The Opera Evolution

By Espen André ØverdahlEspenAO. Thursday, September 2, 2010 9:32:16 AM

,

This is a really cool fan video by Encrio showing how Opera has evolved as a browser. We've been making Web browser for more than 15 years and you can only wonder how modern browsers would look like if Opera had never existed. Do you think the features would be the same? smile

We love videos featuring Opera, so if you have any favorites out there please let us know as a comment. yes

So sit back, grab some popcorn and enjoy:

An Opera skin with some old school buttonsHow does your Opera look like?

Comments

JaredpieRr0Ur Thursday, September 2, 2010 9:52:26 AM

up

Wish I knew Opera BEFORE 9.6
(Knew it earlier sad )

Andy Kakwork Thursday, September 2, 2010 9:55:55 AM

COOL

Artur „Jurgi” JurgawkaJurgi Thursday, September 2, 2010 9:57:43 AM

Nice work.

z@h3kZAHEK Thursday, September 2, 2010 10:03:08 AM

yikes

lkeol Thursday, September 2, 2010 10:04:31 AM

I really like tabs design in 9.50 how close and without spaces they are. I even hold some uncompatibile skin on 10.00 but then times go on....

Matthew DavenportDopplerMatt Thursday, September 2, 2010 10:26:57 AM

i wish it was in english instead of italian. But it shows just how superior Opera is to IE and (in the early years) Netscape Navigator...which carries on today in Opera 10.6 Turbo..... bigsmile

kys38 Thursday, September 2, 2010 10:27:40 AM

i used adware version:) 6.50>>>>>10.61

Ruud Steltenpoolstelt Thursday, September 2, 2010 10:28:30 AM

While 1st video was playing at 1:49 i started playing the 2nd, the sound actually combines quite nicely most of the time :-)

Opera rules.

Kei Grieg Toyomasuketoyo Thursday, September 2, 2010 10:36:18 AM

Nice job with the video smile

Trickstar Thursday, September 2, 2010 10:39:07 AM

Opera 3.21? Been there, done that. Most videos and screenshots actually miss the really capabilities of the browser even in the old versions. In a direct comparison to other browser, it absolutely stood out for more than 10 years.

Joseph D. Lienjdlien Thursday, September 2, 2010 10:41:02 AM

It's so surprising when you take a look back through these old versions how much they have changed. And I've used all of these versions! There were some really substantial user interface changes in Opera; when you compare with IE, Internet Explorer barely changed at all.

It's clear that Opera has really had to try hard to push the envelope and think of new features to differentiate itself from other browsers out there, especially back when it was not a free product. IE, on the other hand was content to stay pretty stagnant and only slowly implement very minor, incremental changes.

If Opera hadn't stuck it out, it's very likely that we'd still be stuck at the level of browsers we had back in about 2001 or 2002.

Necroman Thursday, September 2, 2010 10:57:09 AM

It looks like Opera UI hasn't changed a lot since 7.50 bigsmile Only features like speed dial, widgets, torrents, Opera link, Unite server, title-less design and fastest JavaScript engine around... wait what? bigeyes

Necroman Thursday, September 2, 2010 11:00:35 AM

Also it took only 2 years to Chrome to get most of these features wink
I guess the next milestone for Opera is the hardware acceleration yes

MBAHDONK™Rizalspyro Thursday, September 2, 2010 11:33:11 AM

testing

serious Thursday, September 2, 2010 12:00:16 PM

ah, I remember 7.02 ... beautiful skin. although after thinking about it nowadays the default-enabled main bar was a huge waste of space.

Boozie 'KVZTA Thursday, September 2, 2010 12:02:20 PM

I used from 7.50 bigsmile

Charles SchlossChas4 Thursday, September 2, 2010 12:39:11 PM

cool

JaredpieRr0Ur Thursday, September 2, 2010 1:00:25 PM

Chrome?

5th version still never heard a change.

Tamil Thursday, September 2, 2010 1:54:21 PM

Joachim Blaabjergblaabjerg Thursday, September 2, 2010 2:32:43 PM

Huh, I thought Opera was a result of intelligent design!? idea

eil stridereil Thursday, September 2, 2010 3:16:40 PM

good video. liked first track, and searched for it to download. i mean- author, thanks for using that track!)
first used opera 7.50 and never used any other since than.

Zephirine Thursday, September 2, 2010 3:33:31 PM

FataL Thursday, September 2, 2010 4:20:44 PM

Where is Opera 2? p
I have version 2.12 running on XP. Don't have a serial number for it though sad

Originally posted by Trickstar:

Opera 3.21? Been there, done that. Most videos and screenshots actually miss the really capabilities of the browser even in the old versions. In a direct comparison to other browser, it absolutely stood out for more than 10 years.

Agree.

EnricoEnrico89 Thursday, September 2, 2010 4:35:57 PM

Originally posted by eil:

good video. liked first track, and searched for it to download. i mean- author, thanks for using that track!)



Yes, the first track is my favorite bigsmile The track name is L.O.R.D. by echoed. You can download it for free, it's released under Creative Common License smile

Thank you mr. Øverdahl to show my video in the Choose Opera blog, i'm very happy that you like it smile
Maybe i'll try to create a new shorter version, it's very long, but i showed many versions smile

P.S. you did a little mistake: my name is Enrico, not Encrio whistle p

Erick Omar DelgadoDjehuty Thursday, September 2, 2010 5:09:05 PM

Nice.
up up

Superrrrrdurt!Superdurt Thursday, September 2, 2010 5:25:13 PM

Never used Opera back when it had the banner add. Since what version Opera became "add" free?

Daniel BustosGourry Thursday, September 2, 2010 5:26:56 PM

Opera user since version 4.xx, didn't buy a license until version 5 though. Time sure passes quickly...

Tamil Thursday, September 2, 2010 5:34:09 PM

Originally posted by Superdurt:

Since what version Opera became "add" free?

Opera 8.50

d4rkn1ght Thursday, September 2, 2010 6:55:50 PM

up

Superrrrrdurt!Superdurt Thursday, September 2, 2010 7:14:53 PM

Thnx for the comments!

Then I think I started using Opera since 8.50 (or at least around that time). wink
Part of the new-school!

DerGattdergatt Thursday, September 2, 2010 7:28:32 PM

Buy Opera today and make this banner go away smile good times

Angelikiellinidata Thursday, September 2, 2010 7:28:40 PM

"we have come a long way baby!!!" up yes cool

markuman Thursday, September 2, 2010 8:54:01 PM

i can't believe it! opera is the first browser whitch supports webm/html5 video in his stable 10.6 browser, and all i got here are hints that i need a plugin on Arch Linux x86_64 :-(

bmhv Thursday, September 2, 2010 10:39:31 PM

Started using Opera since verion 9. I thought that Opera was an absolutely free browser, until I saw this. But it makes sense, Opera needs funds for research too.

EricJH Friday, September 3, 2010 2:03:38 AM

Thanks for the ride down memory lane..... wizard

Started with Opera with v 7.1x myself.

Originally posted by dergatt:

Buy Opera today and make this banner go away smile good times

For real...up

Boy, with hindsight; the 9.5 skin was ugly ..... hard to imagine I actually liked it....sad bigsmile With hindsight again; those old skins, v7 abd v8, were actually pretty well done.

Too bad the video does not show the tabs on the title bar for the later versions. What OS was being used in this video?

Other then my last critical: cool videos...

coffee

Marcelo Martinsmarcelomms Friday, September 3, 2010 2:11:42 AM

Fantástico. Vemos ai a evolução da navegação na internet nestes vídeos, graças ao opera.

"Fantastic. I see the evolution of web browsing on these videos, thanks to operate."

Carlos Manuel Juaristi ManriqueAndalov Friday, September 3, 2010 6:07:39 AM

hahahaha great and great music. wow ho fast does the computing and web change. i still remember the terrible noise of the 56k modems dialing up hahaha and downloading files from napster at 1 kb/s and my mom angry because she couldn't use the phone wile i was online

EnricoEnrico89 Friday, September 3, 2010 6:23:50 AM

Originally posted by EricJH:

What OS was being used in this video?


I used Windows 2000 Professional

Kai OckendorfOckendorf Friday, September 3, 2010 7:00:48 AM

thx for the great journey through the Opera versions bigsmile

DavidSchalandra Friday, September 3, 2010 7:59:45 AM

Ah... good memories. *sigh*
My first Opera was 3.21 provided on a CD-ROM by a german computer magazine. up
Since then Opera was always my default browser. Thanks a lot for the videos AND the browsers since then. love

AndyHadraniel Friday, September 3, 2010 8:16:37 AM

Using Opera scince 3.62.

Even though it continues to have a rather low market share, it has massively influenced World Wide Web technologies and browsing experience in the last decade, both on desktop and especially on mobile devices.

What the iPhone 2G did to mobile devices and smarphones, Opera browser did for WWW browsers.

Similar to iPhone both in good and bad: competition is getting close - and surpassing. Sorry guys, but Chrome IS faster today, and especially on Linux it's not only much faster, it is also more stable.

Anyway, on Windows I'll keep it as my primary browser and I keep my fingers crossed for you to keep up the tech and innovation pace and probably leadership, and sustain the thriving competition, not to end up like 3dfx or Matrox (once leading GPU vendors).

Check out the forums: how about Tab Grouping? ("Tab Candy" Firefox prototype)

Chris HanssenHanssen069 Friday, September 3, 2010 10:49:28 PM

WOW I am impressed. Alot of innovations came on here at Opera. I've been a user since 2008 or 2009. I have Opera as my main browser. Nice job to the Opera staff for making a better browser then Internet Explorer.

LarryTalamasca Saturday, September 4, 2010 2:36:42 AM

If anyone cares to reminisce or just wants to play…


http://www.oldversion.com/Opera.html

Izuchukwu onwukaIzubobby Saturday, September 4, 2010 8:11:36 AM

I love opera

eyal merhavieyalorpas3 Sunday, September 5, 2010 12:29:49 AM

nice one!!!! (:

Douglas Charles CunhaGenumano Sunday, September 5, 2010 4:41:39 PM

Pow, Windows 98? The evolution of Windows should follow the Opera. Windows 1998, XP, Vista and Seven where Opera is very beautiful.

slackwrdave Sunday, September 5, 2010 11:20:41 PM

The ad version of Opera should demonstrate the red/white flashing ad that made people run away like it was on fire. I bought a license twice then got tired of paying.

Other than that it's been lovely since the very first day. Used to you could tote Opera around on a single floppy and install it everywhere you went.

Cool video about our favorite "rebel" browser. up heart

IKoke Monday, September 6, 2010 3:15:56 AM

up

Michael John Lambiniciozenmic Monday, September 6, 2010 3:40:06 AM

I would like to install my new opera mini 5.1,can you help for the setting.

Charles beredoTutoybaet Monday, September 6, 2010 12:52:21 PM

Opera mini 4.2.. Cool.

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