https://gkn.me.uk/entries/operaGrey Nicholsonhttps://gkn.me.uk/style/icon.svg2025-10-21T12:11:00+00:00 https://gkn.me.uk/actuallyfreeopera2005-09-20T22:29:00+00:002005-09-20T22:29:00+00:00

Opera is now actually free, properly, for real.

<p> <a href="/freeopera" title="Free Opera"><q cite="/freeopera">I wonder how long it is before it's just plain free?</q></a> The correct answer was <a href="http://www.opera.com/pressreleases/en/2005/09/20/">three weeks</a>. </p> <p> It's still closed-source though. And it doesn't have <a href="http://getfirefox.com">Firefox</a>'s extension system. But its use of tabs is far better than Firefox's. </p> <p> Also, Captain Opera seems to have been fired. Damn - I quite enjoyed taking the piss out of him. </p> https://gkn.me.uk/freeopera2005-08-31T23:30:00+00:002005-08-31T23:30:00+00:00

Captain Opera to the rescue!

<p> Yesterday, Opera gave itself away for free. That sounds odd... Opera the company gave Opera the browser away for free. Or, perhaps, <a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?&amp;q=%22Captain+Opera%22" title="Editor's note: I came up with the name independently of everyone else. I'm so cool.">Captain Opera</a> mightily morphed the in-chrome adverts into oblivion. Yes, by the way, you've missed it. </p> <blockquote cite="http://my.opera.com/community/party/"> <p> But don't despair - you can still get Opera for free by joining our affiliate program. Just put an Opera-button on your webpage, get 250 people to click it, and you're home free! </p> </blockquote> <p> I wonder how long it is before it's just plain free? This would, of course, be a Good Thing™ - any more alternatives to Internet Explorer 6 are generally good. </p> <p> But also, Opera is quite a good browser. Seriously. Their implementation of tabs is better than Firefox's; everything opens in a tab - including history, bookmarks and downloads. </p> <p> And I don't care whether an “old-fashioned multiple-document interface isn't tabs” - it's better; one can view two pages side-by-side more easily than in Firefox. </p> <p> Of course, I'm still using Firefox, for its extensions, particularly <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/10/">Adblock</a> (with <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1136/">Filterset.G Updater</a>). And its layout engine (Gecko) seems less prone to hiccups than Opera's (Presto). And it doesn't have Captain Opera. </p> https://gkn.me.uk/itsaweblogentry2005-01-08T02:48:00+00:002005-01-08T02:48:00+00:00

What - the title isn't descriptive enough?

<p> OK, so the normal service has been a bit thin on the ground. Aaanyway... I'm back off to university tomorrow (Sunday); any new text and/or other whatnot will appear at <a href="http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~gkn500/">Mooquackwooftweetmeow B</a>, my university webspace. </p> <h2 id="h-meanwhile">Meanwhile</h2> <p> It took them four years, but this Christmas <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4122067.stm" title="Dome hosts homeless for Christmas (BBC News)">the people in charge finally cottoned on</a> to the idea of putting two and two together, where the first “two” is a lot of homeless people in London and the second “two” is an empty Millennium Dome. </p> <h2 id="h-mozilla">Over in Mozillaland...</h2> <p> Some guys decided to call <a href="http://getfirefox.com" title="You know the drill by now - Firefox is good; you should get it, or if you already have it continue to use it">Firefox “1.0”</a> for a change. It seems to have worked. Then some other guys did the same with <a href="http://getthunderbird.com" title="Again: Thunderbird is not bad; it is less bad than some other email clients and has a cool logo">Thunderbird</a>; that also worked reasonably well. And then roughly 20 million people downloaded them and they saw that they were good. And they divided the Firefox and the Thunderbird from the other applications; the Firefox and the Thunderbird they called “cool!” and the other applications they called “less so”. And lo Internet Explorer became without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of its developers. And Bill said “let there be users” but there were no users, for they saw that it was bad. And the grace of web standards be with us all. Amen. </p> <p> Or something like that. </p> <h2 id="h-opera">And in Operaworld...</h2> <p> They made <a href="http://snapshot.opera.com/" title="Opera (8.0) Beta">a browser that can talk like an American</a>, but it still insists on trying to sell me things I don't want, and I can't stop the browser or webpages from doing it. I guess they're firmly targetting users who can't see. </p> <h2 id="h-happynewyear">Oh! And...</h2> <p> It's 2005, you know - happy new year to everyone. </p> https://gkn.me.uk/weblog0272004-04-23T14:16:00+00:002004-04-23T14:16:00+00:00 <p> Evidently Opera doesn't like XSL - this weblog shows up as a lot of plain text with the odd URL chucked in. The question is whether I care. </p> <p> The Twaddle is more of a public offering than this weblog, so it matters a little more if it's inaccessible using Opera... but then how many readers of The Twaddle use Opera? I'd say few to none. (Checking the site stats for The Twaddle will probably show a few Opera hits - most of which are me). </p> https://gkn.me.uk/weblog0262004-04-23T14:07:00+00:002004-04-23T14:07:00+00:00 <p> As a prelude to some major back-end renovation I'm planning for The Twaddle, I decided to see if I could get Internet Explorer 6 to display this XSL-ified weblog nicely, not accounting for IE-unsupported CSS (which is already taken care of at The Twaddle). Previously, IE displayed the DOCTYPE declaration as plain text at the top of the page; using strategic HTML commenting, I've managed to prevent it from doing so. </p> <p> Actually, I bet simply removing the DOCTYPE declaration wouldn't affect either Gecko or IE's rendering of the page, as I think XML kicks both of them into standards mode anyway. </p> <p> The next step is to try this with some of The Twaddle. And I'd probably best check Opera's effort, too. </p>