How did you find out about (old) Opera?
-
I presume most of the people are here because you loved old Opera, before Blink and before Jon von Tetzchner (CEO of old Opera and now the foudner of Vivaldi) left. How did you find out about Opera and no eventually ended up here? Hoping for better future... I found Opera from one of the PC Magazine issues, they bundled it on CD, tried it and fell in love with it. I believe it was Opera 5 or 6, the one that came with huge banner on top. I was amazed by the speed of browser and customization, I lived in Eastern-Europe and used dial-up, Opera was real life saver. It was the main reason why Opera became so popular in Eastern-Europe, in many countries it was once #1 browser for market share. I had small 13" CRT monitor and the AD took a lot of screen space, at first I found key from some warez site to remove it, for some reason I fell irrationally in love with the browser and bough licence for it. I believe it was 30 dollars or so. I was 12-13 and had to ask the money from my mum. My friend who was also Opera fan said that he's not going to by licence or use serial because he enjoyed seeing different banners, but he also had big 17" NEC monitor, I was really jealous. Eventually I got it, but had to work whole summer to pay it back. My mum made about 125 dollars per month during that time. She really didn't understand what the money was for, even being a massive sum for our family during that time but she though I guess it's necessary to "study the computers". Used Opera until the make-over... saw massive drop of Opera usage in eastern block, but it was more because of Google Chrome, but blink make-over killed it entirely, ... now I'm here, hoping one day I can use Vivaldi as a daily driver [img size=450]https://i.imgur.com/eFKc6yP.png[/img]
-
Yes I had used Opera (Presto) for a while. The first time I've tried it was just cause I wanted to try something different. Couldn't get warm with it right away, mainly because of that banner. Gave Opera another shot right after they removed it and fell in love with that browser and the team behind it. It was just great to see that product evolving with every new snapshot / release. I like how they came up with ideas I could have never imagined and yet they became so intuitive and useful for me. Like Speeddial or Unite. I remember when they came up with Speeddial and I thought "Its nice, but not really important" soon I couldn't imagine a browser without such a feature.
-
I think I jumped onto Opera around version 4 or 5, been way to long to remember. As for how I just got it from a friend who
s working in web design who
s main interest at the time was to make thing work in all browsers he could find ( making something look almost the same in IE4, FF and I Netscape gave him lots of headaches at the time). Having tabs at that time was the most unique groundbreaking thing I saw in a browser, the integrated rss feed were great too and even ended up replacing "The Bat" as the mail client back then.
Off course the fun ended at Opera 12 when somebody there had the idea to make a cheap chrome clone( like the world really needed one more) and pass it up as under the name Opera.
So here I am hoping I can finally get something that will eventually reach the point where I can upgrade from Opera 12. -
Nothing fancy here.
At the time Opera was just included on some shareware CDs, attached to some IT magazines here (in Italy).
BTW I started using it when I got my first cellular connection in '98.
Given the "speed" of mobile data at the time (9600 bps, then 14400 bps) the image toggle button, and the intelligent cache was a must have. Later the opera turbo function improved further the Opera superiority.
After 17 years my cellular connection speed is over 50Mbps, but Opera strengths are still applicable, given the unlimited data plans are rare (if not existent at all).
The above is just what make my start using opera, then I started to appreciate all other unique features at the point of making me addict
-
I recall reading an article about Opera in 1999 - I believe it was 3.62. At that time it was shareware - run it for 30 days, to use it after that requires a license. At that time it would still fit on a 1.44 MB floppy, and would run in Windows 3.1. I saved a copy for possible use on my old 386 SX laptop (required a very large lap), but it wasn't very good otherwise. Never did use it on the laptop.
In about July of 2000, I decided to install Linux on my desktop system I'd gotten the previous Christmas, the version I bought came on 7 CDs which included 2 CDs of non-open source software and included a copy of Opera - probably version 5. The other browsers available for Linux at the time were the old Netscape (junk) and Konqueror (KDE web browser - interesting but somewhat buggy at times), so Opera was my default browser in Linux. (Technically, I suppose they must have also had the text-mode browser Links and its cousin Lynx, but who really wanted to use a text-mode browser?)
In 2003, I read about the Opera 7 Preview somewhere. Barring a few bugs (which I joined the forum in November of that year to report) I was really impressed with it, and it quickly became my primary browser in Windows. Not that it lasted too long - I inherited my brother's computer. He'd finally decided to get internet service but his antivirus was long expired and likewise he'd never updated his old Windows (since he didn't have internet service for about a year prior), so within a week he'd gotten every virus known and could no longer even boot Windows. So of course I wiped it and installed โฆ for about 4 years I only had Linux. But anyway, stayed with Opera as my primary - or even only - browser all those years ... just not all on Windows. :p
I joined Vivaldi when they closed down MyOpera. A couple of months ago they asked me to be a tester for their new browser. It's not quite at a point where I can consider it my primary browser yet, but it is close.
-
At one time I perused shareware sites. That was before the current condition of the genre deteriorated. For some reason, Opera was referenced on one of those SW sites, even though it was a demo/purchase deal and not shareware. People should understand that shareware was a good thing many years ago! Anyway, I liked Opera, and forked over the mooolah for it. I used it exclusively on Windows for quite a while. When the FreeBSD and Solaris versions arrived with the new free Opera offering, I used them as well. Recently, security issues have caused me to re-evaluate the browsers I'm using. I'm still in that "re-evaluation" stage โฆ
-
It's been so long now I don't remember clearly exactly where I finally stumbled on Opera, but I was never completely satisfied with IE or Netscape, and was sort of continually searching for something better on and off. I came across Opera 5 on some shareware or downloading site on the web and started messing with it, banner ad and all, and had finally become so smitten by the time Opera 6 came around that I caved in and bought a license.
You'd have had to pry it out of my cold, dead hands before 15 came along.
-
I read about it in an old Wired magazine in 1998: web.archive.org/web/20000831171727/http://wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,10026,00.html
Was pretty active in the old-old Opera forums back in the early 3 series. When looking at Opera's website instructions (I think for plugin installation, though I'm not certain), I noticed some outdated sections and reported them. I have always thought it's not useful just to complain without a suggested solution, so I also wrote what I thought the updated text might look like. Shortly afterward I was invited to be a tester.
-
in 1995 as BBs's were eneding their run, I came across a beta vesion 2.1a or something like that. I installed it on my PII 60hz black and white laptop. I have been using and being an Opera cheerleader ever since. Being in the internet support industry for the past 15 years, I would consider myself a power user. The ability to customize the broswer to make a functional tool for work has been my primary reason for using this. Welcome back to serving your loyal fans!
R3p0
-
The ability to customize the broswer to make a functional tool for work has been my primary reason for using this. Welcome back to serving your loyal fans!
R3p0Hear, hear!
-
It was 2007 and I was in Europe with a dead laptop, an iPod, and a flash drive. I had managed to save the data from my laptop on the iPod, but otherwise felt a bit adrift. The flash drive was a U3 flash drive which had some software installed that gave it a pseudo-Start Menu in the taskbar, from which you could run portable apps. Opera was one of their most prominent browsers, so I decided to give it a shot, and was utterly amazed at its functionality. Coming from IE, it was like jumping from the stone age straight to the space age. After I got back home and got my laptop repaired, I kept using Opera, and used it for the next eight years, even as its current owners ran it into the ground.
No more, though - I've already switched my desktop to using Vivaldi as the default and totally replaced it on my tablet. I'm already so impressed with what I've seen and eager to see what's to come I'm going all in.
-
I seem to remember I got started somewhere around 3.6. I've been playing around with BeOS a bit, I think my first contact with Opera was because of BeOS.
-
My older brother introduced me to the Opera 7.
-
It was probably the mid '90sโฆ I just purchased an IBM desktop (386, refurbished) that had been a PoS machine and had a good modem in it. Upgraded to Windows 3.1.1 and was never satisfied with either IE or Netscape (though it was my primary browser).
Later I found Opera on a disc (floppy) with some computer magazine. There was no going back after that and until ver. 15 I always promoted it to both friends and colleagues.
I still use it for certain things (the bookmark manager, download manager, torrent client, ability to use dozens of tabs, customization...) as it is installed. Am now playing with multiple browsers (not ideal as all my bookmarks are a mess) to see what can replace it. So far Vivaldi is a front runner. -
Fravia
-
Got introduced to Opera by a the IT guy at my school, back in 1999, back then the alternative was either Mozilla which was becoming a bloated monster by that time, or IE (shudder).
I was really impressed with the speed and customization options and started learning all the tricks to become a power-user.
From 2001-2002 studying abroad, living on a tight budget, my internet connection was limited to a 56k dial-up, and being able to turn off images in Opera saved me a lot of time. Who needs images when you have proper alt-text right?!
-
Included in Puppy Linux Retro edition
-
After one of the many IE security bugs my whole family was moved onto Opera xD - So I just was told don't use IE use Opera! xD And did until chrome came along.
-
I knew Opera as a company since I was little, but I only used the browser about 5-6 years ago back in college.
FireFox was the browser alternative back then. But eventually, aside from a few add-ons I use till now, it's not really cutting it for me anymore. Then I tried Opera starting with version 9 and never looked back.
-
I first started using Opera sometime in the mid 90's before or near the time I believe Microsoft came out with their first browser. I used Opera as my main browser until they switched from ver 12.1?. I now use several browsers with no favorites. Vivaldi looks promising I believe they deserve a round of applause for the hard work and time they put into this project so far.