An appeal to the developers from a long-time Opera fan

An appeal to the developers from a long-time Opera fan

Opera is falling behind firefox in standards support (CSS3 and MathML, for instance) and still has annoying bugs extant from version 8.50 (try to set opera to remember 0 addresses in the address bar, for instance; it doesn't work).

The devs should focus on standards support, bugs, and speed before trying to introduce pointless new features like widgets or the "O button", (granted, they have certainly improved speed, but the other two (standards support and bugs) have been left by the wayside). Opera 10.5 and higher are a step backwards in terms of stability and usability (I have been using Opera faithfully for eight years, so I can tell.) It's harder for me to recommend opera to people due to these issues.

So please, developers, shore up your position before attempting to add new features.

I disagree the Opera browser is getting better it loads up pages faster and more cleanly with every new release making it easier to browse. Most of the old bugs have gone and the icing on the cake is the added features.

Most of the old bugs aren't gone. I can cite several that have existed for as long as I've used the browser:

Old bugs (since 8.5):

Set opera to remember 0 addresses in the history section of the preferences. Now type in addresses. You will see that opera is now saving them (even after restarting opera)! This means that the "remember 0 addresses" option is completely nonfunctional!

Click in the address bar and highlight the text. Now move your cursor ever so slightly under where the text is highlighted, between above the bottom of the white part of the address bar. Now right click. Notice that you will have the option to copy grayed out, and further, if you click "cut", nothing happens.

New Bug:

Set opera to allow a window with no tabs. Now try to perform the mouse gesture to open a new page on a window with no tabs. If a new tab does happen to open up, close it and try once more. The problem is immediately evident. Essentially, the context menu will appear immediately and block your ability to perform mouse gestures. This is a bug introduced in the 10.5 alpha that was never fixed.

I can list other bugs if you want, but these three are just ones I could think of offhand. Your assertion that the browser is getting better and less buggy is, and I'll put it frankly, fatuous. I have provided evidence for my claims. Basically, your argument is meaningless.

Originally posted by Negi:

I have provided evidence for my claims.

To be frank, you have not provided any evidence at all for your claim: "Opera is getting more buggy." You have only provided evidence that there are still some bugs — so what's new? The one's you cited are trivial or minor issues. Since 10.50 Opera is surely getting less buggy — just look at the Changelogs

Of course, features that you don't use are pointless from your POV only. The O button saves space by allowing the menu to be hidden. Many of us have used a custom menu button for years and disabled the menu, so this feature is far from pointless.

Widgets? No use to me — the Analogue clock is the only one I use occasionally, but there have been many requests/demands for Opera to be made more extensible, so adding scope for independent developers to write widgets is a useful new feature for some. Only time will tell if someone comes up with a "must have" widget that everyone wants.

Though you don't mention it, Unite is also very useful to me — it is certainly not a useless new feature. Turbo is useful for dial-up users. Opera Link is useful for sharing bookmarks etc., between home and work.

Opera developers have always concentrated on standards support and are constantly improving support for CSS, HTML5, etc. Sure, better Maths XML support would be great — for the tiny minority who need it, but as always the developers have to prioritise their time as they see fit, not as you or I see fit. We are just a couple of pebbles on a very big beach.

Fixing Bugs Never Stops

Originally posted by Neqi:

Opera is falling behind firefox in standards support

unlikely...

Originally posted by Neqi:

pointless new features like widgets

There are quite a few reasons why widgets are far from useless. The primary target for widgets is the mobile and devices platforms - Apple's iPhone App store has had over 4 billion downloads, and many other companies are <a href="http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2009/09/a_list_of_all_a.html">investing enormously in mobile apps</a>. Opera is right now the <a href="http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2009/04/introduction_to.html#link9">only major implementation of the W3C standard for mobile apps</a>. <-- that article is actually a great general overview of what widgets are and will be.

Originally posted by Neqi:

the "O button"

Hardly constitutes a new feature - it's just a button. In fact many people had made similar buttons in previous Opera versions, now it's just there by default.

Originally posted by Neqi:

Most of the old bugs aren't gone. I can cite several

You've cited two. Two is not "most of the old bugs". I'm sure there's far more than two, but it's definitely not a large number - "most of the old bugs" is a really silly exaggeration.

<i>So please, developers, shore up your position before attempting to add new features.</i>

+1

At a minimum, it is painfully obvious that Opera's behavior is highly inconsistent, if not quirky or buggy.

I disable or don't use most of Opera's "features", and I generally run with javascript and plugins disabled, but I still experience many intermittant problems that suggest (to me) timing or race conditions in the code, for which some of the consequences maybe the occasional corruption of ini files as well.

I have also experienced config settings working for a while and then sometimes reset, and some not reset but seemingly ignored. The paucity of documentation, definitive clarity on what platforms an Opera release has been tested, and lack of feedback on bug reports precludes knowing if these are user errors or Opera problems.

I expect the same inconsistency exists for website developers, and even those websites which do attempt to test for compatibility with Opera have no ability to ensure consistent performance and behavior for Opera users. And while they might have avenues of obtaining support from Opera development, I doubt they have much business justification as the cost expended to resolve inconsistent website behavior with Opera far exeeds any benefit from Opera's *very minor* marketshare (myself included). The ROI for website developers is surely much higher supporting Firefox, IE and Chrome.

Even when I'm reasonably sure the problem is not Opera, but either the website or my ISP, I can't prove it or help them reproduce it, because they aren't willing to invest the time or experiment with Opera. As far as they are concerned, if no one else is complaining using Firefix or IE then there is no problem. And maybe they're right.

The Opera user has major hurdles to overcome in determining whether a problem is their computer, their ISP, the website or Opera, and Opera's inconsistent behavior, even using an instance that has been static (aside from bookmarks) for months, makes problem identification near impossible for the average user.

Without improved reliability and consistency, Opera will not see widespread adoption.

I can't invest the time to keep re-reporting the problems with every release (I stopped bothering with bug reports at 9.27 and stopped upgrading at 9.62), nor can I keep guessing if a bug has been fixed or merely gone into remission only to resume a few weeks later. I stopped installing Opera for my friends and some small town libraries, as I (logistically) can't support it.

There is no point to being fast for features that aren't used or don't work, and Opera's inconsistency and unreliability (whether by planned deprecation or unplanned bugs) has increased with each release (which to some extent is to be expected). But I've yet to see an Opera release that fixed more problems than it creates (or so it seems from my narrow perspective of what I experience and what I read about). Or if problems have been fixed, I either didn't have them or the new problems are so significant as to preclude my using a release which otherwise fixes old problems.

(edit:)

Opera Development/Marketing, consider this:

If you get Opera to a point where it consistently, reliably can be used by a website or ISP as a cost-effective indicator of quality standards compliance, and demonstrate that fixing a problem observed with Opera also fixes similar/related problems encounterred by other browsers, then more websites and ISPs would test against Opera, and ostensibly improve the Opera user's experience and support, which in turn removes a major obstacle to marketshare maintenance and growth.

OTOH, what argument can Opera, today, offer the ISP or website to invest the time and expense to investigate and resolve Opera related problems? Why isn't that investment better directed at Firefox, IE, and Chrome, today? What's in it for them?

Could Opera become a "diagnostic tool" of first resort for websites, ISPs, plugin developers, platform vendors, etc., or is it destined to remain unreliable bloatware for their end-users?

@Lucideer:

Why is it that opera doesn't support MathML, then?

Originally posted by Neqi:

Why is it that opera doesn't support MathML, then?

I'm not really sure what you mean by that. Why doesn't Firefox support SMIL or Widgets? Why don't Firefox or Chrome support WebForms? Why doesn't IE support canvas? I have no idea - different vendors choose to implement different things. Relevance?

Originally posted by Starwind:

The ROI for website developers is surely much higher supporting Firefox, IE and Chrome.

As a web developer, I can tell you in all honesty that this is far from true - IE in particular, as I'm sure you're probably aware, actually has a very low (possibly negative) ROI despite it's massive market share.

Originally posted by Starwind:

I stopped bothering with bug reports at 9.27 and stopped upgrading at 9.62

And this is where the penny drops. If you think there is little ROI for web developers testing in the latest Opera - I can guarantee that there is absolutely none for those testing in older versions. I, an Opera user, rarely if ever test in 9.62. Your lengthy post implies you are having serious issues with Opera website compatibility - have you perhaps considered, rather than being apparently "plagued" by Opera bugs, that web developers of pages you're visiting simply no longer bother maintaining compatibility with your outdated Opera version?

Originally posted by Starwind:

I've yet to see an Opera release that fixed more problems than it creates (or so it seems from my narrow perspective of what I experience and what I read about).

And penny number two hits the floor. I read this support forum regularly. I don't read the Firefox equivalent fora, nor other browsers'. So if I were to base my impression of which browser is least buggy purely on what I read - I wouldn't touch Opera with a ten foot barge pole. Because I exclusively read a support forum that is designed especially for users of the Opera browser to come to when they have problems and report/discuss those problems.

The support forum for any piece of software is the single place where you will find a massively disproportionate number of users discussing everything that's wrong with that software - basing your view of that browser purely on reading overwhelmingly negative reports of it isn't really going to give you a representative picture.

Lucideer:

<i>IE in particular, as I'm sure you're probably aware, actually has a very low (possibly negative) ROI despite it's massive market share.</i>

Your wording is a bit vague. I'm not arguing the ROI of IE itself (Microsoft certainly doesn't understand ROI - agreed on that score), but rather I mean the ROI of websites, ISP's and plugin developers that test against IE. I'm referring to <i>their ROI</i>, not IE's or Microsoft's. And if you think for one second that almost everyone (save possibly opera.com, and perhaps you) doesn't test against IE (at least 2 versions), well that would be a penny dropping, wouldn't it.

<i> If you think there is little ROI for web developers testing in the latest Opera - I can guarantee that there is absolutely none for those testing in older versions. I, an Opera user, rarely if ever test in 9.62. </i>

I don't expect web developers to test currently against Opera 9.62. In fact I doubt that most web developers test against any version of Opera. Nor do I expect 9.62 to be patched with fixes. But what I do expect is that the problems already reported to Opera get fixed in a timely fashion without creating new problems that preclude benefiting from the presumed fixes (I say "presumed" because without specific feedback, we don't really know what bugs were fixed on what platform, now do we. We're just guessing, hoping, installing yet another version, each of us rerunning our own kind of QA to see if our bug is fixed, only to find it hasn't.

<i>Your lengthy post implies you are having serious issues with Opera website compatibility - have you perhaps considered, rather than being apparently "plagued" by Opera bugs, that web developers of pages you're visiting simply no longer bother maintaining compatibility with your outdated Opera version?</i>

My lengthy post actually covered a number of other points, most of which seem to have gone over your head. Nor do I accept your false premise that the web developers of pages I visit ever at any time bothered maintaining compatibility with any version of Opera. Opera is rarely listed as a "supported" browser. Never have I been told upgrade to the latest version of Opera, instead I'm told to change to a supported browser like IE or Firefox (any version). The problem is not that Opera version 9.62 is not supported, rather the problem is that Opera 9.62 was *never* supported, nor any earlier release, nor any later release. The problem is not version specific, the problem is *browser* specific. The problem is web developers of pages I visit don't bother with Opera, any version. And when behavior is inconsistent, it is often impossible to narrow responsibility. And when I could reproduce the problem in Opera, show that something works in an earlier version but not in a later version, what is the feedback? zip, nada, zilch. Was it my mistake? Maybe. How do I find out? What documentation do I reread? Was it Opera's bug? Maybe. How do I find out? Install the latest beta version and hope?

<i>basing your view of that browser <b>purely on reading overwhelmingly negative reports</b> of it isn't really going to give you a representative picture.</i>

And here is where the last penny drops.

I never said I based my views *purely* on what I read here, did I. But that is a convenient distortion for you to spin and dismiss my points. I said I base it on bugs *not being fixed*, inconsistent behavior and my own experiences as well, didn't I. I don't read other forums either, but I do read here occasionally and I recognize the *risk* I face of encountering unacceptable problems (such as crashing, auto updates by default and losing bookmarks). And for what? So I can join in? So I can play another round of 'Opera user QA'^TM to see if I guessed right about reported bugs being fixed?

No thank you. I have a day job which I intend to keep. Opera is a tool for me, not a career or lifestyle.

And these posts wouldn't need to be so lengthy if the obvious didn't need to keep being rephrased and reiterated, if the problems were at least acknowledged, instead of spun and dismissed.

Originally posted by Starwind:

'm not arguing the ROI of IE itself (Microsoft certainly doesn't understand ROI - agreed on that score), but rather I mean the ROI of websites, ISP's and plugin developers that test against IE. I'm referring to their ROI, not IE's or Microsoft's.

I know what you meant - that's what I meant too. ROI is largely governed by the benefit of developing for the market-leader (and also partially by managers/clients with little understanding of the time investment required to support IE), but without that market lead, the sheer complexity of going to the trouble of supporting IE way outweighs the development effort of any other browser.

Originally posted by Starwind:

My lengthy post actually covered a number of other points, most of which seem to have gone over your head.

Sorry if any of what you said appears to have gone "over my head" (specifics? what did I miss?) - I assume by this sentence that you are then not having website compatibility issues with Opera (as that is ALL I implied in what you're rebutting)?

Originally posted by Starwind:

But what I do expect is that the problems already reported to Opera get fixed in a timely fashion

If you're using 9.62, what evidence do you have of this? I'm not implying there aren't bugs (the plugin transparency one mentioned by Neqi is one of my own pet annoyances for example, something I'm sincerely hoping gets fixed soon, there are many many bugs that annoy me too), merely that you've given no specifics whatsoever in any of your posts. Opera 10.60 has bugs, but do you use it? What is your direct experience of it in comparison to 9.62, beyond wild, vague statements that it's apparently introduced more issues than fixed.

Originally posted by Starwind:

But that is a convenient distortion for you to spin and dismiss my points. I said I base it on bugs *not being fixed*, inconsistent behavior and my own experiences as well, didn't I.

Yes you did, and at no point did I contradict that, nor "distort", "spin" or "dismiss" that - despite your apparent willingness to discredit me without rebuttal. Speaking of which...

Originally posted by Neqi:

We should start a thread and fill it with all of the old bugs that haven't been fixed in multiple versions!

Please, please don't. Many many other people have had this same great idea - which has resulted in lengthy unwieldy disorganised threads, which noone bothers to read through comprehensively and therefore resulting in huge numbers of duplicate reports of bugs, and ending up being completely useless as devs can't search them efficiently either. Unless you know of some other potential benefit to having such things?

Originally posted by Neqi:

Everyone who supports the status quo

I don't think it's fair to say that people who use Opera "support the status quo". I would love to see more bugs fixed, at a faster rate. However, in my experience as a web developer, Opera has far far less bugs in how it displays pages I've created than any other browser. In my experience as a user, I can't comment too accurately as I don't use other browsers regularly but it certainly has less UI/feature bugs than Firefox (which I'd use secondarily) as far as I can tell.

Lucideer:

<i>If you're using 9.62, what evidence do you have of this [that what I do expect is that the problems already reported to Opera get fixed in a timely fashion]? </i>

Evidence of what <i>I expect</i>?. I know what I expect. I don't need "evidence" for my own expectations, regardless of your inability to read and comprehend what I've stated as my expectations, to wit (again): that longstanding problems already reported to Opera get fixed in a timely fashion.

Or did you mean evidence of longstanding problems being fixed in a timely fashion? For which I have no evidence. That's the complaint. I don't see longstanding reported problems being fixed. That is the point being made (repeatedly) on this thread) - longstanding problems not being fixed. (BTW this is why posts get lengthy - a seeming lack of reading comprehension).

I know what longstanding bugs I've reported (repeatedly as of version 8 and still were not fixed as of 9.62, and seemingly not in 10.x either). And I know what longstanding problems I and others continue to experience (both reported on this forum, and personally experienced by me on the installations of others I help). If they're bugs, they're not fixed. If they're not bugs, Opera has never said so, nor documented the behavior as a "feature".

<i>Opera 10.60 has bugs, but do you use it? What is your direct experience of it in comparison to 9.62, beyond wild, vague statements that it's apparently introduced more issues than fixed.</i>

I already said I stopped bothering to upgrade at 9.62 and gave my reasons, including no indication that the bugs I've reported previously have been fixed, that lack of benefit being outweighed by the risks of crashes and other performance and corruption problems as reported (numerously) by others (again, this is why posts get lengthy - lack of reading comprehension necessitating repetition and elaboration).

<i>Yes you did [say: I base it on bugs *not being fixed*, inconsistent behavior and my own experiences as well], and <b>at no point did I contradict that</b>, nor "distort", "spin" or "dismiss" that - despite your apparent willingness to discredit me without rebuttal.</i>

How much repetitive rebuttal do you require?

The eaxct point at which you contradicted that are your words (again): "<i>basing your view of that browser <b>purely on reading overwhelmingly negative reports</b> of it isn't really going to give you a representative picture</i>." Go look up the definition of "purely" and prepare to be quizzed. (again, a lack of reading comprehension, even with bold highlighting, necessitating more repetition and elaboration which lengthens an otherwise redundant post on my part).

You can not simultaneously accuse me of basing my view <b>purely on reading overwhelmingly negative reports</b> while claiming to <b>not contradict</b> "<i>Yes you did</i> [said I base it on bugs *not being fixed*, inconsistent behavior and my own experiences as well]". One of these things is not the same. Hence my point that most of my lengthy post(s) go over your head.

As further lengthy redundancy on my part would be pointless, my original post stands as-is, and I doubt I'll have much to add.

I require no repetitive rebuttal - merely for you to understand what I'm asking you (which you've failed to do sofar.. which could be my fault I suppose, I'll attempt further clarity).

Have you used Opera 10.5x/10.60 and found it to have more bugs, in your general day to day usage, than have been fixed? Have you used it and found it to have many serious regressions/old serious bugs?

If not, then I don't really understand the purpose of your post here. If your quibbles are based on speculation on a release that you have not tried, or based on your experience of an outdated release, then it's not a particularly useful/productive/helpful post.

You seem to have a lot of complaining to do, while not having used the current release being supported, which seems fairly aimless to me.