the best browser without ads?
On May 22, 2005 at 08:18 PM, Rob wrote:
Yes Yes!! Well Said!!