Is Opera Discover great?
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I use a browser purposefully, to browse to sites I wish to see, when I wish to see them, and on topics I want at that moment. I've never been a fan of idly sitting watching "content" float by, though I realize some folks do that. To me a browser is a tool; to others it's a form of TV… and there's a major difference in the expectations and feature-demands stemming from those two perspectives. I find ways to disable things like Discover (or even SpeedDials), since they're a major distraction to what I'm using a browser for. So if a feature like Discover is going to be included within a browser design, it needs to have a "disable" switch that completely removes it from view (as well as its resource demands on a running browser).
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The simpler, the better (for me that is). I don't want ridiculous skins so I can sit back and look at my pretty browser. I don't want the browser to "get in the way" of what I want it to do and what its real purpose should be - get me to where I want to go. I want quick access to my favorite sites (i.e. a quick access bar or bookmark bar) and really, that's about it.
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We have news feed client inside M2. It can be improved in different ways usability and feature-wise, also some initial (advertised) feeds can be added by default, so you don't feel lonely opening mail client.
What we get with Opera Discover are only advertised feeds without ability to customize much.
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The simpler, the better (for me that is). I don't want ridiculous skins so I can sit back and look at my pretty browser.
You may consider this prototype which was designed according to your needs.
Super sleek and clean, the browser of your dreamsAddendum:
Just in case you find those buttons distracting, we have a second prototype for advanced users without those buttons.
The respective services will load instantly as soon as you start your browser. -
After the announcement about the switch to chromium engine, I was worried… but ironically the proud description of the discover "feature" was the actual moment I knew Opera had betrayed us!
Exactly the kind of bloated, pointless, user-abusing (data-mining) rubbish I would expect from Microsoft or maybe Google.
So from that moment on I turned my back on Opera and was only going to change my mind if they proved me wrong. And they never did - in fact every dropped feature, pointless update and brushing aside of user requests since then simply pushed their reputation from dubious towards sub-zero for me.
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Discover certainly isn't what it could be. If it were fully optional (able to be gotten completely out of the way functionally) and fully configurable in terms of both content and display, it would perhaps have value - at least for those who might like aggregation. Whether it would be worth the coding effort to provide it would depend on how many users would find value in it - but based on what I recall seeing in the years and months before it appeared in Opera, nobody asked for it. The real problem in my estimation is that Opera expended precious development time on a feature that nobody asked for, to the neglect of features that were not included but demanded by many users.
As a saying goes: just because something can be done does not alone mean it should be done.
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In my opinion, both discover and stash ware added just to show that they actually did something with the chromium code… Those features are pointless toys. Those are features that could and should have been made as an extension. Not counting the server side it's just javascript/html... which made it probably pretty easy(and quick) to create.
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I actually find it potentially harmful on mobile devices - like with Opera Mobile for Android. I admit that I am not sure how it is implemented but if it updates content in the background without the user requesting this then this will unnecessarily cost precious bandwidth of your data plan.
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Preloading content in the background can be disabled in the latest version.
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I think disabling preloading of Discover content only works in the desktop version. I haven't found the appropriate option in the Android version anywhere. Just checked.
… which makes it even more pointless to not being able to disable it on mobile devices where one might have an expensive data plan.
I'll gladly admit to be wrong here if someone can point out the setting in Android for me as that would make Opera more attractive for me on the platform.
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Given the new feature in 20 Beta where it shows headlines in your speed dial, I have to doubt it.
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Why the need to disable it? Why not simply ignore it if it doesn't float your boat?
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I actually avoid "news", because they distract one from important things. "News" are not really important at all. I also don't own a TV set for the same reason.
Opera tries to force-feed me with "Discover" and that I dislike so much, that I won't install Opera ever, until this "feature" gets removed.
I use a web browser with a working address bar, because I choose where I go.
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@jon:
I do not mind having a news aggregator, but I would prefer to be able to control it myself in minute details, including the sources to include. In any case I do not consider a news aggregator to be a major selling point for a browser.
What do you think?
Cheers,
Jon.If i could use it as RSS feader and control it, I would use it more. But ridiculously Opera retired the RSS feature support.
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i do not use the discover feature at all. if i want news, i go to a news site of my own choosing. discover is absolutely pointless.
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Why the need to disable it? Why not simply ignore it if it doesn't float your boat?
Because not everyone has an unlimited bandwidth/data plan on their mobile device. So the option to disable unwanted background downloading of data plan wasting information sources would be a welcome feature.
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Hadn't thought of that. So how much drag on a mobile device with limited data plan would the loading of the Discover feature be, assuming the person did not open it but instead ignored it?
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Hard to know for sure, but what I do know is my step-daughter purchased an iPhone5 a few months back, and if she forgets to set it to only use WiFi for internet connections, she goes through her entire data plan allotment in sometimes just a day or so! When she went on a short trip for a dance camp, she turned on the GPS to help with directions, but forgot about the LTE/3G ,data setting, and it ate up her data plan in one afternoon with the constant updates to her position and route!
Think I'll stick with my ancient PDA for now, hehe! -
Ouch. Sucking up that much data just for location is ridiculous. I would imagine if this weren't caught it could become very expensive quickly.
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From a Marketing and Customer Retention point of view, it is a very big deal: it is the starting step to transform a web browser you control and drive into something you use to spend time even to do something else, receiving content.
From a business point of view, it means really a lot: you can selectively push content…
I'm pretty sure that you won't find here too many enthusiasts, but we are in the small old fashioned Opera's "friend zone", so...
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