Why is everyone suddenly talking about the Opera browser? It’s been around for some time, existing in that part of the collective Web mind allocated for those “other” browsers – something you only vaguely worry about when considering the low-end version of your site.
But lately, you can’t surf a developer or news site without some mention of this seemingly new browser. Odd, considering that the tiny Norwegian company that develops the Web client hasn’t spent a dime on advertising or marketing beyond a smart, well-developed Web site. This word-of-mouth phenomenon has to be based on something. What’s going on here?
The latest release of the Opera browser, version 3.0, is turning into one of those classic “right place at the right time” stories. While the client has been under development and migrating through various releases for quite some time, it wasn’t until the latest offering that the unique blend of features, performance, and stability combined to make a significantly large audience take another look. When Opera 3.0 shipped, one of us here at Wired Digital downloaded it as we do with any new Web software release. But, unlike most software we see, a buzz started spreading through the office. People were gawking at the browser’s amazing rendering speed and newly improved compatibility with HTML 3.2. The reaction you’ll read in Paul Boutin’s in-depth review of the software (posting tomorrow) is typical of the enthusiasm we’ve seen.
But why now? Probably for the same reason the Volkswagen Beetle was able to take hold in the 1950s, an era of big, chrome-finned American luxury cars. The Opera browser is a simple, effective, and lightweight alternative to the current offerings from Netscape and Microsoft. And think again about the timing: Opera 3.0 hit our collective radar just about the time the newness and hype of the “paradigm-shifting” Netscape and Microsoft 4.0 releases wore off.
It’s no secret that the general browser-using public isn’t interested in complete corporate intranet middleware solutions (or whatever browsers are being marketed as these days). We’ve seen Netscape backpedal from an “Internet Suite” and begin to offer a feature-reduced, standalone version of Navigator due to “customer demand.” And Microsoft has carefully cloaked its 30 MB behemoth as a system upgrade to avoid the bloatware connotations typically ascribed to such feature-laden releases.
Opera surfs well. It offers 95 percent of the features most users want. But consumers aren’t the only ones excited about a browser like this. Content developers are taking notice as well.
We’ve written in Webmonkey over and over again about the frustrations faced by Web designers and developers. Our main problem is twofold: HTML has historically been unable to consistently control Web-page layout, and browsers have evolved to solve that problem in nonstandard ways. We’re left with a bloated, tag-based solution to presentation on our pages – one in which we’re creating multiple browser-specific designs to achieve consistency for our audience.
This is, of course, the exact opposite of how things are supposed to work. The idealism of the Web says that any content should be available to any audience on any display device. But the right solutions have been slow in coming; the reality of mature, useful standards is that they take a lot of work and a lot of time to develop.
Instead of taking that time, Netscape has battled feature by feature with massive Microsoft for the hearts and minds of content providers everywhere, by grabbing the low-hanging fruit – inelegant solutions that were easy to implement. Look at the track record: the
