A Blog From Behind the Trenches

The news that the HTML5 specification will not specify a video codec is bad news for the open Web. What makes things worse is that a common, royalty-free codec was actually agreed on by all involved browser vendors, except one.

Apple.

Read more...

It looks like someone has started work on a BitTorrent tracker running as a Unite service. The creator now needs help to find bugs, which is why he made a public announcement about it.

You can find the tracker's homepage at Google Code.

I'm pretty amazed by this service, and I really can't wait to see what kind of Unite services other people can come up with.

Not knowing much about the specifics of this service, I wonder if it would be possible to create a network of "decentralized" BitTorrent trackers for redundancy purposes. Since a Unite service is easy to set up, just about anyone could run a BitTorrent tracker, and if several of them connected in a network of "trusted" trackers continuously mirroring each other, there would always be a tracker available even if someone disconnects a computer running the tracker.

Time will tell how far Unite can take things, I guess.

Performance benchmarks are all the rage these days, but everyone seems to be focusing narrowly on artificial benchmarks that basically tell you how certain browsers perform at the particular JavaScript functions chosen for those particular benchmarks.

It's surprising that there is little or no focus on other, perhaps more relevant performance aspects of modern pages. For example, how do browsers perform when it comes to dynamically changing the style of a page (CSS)?

Read more...

Opera Portal is the default homepage in Opera, and has until now been somewhat under-used. This will change with the new version of the site which is currently being gradually rolled out.

Read more...

I'm used to Opera being a small company (although with around 700 employees, we are perhaps not "small" anymore?) which always has to keep fighting to be heard in a world dominated by huge corporations that basically own everyone's attention. I'm also used to seeing these giants enter the same markets as Opera, and wondering if they will really care as much about browsers and an open Web as we do.

Well, now I guess I can put things in perspective.

Read more...

Microsoft's new Get the facts has a strange smell to it. It's almost like it smells... old and stale.

Read more...

Opera Unite hasn't even been out for two days yet, and someone has already set up a development howto site. That's what I call fast!

The site has lots of detailed information and specific examples of how you do various things. Perhaps the site can complement the official Unite developer documentation for budding Unite developers.

I'll definitely be keeping an eye on it.

Lawrence has responded to a critical blog post on Opera Unite by Chris Messina, member of the DiSo Project (which is apparently a competitor to Unite?), which gets quite a few things wrong. Lawrence sets out to clarify the vision behind Unite, and also corrects a few mistakes.

It was also posted in Mr. Messina's blog, but was held for moderation and has not yet appeared.

Read more...

Looks like the Terms of Service hadn't been updated for Unite, but that has been fixed now.

There was some confusion about the part that talked about "uploading content to Opera's site", and people were worried that using Unite would mean that Opera owns all your data. With Unite, you aren't uploading your data to anyone's site, but I can understand why people got confused.

So now, the Terms of Service explicitly mention Opera Unite:

For the avoidance of doubt, this clause does not apply to the files you share as an End-User of the Opera Unite, as such files are never uploaded to Opera’s site. Opera will not make a claim to own or use those files.

That should hopefully people's minds at ease.

Remember that with Unite, you are in control of your own data.