Haavard

Oops!

Wednesday, 8. June 2005, 16:22:58

We've been on a winning streek lately, German magazine Chip concluding that Opera is better than Firefox and all. It seems that in the excitement over the positive press lately in combination with 8.01 release preparations, and with the summer heat finally arriving in Oslo, we've screwed up.

At closer inspection, it appears that Opera might not have won the best browser of 2005 award from PC World after all. Opera is listed as the only browser in the "Web" category, which I guess got us confused.

Now that we've installed fans to cool us down again, we've removed the "best browser" stuff from opera.com until PC World gets back to us to clarify things. We're posting a statement in the near future as well.

So no, we are not actually evil monsters. We are only human

The problem with publishing on dead trees...Microsoft on open-source and innovation. And "droves of frothing nerds".

Comments

YtseJam # 8. June 2005, 16:22

When is it supposed to be removed from the front page? Still there...

haavard # 8. June 2005, 16:22

Reload. We're still on PC World's list, but the "best browser award" part is debated, and has been removed

YtseJam # 8. June 2005, 16:22

On a different note - it is very nice that you guys publish the fact that, that German magazine chose Opera as the best browser and etc, but what good does this do to any of us who cannot read it all (is it even available on the web as well so we could translate it?)

Lately Opera has been putting out all sort of press releases without ever linking to anything.

Luchio # 8. June 2005, 16:22

I'm am happy to see that the press release was corrected. It was really unprofessionnal from Opera PR team to claim a title that has not been awarded, without verification. I hope this embarrassing situation will not happen again.

olli # 8. June 2005, 16:22

Talking about this one?
http://my.opera.com/community/reviews/chip.pdf

:-)

Jakub81 # 8. June 2005, 16:22

Haavard, I do support Opera Software because I think it's years ahead of Firefox and others, ALSO in terms of ethical behaviour, but if you thought I will blindlessly defend your every stupid action, you must have mistaken me with someone else.

I did not call OS ASA liars, please read my post again if you missed something. I said Opera stretched the facts about the PCW awards and it is a fact - whether you did it consciously or not is another story.

I have no reason to disbelief you that it is a mistake, what pisses me of is that people in Opera didn't have any (?) doubts before posting the press release, considering the fact that Firefox got the most important "product of the year" award. How could you miss the OBVIOUS inaccuracy??? When I've read the press release I thought right away "we will have another anti-Opera post on Asa D. blog soon and he will be right this time". I didn't expect that it will be so aggressive, though...

Indyan # 8. June 2005, 16:22

This was very careless indeed on Opera's part.There were several people who voiced their doubts on their forums also.
Unfortunately Opera's reputatin has taken a beating as a result of this.

As you can see at http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=329639

YtseJam # 8. June 2005, 16:22

Yes Olli, exactly. It's in German!

TreeGo # 8. June 2005, 16:22

In this day and age, we forgive presidents and public figures of far worse things than what can be at best termed in Opera's case here as 'not doing your homework' with respect to checking out the intent of PC World's award/rating system (which was less than clear to me, also). To allege that Opera is being deceitful here is pure conjecture and the track record of Opera that I'm aware of gives me almost no reason to believe such a charge.

Chalk it up as a mistake and a lesson to be learned. No more, no less.

haavard # 8. June 2005, 16:22

No worries, Jakub81... You're a good guy