[O12b1105] Google's 'Keep out' policy

Since I am on the Next/alpha track, which now incl. HWA and WebGL I ask this here:

Has Opera any workable way to outtrick Google's browser sniffing?

It starts with Docs, goes on to G+ and iG, and since this morning [Europe] includes MapsGL - all of which aren't fully usable with Opera. I have tried to Masquerade as Firefox, which brings some changes but none of them usable, e.g. G+ will show the number of notifications and this indicator will open up when I click it, but it is empty. MapsGL will under no circumstance allow me to at least try if it works with O12 since it doesn't provide the necessary notification in the lower left corner of the page.

The only really workable way is browser.js — there are already several of patches in there that workaround some problems with Google. The trouble is Google change their code frequently and it becomes almost a full-time job if you're looking to keep full functionality across all of Google's sites.

Opera could change such that its user-agent and related JavaScript properties perfectly mirror Firefox or Chrome, but then they'd disappear from browser usage statistics so that's not really a usable solution.

The only real solution for any site problem is for developers to test in as many browsers as they can (at a minimum most recent versions of the 5 main desktop browsers — ideally across Windows/OSX/Linux; on mobiles if you're doing any significant development you should at least have access to one Android device that's running Opera mobile alongside Android Webkit, and mobile Safari — basically if it doesn't cost you anything extra in hardware to add another browser to test in DO IT DAMMIT!) For a company of Google's size they actually really suck at cross-browser support by relying on browser sniffing as heavily as they do.

this is extremely annoying. i am a heavy google+ user, and am currently using opera 11.52. when you access google.com, the normal links to google+ are completely removed if you are using opera. the 'keep out policy' used by the OP is a good way of describing it. it would be a travesty if 12.00 was released before this is resolved. i understand BtEO's point that there is no easy solution...and i don't have one either...but it's ludicrous for a web browser to be released that does not support one of the most used sites on the web.

this makes me sad

Originally posted by BtEO:

The only real solution for any site problem is for developers to test in as many browsers as they can

Mostly Not required. All standard code on a website is compatible with Opera automatically, webmasters just need to make sure that they just write -o- prefixes in some of their CSS code (that's in most cases easy; when you add a prefix for other browser such as -webkit- prefix, also use -o- prefix there; works for most times).

While Google is relatively different case, sniffing Opera purposely and only Google employees and God know why.

we should try to raise a stink here:

https://groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums.com/forum/#!topic/google-plus-discuss/RJ3soouCDYQ/discussion

Originally posted by GeneValgene:

we should try to raise a stink here:

You can try. Good luck. I can't because I deleted my Google account and don't want to use any Google service except Google Maps.

Originally posted by Swapnil99pro:

Originally posted by BtEO:

The only real solution for any site problem is for developers to test in as many browsers as they can

Mostly Not required. All standard code on a website is compatible with Opera automatically, webmasters just need to make sure that they just write -o- prefixes in some of their CSS code (that's in most cases easy; when you add a prefix for other browser such as -webkit- prefix, also use -o- prefix there; works for most times).

Ahh but if you're in the habit of testing in Opera and everything else you'll notice if you've forgotten -o- prefixes (or whatever.)

i think i know the reason google is shutting out opera...look at the browser marketshare trends here:
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=1&qpcustomb=0&qptimeframe=M&qpsp=140&qpnp=14
.
opera has been steadily losing browser marketshare over the past year...from 2.42% down to 1.67%. chrome on the other hand, has been steadily rising from 8.24% to 16.2%

you can see here google has already classified opera as not a top tier browser:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/11/google_does_not_support_opera_as_top_tier_browser/

i think they are just going to purposely cripple opera, until opera becomes obsolete. google knows that no one is going to use a browser that can't run its products, because they are so dominant in terms of their search and other web apps.

so sad

Personally i couldn't give a crap about google, I am actually starting to see them as some sort of virus/vermin
that is getting everywhere, Spreading like a disease and infecting every corner of the internet.

Granted, For the first few years, Google brought some good and useful things to the table where the internet
is concerned, But soon the advertising personally for me started getting out of hand, And you could not view
a webpage without seeing at least one advert sponsored by google (spit), Now they are acting as if they own or
are god (microsoft) of the internet.

Originally posted by LinuxMint7:

Personally i couldn't give a crap about google, I am actually starting to see them as some sort of virus/vermin
that is getting everywhere, Spreading like a disease and infecting every corner of the internet.

Granted, For the first few years, Google brought some good and useful things to the table where the internet
is concerned, But soon the advertising personally for me started getting out of hand, And you could not view
a webpage without seeing at least one advert sponsored by google (spit), Now they are acting as if they own or
are god (microsoft) of the internet.

yea...but most people rely on google as crappy as that is i use google docs, google mail, google maps...and now i use google+ regularly, which has forced me to use chrome more and more - i hate it. i hate how chrome closes out when i close the last tab. i hate how chrome doesn't have an address drop down arrow. i hate how its speed dial sucks so much compared to opera....yet i'm forced to use it because i need google products to work

it just sucks that google is shutting out opera users.

Originally posted by GeneValgene:

yet i'm forced to use it because i need google products to work

There are some alternatives to Google products and some Google products that work fine with Opera. For Google Mail, you can use My Opera Mail, although when I didn't had problems with Gmail with my Google account (now closed). Google Maps are working just fine without masking as of now. Unfortunately, it's just Google Docs that has no competing alternative. For Google+, you have My Opera, although if you want to use Google+ then try this extension (latest version and other versions). Any other Google product that you rely on?

Originally posted by Swapnil99pro:

Originally posted by GeneValgene:

yet i'm forced to use it because i need google products to work

There are some alternatives to Google products and some Google products that work fine with Opera. For Google Mail, you can use My Opera Mail, although when I didn't had problems with Gmail with my Google account (now closed). Google Maps are working just fine without masking as of now. Unfortunately, it's just Google Docs that has no competing alternative. For Google+, you have My Opera, although if you want to use Google+ then try this extension (latest version and other versions). Any other Google product that you rely on?

yea, i am sure i can work around it...but ultimately opera will only continue to lose market share unless their products work with google

Originally posted by GeneValgene:

but ultimately opera will only continue to lose market share unless their products work with google

There are indications of high rises in Opera's market share. If Opera team develops the Bookmarks API for extensions, then Xmarks will add support for Opera too. Lack of Xmarks is a reason why many Firefox users aren't switching to Opera. Then Opera will soon be the king in HTML5 support, displacing Chrome - attracting a lot of users. "Full hardware acceleration on Windows XP systems and DirectX 9-capable cards" when Windows XP users hear this, they will rush to get Opera.

I agree , using Xmarks Full not the mini along with Lastpass would make Opera Number One !

Here's what you can do:
1. Open the website you like (e.g. Google Maps)
2. Open Opera Dragonfly (Right click - Inspect element)
3. Go to "Network" tab
4. There you'll see "Network options" sub-tab
5. "Enable global Header Overrides" there
6. Set "Chrome 12" preset
7. Replace User-Agent to mimic Chrome 16 on Windows7 x64:
"Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/535.7 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/16.0.912.36 Safari/535.7"
or anything else you like to test...
8. Click Save.

Now reload the page and Google will serve you the page as if you are on Chrome... As long as you have Dragonfly open (debug mode)...

I've got fully functional Google Toolbar this way, with working notifications, but it was very slow and stalled browser for 10-20 seconds on load... When notification button displayed the number of notifications, CPU usage was back to normal and the button worked correctly... Maybe that's why Google has blocked it for Opera users - it stalls the browser for a long time when you load ANY Google's page...

Then I've got MapsGL notification, clicked "Try it now", but my nVidia driver crashed after that (driver has stopped responding and has been recovered). If I were on WinXP, I'd get BSOD...