Opera browser software company may be acquired by consortium of leading Chinese internet firms

[steve2470]

As you may have heard, the Board of Directors of Opera have forwarded a recommendation to our shareholders to consider an acquisition offer from a consortium of leading Chinese internet firms, Qihoo 360 and Kunlun.

http://www.opera.com/blogs/desktop/2016/02/stillyouropera-for-computers/

Hopefully this will be good news for the browser and its market share. I like Opera and have been using it since I had to pay $7 on a CD for it (2004 I think). I guess I've gotten my money's worth by now.

[Kokonoe]

1. I love Opera Coast on I pad.

It's so easy to just swipe pages like back and forth, it makes the web like reading a book.

[MichaelSoE]

2. Opera user here also .. back when it fit on a floppy disk ~ 1996

I've been trying to convert people for years.

[steve2470]

3. did you have to pay also ? for a long time it was the only browser you had to pay for to get rid of

ads.

Version 8.5 was released on September 20, 2005. Opera announced that their browser would be available free of charge and without advertisements, although the company still continued to sell support contracts.[37] Enhancements included automatic client-side fixing of web sites that did not render correctly, and a number of security fixes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Opera_web_browser#Discontinued_versions_for_devices

eta: never mind, I see in 1996 it was shareware.

[MichaelSoE]

4. the first versions were free then

they had free but with ads ... you could pay to get rid of them.

If I remember correctly, that was at the height of the browser wars and Opera was really struggling to stay alive.

[hunter]

5. And one ring to rule them all...

Google Chrome

All anyone else can do now, Microsoft included, is follow Google's lead. Opera's last release before surrendering to Google was version 12. Carakan was a mighty fine javascript engine.

I've used Opera as my primary browser since version 3.0, when it all fit on a single 3.5" disk and cost $35. If I recall correctly, at the time Netscape Navigator was selling for $75 on either a CD-ROM or multiple disks.

The Opera browsers for the least intelligent "smart" phones and slow internet connections were brilliant, and Opera has mostly managed to avoid a Mark Zuckerberg "Free Basics" style fiasco, which is probably the technology the Chinese buyers are most interested in.

An added bonus is that Opera is not a U.S.A. company so perhaps it's less infiltrated by the U.S. Military Industrial Complex than Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, Google, or AT&T.

Nevertheless, Google has eaten everyone else's lunch. The browser wars are over.