Tweak

It is a perennial issue: why is Opera's marketshare not growing, when we have a product that attracts a large group of devoted users? I'll leave it to our sales and marketing department to look at this professionally, but one of the things that Firefox had going for it was a aggresive outreach campaign. Sometimes this devolved to rabid fanboyism (still does, actually). I see fanboyism as denying even reasonable complaints about your favorite browser, and issueing sweeping statements about the quality of other browsers not founded in reality, or without any knowledge of the underlying issues and history.

Opera has fanboys of its own. They seem mostly to be confined to the my.opera.com, sometimes venturing out to troll on the mozillazine forums and Asa's blog (though they don't see themselves as trolls, just like Firefox's fanboys). But it is interesting to see some more unabashed Opera promotion from people not linked to my.opera.com, especially when it well-balanced and argumented.

This recent blog post for example is not fanboyism, though it's title is promising: Why Opera beats Firefox. The blog post Opera Is Easily The Best Browser Avalible is politely bashing Firefox but with (IMHO) more shaky arguments.

This much linked blog posting is very positive for the self-image of Opera users, as the comments clearly show: What does your browser reveal about you?.

Then there are several Firefox-to-Opera converts: FireFox slides back. Opera Catches up. and "Opera 9"--- Is the fat lady singing?. Other Firefox fans are trying it out on friend's advice: they like what they see. Another advice to try Opera comes from The Battle of the Web Browsers - IE, Firefox and Opera - Which is Best. This blog post links to a nice review which states for Internet Explorer users, you can import your Favourites, so there really is no reason not to switch, and to a glowing review in Web user, a British magazine.

It helps of course if independent speed tests keep proving that Opera's JavaScript implementation is suberb nowadays. Now if only websites will start making use of Opera 9's improved JavaScript support, and stop sending unzipped content to Opera for example, the web might become an even nicer place for Opera's users. So to all Opera fans: keep telling your friends, especially if they only tried Opera years ago, and keep telling websites they should test in Opera!

Tsk, I stay offline for a few hours and people tell the strangest things about me...

Fact: I noticed Asa's posting last night when a colleague mentioned it in our closed IRC channel.
Fact: I don't know anything interesting on this subject (not involved with marketing), but I can speculate as well as others.

I can't recall posting to the my.opera forum, but it would have been late at night for me, so who knows what I've forgotten... But if I posted, it could only contain guesswork, so some of the things attributed to me are probably caused by confused readers. Eskil's answer to Daniel is probably the only interesting item here, and maybe someone mixed that up in their minds with posts by olli or me?

As for the 100 million, that is probably a cumulative figure someone calculated, and as all download figures not very interesting, when you can't compare with other apps using the same baseline and counting methods. Usage numbers are more interesting - and not easy to relate to download numbers. Especially not with download numbers of other applications, with different baselines, and different counting methods.

So the comparison Asa makes is speculative and pointless. If we count in Netscape's heritage, the marketshare of Firefox is disappointingly low. Is that saying anything noteworthy? Of course not, that's just crying over spoilt milk.

I wish more Opera and Firefox fans would (re)act like Kelson.