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!

What did Firefox do right to get this attention? And more importantly, will it be sustainable? Getting lots of people to try FF (again) does not mean they will actually continue to use it. Will Firefox continue to draw new users away from MSIE? What can Opera learn from this?

Things in favor of Firefox:
- open source geek appeal
- capitalizing on IE security fears
- the promise of simplicity
- slick and focused product websites
- inheritance of the Netscape goodwill of 1994
- a few additions to the standard browser feature set

Am I missing important items?

Things in favor of Opera:
- lots of extra features, integrated!
- full user control at your fingertips
- easy customizing (skins, toolbars)
- integrated package with Mail, RSS, IRC
- capitalizing on IE security fears
- image of fast & small

Am I missing important items? I don't mean specific features. And if I'm correct about the list above, are we communicating these things?

You may note I don't mention standards support here. 99% of the potential users could not care less, even supposed they understood what it means. Remember I'm talking about people who are not already using Opera or Firefox...

Looks like we have a nice new welcome page for new users, making existing content more accessible:
<http://www.opera.com/startup/>

It looks pretty and clean (cleaner than the old one), though I find the icons not really matching with each other.