# Opera is dropping FreeBSD, it's (almost) official.



## morbit (Sep 12, 2013)

With an endlessly delayed preview of the new Linux version, and let's say less than stellar dÃ©but of it on other systems, Opera is finally confirming what almost everybody have anticipated.

http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blo...eveloper-stream?startidx=150#comment111974752


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## Zare (Sep 12, 2013)

Then I'll drop Opera. I've used it for 13 years, now it's transformed into a Firefox clone and it won't get a UNIX port.

Goodbye.


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## pkubaj (Sep 12, 2013)

There's also a Linux version in ports.



			
				Zare said:
			
		

> Then I'll drop Opera.
> I've used it for 13 years, now it's transformed into a Firefox clone and it won't get UNIX port.
> 
> Goodbye.




Firefox? I'd say Chromium.


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## Zare (Sep 12, 2013)

I'd say Chromium via Firefox.


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## morbit (Sep 12, 2013)

The real problem is that there is no drop-in replacement.

All browsers suck and are dependence heavy.


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## vanessa (Sep 12, 2013)

The world has dropped Opera, so no wonder they must cut support. Really, Chromium or Firefox can't do the job well enough?


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## morbit (Sep 12, 2013)

Frankly, not for me.

They would not have to drop FreeBSD if they didn't commit to this chromium liaison.


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## mix_room (Sep 12, 2013)

I agree with many others, I lost interest in Opera when it started using the Chrome engine. I really liked Opera though.


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## vermaden (Sep 12, 2013)

morbit said:
			
		

> Real problem is that there is no drop-in replacement.
> 
> All browsers suck and are dependence heavy.



Midori always seemed to me as nearest replacement (also has non PITA mouse gestures), at least for the browser part, no mail client and other 'addons'.


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## morbit (Sep 12, 2013)

As with all WebKit browsers in ports I think, it's heavily dependent on gtk20.


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## kpedersen (Sep 12, 2013)

morbit said:
			
		

> Opera is finally confirming what almost everybody have anticipated.



I have never used Opera. Interestingly it was for this exact reason. That some day, I won't be able to use it. Kind of a catch-22 .

But I believe in choice. Should we perhaps all get together and send Opera a polite email to keep support? Do you think it would work or is the issue that the version of Chrome/Blink they are using is proprietary and they don't have a choice in the matter. Perhaps the sheer number of anti-linuxism patches required is over facing them .


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## morbit (Sep 12, 2013)

There was a time, when Opera was undisputedly the _best_ browser on the market. Memory footprint, stability, whatever. Then, being able to run it natively in FreeBSD was a huge perk from my point of view. I was used to Opera. Of course, there is still this little doomed petition: https://www.change.org/petitions/opera-software-open-sources-of-presto-engine


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## drhowarddrfine (Sep 12, 2013)

vanessa said:
			
		

> The world has dropped Opera



Well, except on mobile, Opera never did have a large market share.



> I lost interest in Opera when it started using the Chrome engine.



We used to test in Opera for standards compliance but Opera just couldn't keep up with all the new stuff coming out lately. Opera realized this and felt their best contributions to the _I_nternet would be joining with an open source project; hence why they joined *W*eb*K*it and, then, *B*link. 

Opera has already made a number of significant bug fixes and updates to *B*link and *W*eb*K*it. 

Overall, this is a good thing. One has to remember that the engine is not the browser user interface. The engine is what renders the screen, parses the data/*HTML*/*CSS*/etc., but not the skin or buttons and all functionality. That is what will still differentiate Opera from Chromium and Firefox.


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## morbit (Sep 12, 2013)

Except that they dropped the UI as well and are basing their efforts on straight up* chromium.

* more like crippled...


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## Beastie (Sep 12, 2013)

This is such a shame! But we've been expecting it for quite some time already.

Like Zare, I've been using Opera for 13 years (since around 2000) after dropping the dead/dying Netscape.

They really ****** this up big time. But I guess they didn't really care about the "power users" after all. Since founder and former CEO Von Tetzchner left they've been restructuring their business and targeting mobile users more and more. It was only a matter of time before they dropped Presto for a more mainstream engine and started dumbing down the interface for the smartphone generation.



			
				morbit said:
			
		

> Real problem is that there is no drop-in replacement.
> 
> All browsers suck and are dependence heavy.


Exactly! That was one of the main advantages of Opera, another one being that it was the most customizable browser EVER.



			
				mix_room said:
			
		

> I agree with many others, I lost interest in Opera when it started using the Chrome engine. I really liked Opera though.


Same here. As I posted on their blog, every time they release a new Next version (for Windows), I try it for a few minutes and then remove it. It's really disappointing!



			
				kpedersen said:
			
		

> Should we perhaps all get together and send Opera a polite email to keep support?


If you followed the Opera forums and blog more closely, you'd understand what a waste of time that would be. Since they released version 15, literally *thousands* of users, including me, have been asking them to keep the interface (at the very least) and requesting back many of the removed features. To no avail. I've seen hundreds of active users leave over the last few months.

Opera is becoming a radically different browser and most of its loyal user base will be replaced. Only one problem: why would anyone want to switch to Opera? So far, I haven't seen any competitive advantage over Chrome/ium. If they stay the course, I expect they will join Netscape in the annals of browser history.



			
				kpedersen said:
			
		

> Do you think it would work or is the issue that the version of Chrome/Blink they are using is proprietary and they don't have a choice in the matter.


Being proprietary has never prevented Opera ASA from supporting FreeBSD or Linux. And Blink is open source anyway.


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## recluce (Sep 13, 2013)

For now, there is still some support (bug fixes only) for Opera 12. Once that goes away, I will go away - also after close to 13 years of using Opera on various operating systems.

That being said, I am taking my time to find the right replacement. 

I do not believe that any amount of pressure and feedback will make a difference. With their new iPad browser, Opera has shown that they are now targeting a completely different audience - and we here are not it.

Opera is now the Ubuntu of browsers...


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## throAU (Sep 13, 2013)

According to www.netmarketshare.com, FreeBSD's browsing share has dropped from 0.01% to no longer registers.


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## serpent7776 (Sep 13, 2013)

Opera always seemed buggy on FreeBSD to me. That's why I moved to www/xombrero. It's lightweight and uses vi-like keybindings. Still, it misses some common features like saving webpage to disk; bokmark support is far from useful.


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## morbit (Sep 13, 2013)

serpent7776 said:
			
		

> Opera always seemed buggy on FreeBSD to me.



Actually, the 12 line is quite good for me. I usually have a massive amount of tabs opened and it works fine. And hundreds of bookmarks too. Tens of feeds also. I do not know a suitable replacement.


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## tyson (Sep 13, 2013)

morbit said:
			
		

> Actually, 12 line is quite good for me. I usually have massive amount of tabs opened and it works fine. And hundreds of bookmarks too. Tens of feeds also. I do not know suitable replacement.



Same here. Think I will use it until Opera 12 reach*es* EOL. To*o* bad I'm so used to it that *I* don't see any good replacement at the moment (*C*hromium and *F*irefox are just to*o* much mainstream ;p).


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## Beastie (Sep 13, 2013)

The half-serious reply to my comment on Opera's Desktop Team blog says it all:


			
				&quot said:
			
		

> Presto FreeBSD?  We've almost needed more developers to support it, than we have had users using it.. Out of all 8 Opera FreeBSD users out there, 3 of them were Opera employees  Just kidding, but the truth is not that far away.


*shrugs*




			
				recluce said:
			
		

> For now, there is still some support (bug fixes only) for Opera 12.


The *only* fix since Blink Opera 15 was released was for a potentially catastrophic vulnerability. I don't think they'll be supporting the "legacy" version much longer.



			
				recluce said:
			
		

> That being said, I am taking my time to find the right replacement.


All I can do is wish us good luck; we'll need it.




			
				serpent7776 said:
			
		

> I moved to www/xombrero. It's lightweight


It is lightweight itself. But GTK-WebKit isn't. Just like with www/midori, www/chromium, Vimprobable (not in the ports), etc., once you open too many pages or open a JavaScript/image-heavy page, memory usage skyrockets.


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## morbit (Sep 13, 2013)

The crucial word is "were". As in, http://my.opera.com/AVL/blog/ since some time no longer works for Opera, and he was involved with the FreeBSD version.


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## ColdfireMC (Sep 13, 2013)

Now *G*oogle is one step closer to rule the whole _I_nternet.


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## morbit (Sep 13, 2013)

Well, all major browsers already have used by default this anti-malware thing, which basically phones Google before each page load, no?

To be honest, native Opera was one of the things with which FreeBSD have won me over OpenBSD when I was starting. The power of the browser cannot be underestimated, as it's an application which will run non-stop for almost all users.


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## vermaden (Sep 13, 2013)

morbit said:
			
		

> To be honest, native Opera was one of the things with which FreeBSD have won me over OpenBSD when I was starting... Power of the browser cannot be underestimated, as it's application which will run non-stop for almost all users.



If OpenBSD will get ZFS and VirtualBox then I may consider using it instead of FreeBSD as Opera is dead anyway


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## morbit (Sep 13, 2013)

Well, for the time being, I'm still a self-compiled system and own-kernel-configuration guy, and this is all but supported/recommended (and for good reasons) on OpenBSD, but beside that I could use OpenBSD as well now. There is still e.g. the SMP thing though. 

IMHO, there is only one most efficient path of choosing suitable tools/software for the task. The first thing narrows the selection of the next one.

Browser (most important running program/main task) > operating system > CPU architecture > rest of hardware


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## sossego (Sep 13, 2013)

Perusing through the Internet, I accidentally stumbled upon the fact that _Opera now uses WebKit_ in place of the old Presto engine. One could simply make their own browser.


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## throAU (Sep 14, 2013)

sossego said:
			
		

> Perusing through the internet, I accidentally stumbled upon the fact that _Opera now uses Webkit_ in place of the old Presto engine. One could simply make their own browser.



I've actually done this on the Mac using XCode.  Sure it is still the safari WebKit engine, but the point is - it's not as difficult to get something up and running that can browse the net as some may suspect these days.

A basic window with forward/back buttons, a URL bar and the ability to print, etc (the services menu) is less than an hour worth of work (and no code ).


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## morbit (Sep 14, 2013)

Sounds an awful lot like surf.


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## zspider (Sep 14, 2013)

Well its been real. Bye Opera.

`cd /usr/ports/www/opera && make deinstall clean`


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## vermaden (Sep 14, 2013)

@@zspider: Make it `distclean`


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## zspider (Sep 14, 2013)

vermaden said:
			
		

> @zspider
> 
> Make it `distclean`



Hey, that's pretty cool. You learn something new everyday.:e


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## jb_fvwm2 (Sep 14, 2013)

Is anyone else planning to maybe keep a static v9/opera  Vbox just to run Opera forever? Or someone knows why/why not it would be easy or too difficult? [ Or maybe even a port of such an install; semi-facetiously... ]


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## xibo (Sep 15, 2013)

jb_fvwm2 said:
			
		

> Is anyone else planning to *maybe* keep a static v9 / opera [cmd=]Vbox[/cmd] just to run Opera forever? Or someone knows why/why not it would be easy or too difficult? [ Or maybe even a port of such a install; semi-facetiously... ]


Why not just back up the port and keep it installed on your primary setup if you want to keep Opera around? If Opera needs to be run in a virtual machine (most probably for security reasons), you can just run a Windows OS in that VM too and use a more recent and supported version of Opera, IMHO.


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## jb_fvwm2 (Sep 15, 2013)

As its dependencies are upgraded, opera  would have to be upgraded, and  eventually may stop working (shared libraries either in ports or in base).  You've given me an idea, though, maybe back up Opera and all its dependencies to another filesystem and install it "elsewhere"... another /usr/local, so to speak.


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## kpedersen (Sep 15, 2013)

emulators/wine is likely to be around longer than Windows is capable of running desktop applications (thus Opera). So perhaps see if it runs well in it.

As I recall, when I tried, it also supported Flash too when run this way. Now you can keep two dying technologies alive for as long as possible


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## morbit (Sep 15, 2013)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t4exNqYyV4


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## Pushrod (Sep 18, 2013)

I quite literally had forgotten that Opera existed until I saw this thread. With things like Chromium or even Firefox available, I must officially declare "who cares" on this one.


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## morbit (Sep 18, 2013)

I reckon you were also the one supporting dumbing down FreeBSD to cater more to the new users, at the expense of the advanced ones. So, yeah. There is chromium and firefox in ports.

I don't want to sound too abrasive, maybe if I wouldn't have the baggage of prior experience with Opera, I would be more partial to the other browsers.


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## fonz (Sep 18, 2013)

morbit said:
			
		

> I don't want to sound too abrasive, maybe if I wouldn't have the baggage of prior experience with Opera, I would be more partial to the other browsers.


Good call. Opera has been around for over a decade (longer than Firefox and Chromium...) and surely there must have been reasons for that: it was pleasant, fast, reliable, configurable, lean, innovative and standards-compliant.

@Pushrod: Who cares? Several people, actually.

The first warning sign (when JSvT left) went largely unheeded, but the recent announcement that Opera would be dropping Presto and switching to WebKit was when I decided to jump ship after having used Opera for more than ten years. That they now stopped caring about FreeBSD doesn't come as much of a surprise to me. They are a leading player on the mobile market and presumably no longer care much about the desktop anyway. I regret the loss, but have accepted it and moved on.


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## morbit (Sep 18, 2013)

The main problem for me, is that either of other browsers (be it chromium, firefox or surf still) comes with literally tens of new dependencies (and most of them I don't like either- ALSA, DBUS etc.). This is heart-wrecking for me, and thus still haven't found suitable replacement yet. Built-in chromium callback doesn't help either.


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## fonz (Sep 18, 2013)

morbit said:
			
		

> The main problem for me, is that either of other browsers (be it chromium, firefox or surf still) comes with literally tens of new dependencies (and most of them I don't like either- ALSA, DBUS etc.). This is heart-wrecking for me, and thus I still haven't found suitable replacement yet.


It's a known problem  You know what they say:


> All browsers suck, some just suck more (or less) than others.


The one that at least the two of us hated the least is putting itself off the market, so unless you feel like coding your own browser you're just going to have to move on to the next-least-sucking alternative once the current version of Opera stops working on FreeBSD.


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## morbit (Sep 18, 2013)

Sure, just for now it's such a huge leap for me, that I don't even know which one left is sucking less . Maybe choices of fellow former users would help.

BTW, I like very much http://suckless.org/. Still, anything WebKit based is IMHO misplaced there.

Speaking of mobile, it would make sense from this point, only it doesn't. Lets say I have one of the most powerful "phone" devices currently produced. I have removed WebKit Opera from it due to abysmal performance. Until this time, I always contently used mobile Opera on phones with minuscule computing power. Go figure...


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## jb_fvwm2 (Sep 19, 2013)

If someone with more expertise than I made a shareware version (or FreeBSD specific wrapper for)   opera 12, and it worked noticeably better than newer  chrome  based version(s), and continued to work more or less as the present-day port does, I can see that paying for itself for decades to come, provided of course it does not abrogate a licensing issue or something. (At least the viewpoint from here.)


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## vermaden (Sep 19, 2013)

Opera (12.16) finaly made me so mad with its COPY/PASTE crashes/issues, that I abandoned it completly.

I currently use Firefox with these addons, to make it as close to Opera as possible:

For using keys [1] and [2] for previous and next tab:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/single-key-tab-switch/

To open new tabs at the end of tabs:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/new-tabs-at-the-end/

To have the possibility to open 40+ tabs without needing to scroll them:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/custom-tab-width/

This also seems useful:

```
browser.tabs.animate;false
```

If you do not want to share your location (despite having Do Not Track enabled)

```
geo.enabled;false
```

Other useful extensions:

Ghostery (was also available on Opera)
Adblock Plus (was also available on Opera)
NoScript (very handy)
Firebug (as Opera Dragonfly replacement)


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## drhowarddrfine (Sep 19, 2013)

fonz said:
			
		

> Opera has been around for over a decade (longer than Firefox and Chromium...) and surely there must have been reasons for that: it was pleasant, fast, reliable, configurable, lean, innovative and standards-compliant.



Opera's rendering engine was developed independently of any of the others by a company that did nothing else. Internet Explorer and Firefox use rendering engines developed by the same guy, both of which were left stagnant for many years at one time and insist on legacy support of things only kids and large corporations care about.

WebKit is open source but Presto (Opera) has company backing and was paid for its usage on mobile where speed and small size is crucial.

I don't understand the problem people say they have with WebKit. Opera contributed to it until they switched to Blink where a lot of legacy stuff is being trimmed away. 

Of course, I'm only talking about usage and not compiling it. Firefox, too, is an excellent browser.


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## morbit (Sep 20, 2013)

FWIW, firefox does not compile for me with gcc48, let's see how it is with base clang. It should be fine, as I don't reckon it was mentioned in the context of ports having problems with clang.


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## fonz (Sep 20, 2013)

morbit said:
			
		

> FWIW, firefox does not compile for me with gcc48, let's see how it is with base clang. It should be fine, as I don't reckon it was mentioned in the context of ports having problems with clang.


It builds just fine here: Clang on FreeBSD 9.1-RELEASE-p6/amd64. There might be one or two options that break the build, though.


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## morbit (Sep 20, 2013)

Yes, I've just successfully finished building it with Clang. However, I must have messed up something, as I wanted to use the gstreamer backend, yet videos have no sound in Firefox. Opera is fine in this regard. I vaguely remember Firefox needing something more for it to work, but last time I've done it was in Opera 10.10 times I think.


```
Information for firefox-24.0,1:

Depends on:
Dependency: xproto-7.0.24
Dependency: xineramaproto-1.2.1
Dependency: xf86vidmodeproto-2.3.1
Dependency: xextproto-7.2.1
Dependency: videoproto-2.3.2
Dependency: renderproto-0.11.1
Dependency: randrproto-1.4.0
Dependency: pixman-0.30.2
Dependency: libXau-1.0.8
Dependency: kbproto-1.0.6
Dependency: inputproto-2.3
Dependency: fixesproto-5.0
Dependency: dri2proto-2.8
Dependency: damageproto-1.2.1
Dependency: compositeproto-0.4.2
Dependency: libfontenc-1.1.2
Dependency: font-util-1.3.0
Dependency: encodings-1.0.4,1
Dependency: expat-2.1.0
Dependency: libvpx-1.1.0
Dependency: pciids-20130823
Dependency: hicolor-icon-theme-0.12
Dependency: gnomehier-3.0
Dependency: gmp-5.1.2
Dependency: mpfr-3.1.2
Dependency: mpc-0.9
Dependency: perl-threaded-5.18.1
Dependency: png-1.5.17
Dependency: freetype2-2.5.0.1
Dependency: fontconfig-2.10.95,1
Dependency: mkfontscale-1.1.1
Dependency: dejavu-2.34
Dependency: jpeg-8_4
Dependency: libv4l-0.8.8_1
Dependency: jbigkit-1.6
Dependency: tiff-4.0.3
Dependency: pkgconf-0.9.3
Dependency: mkfontdir-1.0.7
Dependency: font-misc-meltho-1.0.3
Dependency: font-misc-ethiopic-1.0.3
Dependency: font-bh-ttf-1.0.3
Dependency: xorg-fonts-truetype-7.7_1
Dependency: libXdmcp-1.1.1
Dependency: libICE-1.0.8,1
Dependency: libSM-1.2.2,1
Dependency: pcre-8.33
Dependency: orc-0.4.18
Dependency: nspr-4.10
Dependency: libpthread-stubs-0.3_3
Dependency: libpciaccess-0.13.2
Dependency: libdrm-2.4.46
Dependency: libffi-3.0.13
Dependency: libevent2-2.0.21
Dependency: icu-50.1.2
Dependency: binutils-2.23.2
Dependency: sqlite3-3.8.0.2
Dependency: nss-3.15.1
Dependency: libiconv-1.14_1
Dependency: libxml2-2.8.0_2
Dependency: libxcb-1.9.1
Dependency: xcb-util-0.3.9_1,1
Dependency: xcb-util-renderutil-0.3.8
Dependency: libX11-1.6.2,1
Dependency: libXt-1.1.4,1
Dependency: libXrender-0.9.8
Dependency: libXft-2.3.1
Dependency: libXfixes-5.0.1
Dependency: libXcursor-1.1.14
Dependency: libXext-1.3.2,1
Dependency: libXcomposite-0.4.4,1
Dependency: libXv-1.0.10,1
Dependency: libXrandr-1.4.2
Dependency: libXi-1.7.2,1
Dependency: libXxf86vm-1.1.3
Dependency: libXinerama-1.1.3,1
Dependency: libXdamage-1.1.4
Dependency: libGL-9.1.6
Dependency: hunspell-1.3.2_2
Dependency: graphite2-1.2.3
Dependency: gettext-0.18.3
Dependency: python27-2.7.5_3
Dependency: python2-2_1
Dependency: python-2.7_1,2
Dependency: glib-2.36.3
Dependency: gdk-pixbuf2-2.28.2
Dependency: libIDL-0.8.14_1
Dependency: gobject-introspection-1.36.0_2
Dependency: shared-mime-info-1.1
Dependency: gcc-4.8.2.s20130822
Dependency: gstreamer-0.10.36
Dependency: gstreamer-plugins-0.10.36_3,3
Dependency: gstreamer-ffmpeg-0.10.13_1
Dependency: gstreamer-plugins-good-0.10.31,3
Dependency: desktop-file-utils-0.22
Dependency: cairo-1.10.2_5,2
Dependency: harfbuzz-0.9.19
Dependency: pango-1.34.1_1
Dependency: alsa-lib-1.0.26
Dependency: alsa-plugins-1.0.26
Dependency: zip-3.0
Dependency: atk-2.8.0
Dependency: gtk-update-icon-cache-2.24.19
Dependency: gtk-2.24.19_2
```

===

Ah, ok. It was just my local sound configuration thing (disabled vchans).

However, please DO read /usr/ports/UPDATING and do not check [ ] ARIFF_OSS   FreeBSD-specific OSS plugin in audio/alsa-plugins. It will core dump.


Recommendations for RSS feeds readers which could mimic Opera one are greatly appreciated. Those extensions I've tried work poorly with lots of feeds.


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## silicium (Sep 22, 2013)

I keep Opera because Firefox is not compatible with my custom xmodmap keyboard layout for easier one hand typing. Special characters like '{[`^@|\#~]}' cannot be entered in Firefox with non-US keyboards if the AltGr key is remapped somewhere else. What files have to be hacked in Firefox source in order to disable control- and alt- handlers?


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## respite (Sep 23, 2013)

Sad. I assumed this was on the way after Opera announced it was moving to WebKit.


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## Beastie (Sep 23, 2013)

respite said:
			
		

> Sad. I assumed this was on the way after Opera announced it was moving to Webkit.


Well, that's not a good reason. Not a good reason at all. Not only is (GTK-)WebKit open-source and available on FreeBSD for several browsers - Midori, Chromium, Xombrero, etc. - but having _both_ the layout and ECMAScript engines as separate projects means Opera's developers would have more time to tackle other tasks (that's actually what they were pretending just a few months ago), such as improving the interface... or perhaps, improving the different ports like the one for FreeBSD.

But no, they dropped the FreeBSD port just like they did for Solaris a few years back. I remember when that happened, they said they wouldn't drop the FreeBSD and Linux ports. One down, another to go. Meh!


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## throAU (Sep 24, 2013)

Beastie said:
			
		

> But no, they dropped the FreeBSD port just like they did for Solaris a few years back. I remember when that happened, they said they wouldn't drop the FreeBSD and Linux ports. One down, another to go. Meh!



Linux is a lot healthier on the desktop than FreeBSD is, it has a number of common desktop distributions.  But even Linux doesn't have a huge share of the browsing market.

Like it or not, it's an unfortunate fact of life that:

FreeBSD makes up a small percentage of the desktop market
Out of the entire desktop market, Opera has a small percentage of the browser share

The most recent stats I can find for FreeBSD browsing on *any browser* (including Chromium(?) and Firefox on FreeBSD) account for less than 0.01% of traffic.  I.e., it was listed as 0.00%.  A rounding error.

In terms of effort vs. growing share, Opera being supported on FreeBSD is a non-starter for developers being paid to work on it.  The best they can hope for, assuming they capture 100% of the FreeBSD market is less than 0.01% market share increase.

Is that worth allocating say, 1/8th of their development time to?


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## fonz (Sep 24, 2013)

Beastie said:
			
		

> Well, that's not a good reason. Not a good reason at all.


Well, actually it's a good reason. A good reason indeed. Presto was both lean and very standards-compliant. WebKit is neither. What's more, parties such as Apple and Google are involved with it, which also creeps a lot of people out (how much of that is actually justified is another matter, though).


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## ColdfireMC (Sep 24, 2013)

I have read, some months ago, a request about open sources for the Presto engine. Do you believe that the community would take advantage of this? (If this request is attended, of course.)


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## fonz (Sep 24, 2013)

ColdfireMC said:
			
		

> I have read, some months ago, a request about open sources for the Presto engine. Do you believe that the community would take advantage of this? (If this request is attended, of course.)


If Opera Software SAS release(s) Presto as open source I'm sure it will be used. But they (Opera) probably won't do that.

There is indeed an online petition somewhere out there, but few believe it will have any effect.


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## drhowarddrfine (Sep 25, 2013)

Presto, being only the rendering engine, is already behind the times and would need a lot of work just to catch up to where things are today. Having  Presto would mean nothing as far as the user interface goes and that would have to be developed, too, cause a rendering engine without an interface is worthless.


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## vanessa (Sep 25, 2013)

fonz said:
			
		

> There is indeed an online petition somewhere out there, but few believe it will have any effect.



Yes, here is the petition.

@morbit, you could bring in the BSD point of view in this forum, or talk directly to the staff. According to this mailing list replay, they might open the source indeed.


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## Whattteva (Sep 25, 2013)

So I'm a little curious. Since Opera is dropping support, what do folks here plan to use instead?


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## zspider (Sep 25, 2013)

Whattteva said:
			
		

> So I'm a little curious. Since Opera is dropping support, what do folks here plan to use instead?



I use Firefox, even though it's rather bloated.


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## kpedersen (Sep 25, 2013)

Yeah same. Firefox has always been there for me and will probably outlast all the others too.

Would be pretty darn bloated by that point though


----------



## drhowarddrfine (Sep 25, 2013)

Firefox is bloated? Since when? Compared to Opera? Yes. Compared to Chrome or IE (on Windows)? No.


----------



## jb_fvwm2 (Sep 25, 2013)

Whattteva said:
			
		

> So I'm a little curious. Since Opera is dropping support, what do folks here plan to use instead?



In an earlier post in this thread I was postulating about running Opera forever in a Virtualbox or jail or sep_a_rate install location; still very uninformed about which would be the best methodology.


----------



## xibo (Sep 26, 2013)

Whattteva said:
			
		

> So I'm a little curious. Since Opera is dropping support, what do folks here plan to use instead?


As I already use KDE, I'll go with Konqueror.


----------



## jrm@ (Sep 26, 2013)

drhowarddrfine said:
			
		

> Firefox is bloated? Since when? Compared to Opera? Yes. Compared to Chrome or IE (on Windows)? No.



With a few plugins and a few tabs open to "busy" pages, the Firefox process can have a larger memory footprint than all other processes combined (with a simple window manager and nothing else running).  Yes, memory footprint might not be the sole or best measure of bloat, the plugins aren't really part of the browser, memory usage seems complex with Firefox and browsers are complex beasts.  Xulrunner is still my runtime environment of choice with Conkeror on top.  It's snappy and simple.  The downside is the learning curve and the work required to get some Firefox plugins working.


----------



## drhowarddrfine (Sep 26, 2013)

Chromium is heavier than Firefox; especially as you add tabs, but Firefox is known for its excellent handling of available memory and its release. That's why they call it "available memory". Plugins also create heavier usage in any browser.


----------



## Whattteva (Sep 26, 2013)

Interesting. I actually was expecting some alternative mentions like Midori or Arora.

I myself use Firefox mainly for two things, Firefox sync and vimperator (vi-like key bindings).


----------



## morbit (Sep 26, 2013)

I would like to see Opera's code open sourced. Still, I would not hold my breath... Albeit this mailing list post gives some hope. 

Regardless, now that I'm using Firefox, I see that Opera would have some miles to catch up with its speed. Firefox is more or less on par with Chromium on FreeBSD here, lagging insignificantly in the tests made by Google, but faster in the others. You could say that tests are synthetic, but I wouldn't check them if I didn't saw difference in some heavy websites- "Hmm... That was quite snappy, I wonder what numbers would Firefox pull..." Then I saw the numbers- usually over two times those achieved by Opera (JS). 

Regarding memory usage, it's not that simple. Firefox initially reserves more, but with number of tabs growing 20+ Opera easily uses more of it. Still, nothing compares to tab switching in Opera and Opera's feed reader- Firefox and NewsFox is clearly inferior here, not mentioning additional dependencies. However, H.264 and MP3 playback in HTML5 actually works in Firefox, which really surprised me. It's a nice thing to have. 

Firefox required some tweaking and playing with about:config but overall it's surprisingly usable here. A lot better than it was in 2008... It's not 100% stable, but neither was Opera. It's pretty annoying that Firefox can hang in uwait state after closing a long session, needing to be killed though, but besides that, it's nothing major.


----------



## igorino (Sep 26, 2013)

Well, that's really sad, time to go back to www/lynx.


----------



## jb_fvwm2 (Sep 30, 2013)

Using  opera  as I type this.   pixman  unexpectedly broke a slew of ports  epiphany, firefox, seamonkey, epdfview, alarm-clock, roxterm, vte ... so they are rebuilt except the browsers [done by tomorrow with any luck.] Howsoever, I suppose the switch from presto may mean that  Opera  will break also with such upgrades?
/edit/
sunday ) [cmd=] cp -iv /usr/local/lib/libpixman-1.so.30 /usr/local/lib/compat/libpixman-1.so.9 [/cmd], and one can use  seamonkey  also during its rebuild, probably removing it the next day if/when seamonkey has been rebuilt.  So that is a workaround. Only posting it to make the original post more complete, not so much to advocate doing the same unless it is expedient. 
/end edit/


----------



## throAU (Oct 1, 2013)

kpedersen said:
			
		

> Would be pretty darn bloated by that point though



Well, given that my current machine has more CPU L2 cache than my first three computers had in total RAM put together (including my first Linux machine), future bloat isn't quite as much of a problem as some people fear.

In terms of performance, at least.


----------



## Whattteva (Oct 1, 2013)

throAU said:
			
		

> Well, given that my current machine has more CPU L2 cache than my first 3 computers had in total RAM put together (including my first Linux machine), future bloat isn't quite as much of a problem as some people fear.
> 
> In terms of performance, at least.


Those machines must be really REALLY ancient to have less total RAM than a mere L2 cache, lol.


----------



## throAU (Oct 1, 2013)

My first three machines, for reference:  


Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer 2:  16 KB RAM (1984?)
Commodore Amiga 500: 1 MB RAM (1989)
PC Clone 486 DX 33: 4 MB RAM, 256 KB L2 cache (1992)

Total RAM above: 5.25 MB and change (including the 486's L2 cache - not on chip but SRAM chips on the motherboard).

Total CPU L2 cache in my Core i5-4430: 6 MB. Times change.

The 486 ran Slackware 3.1. It barely ran X11 or Windows 95. It ran Windows 3.1, along with Doom and Doom 2 just fine. It could browse the Internet.

The Amiga had full multitasking, GUI, 4 channel sound, plug and play, drag and drop, etc. The GUI was actually nicer to use than many X11 desktops. That 1 MB wasn't pushed way too hard either, the OS ran in 128 KB of RAM (256 KB in ROM).

It does still occasionally amaze me that we now have smartphones with a few hundred megabytes of RAM, multi-megabit internet connectivity and stuff like Google Maps in your pocket. And also that people whine that last year's phone spec is useless, etc. People these days just don't realise just how much power current machines have, and what you can actually do in software with so much less, if you have to write everything in assembly language 

Not meaning to go off on a tangent, but to illustrate the "bloat" point.


----------



## Whattteva (Oct 1, 2013)

Yeah, those are some ancient machines indeed, lol. I get what you say with bloat. Surprisingly, out of all the mobile OS's, I'd have to say Microsoft is the most streamlined one. My old Windows phone, which was only 1 GHz single core ran everything buttery smooth. My 1.3 GHz single core tablet, however, runs Jellybean and it is really sluggish and crashes a lot. It's still substantially better compared to when it was running Gingerbread though.


----------



## zspider (Oct 1, 2013)

igorino said:
			
		

> Well, that's really sad, time to go back to www/lynx.



I just did a refit of my system and I'm trying to keep the amount of stuff down, so I'm using www/dillo2, it's kind of ghetto looking, but it's quite fast.


----------



## morbit (Oct 10, 2013)

Meh. Firefox is indeed quite crashy in the end.


----------



## zspider (Oct 10, 2013)

I went back to www/opera, It's quite fast, it looks modest and has few non standard dependencies. Shame I won't be to able to stay on it indefinitely. Unless someone has a way to sandbox it.


----------



## kpedersen (Oct 10, 2013)

Bloat for me isn't about speed. It is about maintenance and stability. The larger the software, the less portable it is and the more bugs it is likely to have. Since FreeBSD is not a very mainstream OS, it is a shame that bloated software wastes the precious time of the porters.


----------



## zspider (Oct 10, 2013)

kpedersen said:
			
		

> Bloat for me isn't about speed. It is about maintenance and stability. The larger the software, the less portable it is and the more bugs it is likely to have. Since FreeBSD is not a very mainstream OS, it is a shame that bloated software wastes the precious time of the porters.



Shame we don't have a lightweight browser that looked like something from this century and had the essential functionality with plugins for everything else.


----------



## jb_fvwm2 (Oct 11, 2013)

zspider said:
			
		

> I went back to www/opera, It's quite fast, it looks modest and has few non standard dependencies. Shame I won't be to able to stay on it indefinitely. Unless someone has a way to sandbox it.



On one of the previous pages of this thread I also was wondering about several similar setups.


----------



## zspider (Oct 11, 2013)

jb_fvwm2 said:
			
		

> On one of the previous pages of this thread I also was wondering about several similar setups.



I would be interested in anything you come up with on that.


----------



## kpedersen (Oct 11, 2013)

emulators/qemu with SSH/X11 forwarding? I guess this will work until this Wayland cruft comes in.


----------



## cpm@ (Oct 11, 2013)

This post might be commented, it seems that there are still hopes to an open source version for Opera, despite they told otherwise 


> *Is Opera planning to go open source?*
> 
> Opera has no current plans to go open source. Opera has great respect for the open source movement, and Operaâ€™s products run on the various open source platforms. Opera believes that the most important thing is open Web standards. If web sites and browsers are created based on open standards, you get an ideal environment for innovation and healthy competition. Furthermore, Opera believes that the most efficient way to get Opera out on as many platforms as possible rapidly is to manage the central code base in such a way that improvements made for Opera on home media devices benefit the mobile and PC products as well. Operaâ€™s unique differentiator in the market today is that it is the same Opera core that runs on everything on which Opera ships.


----------



## zspider (Oct 11, 2013)

cpu82 said:
			
		

> This post might be commented, it seems that there are still hopes to an open source version for Opera, despite they told otherwise



It sure was smart of them to switch to Webkit and remove a key part of what made their browser different.


----------



## cpm@ (Oct 11, 2013)

zspider said:
			
		

> It sure was smart of them to switch to Webkit and remove a key part of what made their browser different.



I'm sure that you agree only in case they develop an open source version. IMHO it should matter that the code remains available for everyone 

PS. I'm not interested in using or paying for code that contradicts the above. Also, regarding to Blink, I'm using www/chromium. 
PSS. Definitely, Opera was converted into Google's mate :e


----------



## zspider (Oct 11, 2013)

cpu82 said:
			
		

> I'm sure that you are agree only in case that they develop a open source version. IMHO it should matter that the code remains available for everyone
> 
> PS. I'm not interested in using or paying for a code that contradicts the above. Also, regarding to Blink, I'm using www/chromium.



Well you're wrong. I don't care if www/opera stays closed, proprietary has the advantage of preventing silly fragmentation. I've never had an issue with it being closed source. However I would not be against them deciding to open it either.


----------



## cpm@ (Oct 11, 2013)

Oh! Then I respect the open source code, just because Opera respects the money


----------



## kpedersen (Oct 11, 2013)

While I agree that open-source is very important, it isn't the only thing. For example, I am still unable to use GNOME 2 on many modern Linux distributions even though it is open-source. Sure there are clones of it like MATE but I still can't grab the original GNOME 2 source code and expect it to compile and run without a large rewrite.

The most important thing is portability! (Which is given a chance when open-source but not guaranteed.)


----------



## cpm@ (Oct 11, 2013)

Hi @kpedersen

It's clear that for the code-monkeys it is essential to have access to the material, whether good or bad. The lords of Opera have gone from this point to the opposite side. I simply wanted to find information which claims that will be possible to have access to its source code.

@zspider disagrees on this stuff, but I admire his position 

PS. I tried GNOME 2 but it didn't convince me. Now I use MATE, which works quite fine.


----------



## jb_fvwm2 (Oct 14, 2013)

morbit said:
			
		

> Meh. Firefox is indeed quite crashy in the end.



I have a situation where the latest Opera (preferred in all except this usage) crashes upon attaching a file in a webmail. (`seamonkey` never completes the attaching, so also cannot send.) Firefox (five tabs open), in which I tried just now to use the webmail as a third recourse, froze (40 seconds until the error message appeared "a script on this page..."), no tab could be closed nor switched to, and the blank-white reload of whatever Firefox page, obscured all else below it.  It is gone now (I've closed its `xterm`, but this is another "wondering what browser/sandbox/virtualization can replace Opera if it continues to upgrade past its present usability" postulation...) 

Apologies for posting before finding the not-inevitable workaround. (BTW I just used Firefox again and it worked super, I also found and revised the clear-cache scripts for the two Mozilla browsers, they had changed to $HOME/.cache within the last few years, from when the scripts were first written.)


----------



## Oko (Oct 15, 2013)

vermaden said:
			
		

> If OpenBSD will get ZFS and VirtualBox then I may consider using it instead of FreeBSD as Opera is dead anyway


OpenBSD will never get ZFS because that would require reimplementation of a large part of the Solaris kernel. However after getting FUSE and SSHFS I would not be surprised to see Hammer in the next release of OpenBSD  Your point is well taken and the lack of a modern file system is the Achilles tendon of OpenBSD. There is an old sysadmin saying: "If you need a great network stack go with OpenBSD, if you need great file systems go with NetBSD (I would say DragonflyBSD)". Maybe we could add something to it and say if you need VirtualBox but you could live without Opera go with FreeBSD :e


----------



## vermaden (Oct 15, 2013)

@@Oko

HAMMER2 may be a nice alternative to ZFS, I liked the offline deduplication feature in HAMMER1.

Besides ZFS and HAMMER all other filesystems are 'old school' for me (no deduplication/no compression/no data integrity/...).


----------



## drhowarddrfine (Oct 15, 2013)

There seems to be some confusion. Chromium uses the Blink rendering engine as does Opera. Blink is open source. But the rendering engine is not what always made Opera stand out. Frequently it was everything that surrounded the engine.

FWIW, I've never had a problem with Firefox crashing or being buggy. I don't use it as my every day browser anymore but I do test my company's web sites in it.


----------



## taz (Oct 16, 2013)

Well this is just great...the reason why I use Opera is because it has no GTK nor Qt dependencies. I could have lived (and I did) with the fact that it works purely on heavy Javascript pages, has/had some kind of copy/paste bug and crashes when I try to upload a file (new version fixed this) etc. But now I'm definitely dropping Opera and the question is what to replace it with?

For now I think I'm going to go with xombrero but for some time now I have been watching over one project that I have always had a plan switching to. It's not not ready yet for nowadays internet but, in time, it will be. It has the ability to run on frame buffers and this is why I'm so interested in it. NetSurf is the name.


----------



## zspider (Oct 17, 2013)

taz said:
			
		

> Well this is just great...the reason why I use Opera is because it has no GTK nor Qt dependencies. I could have lived (and I did) with the fact that it works purely on heavy javascript pages, has/had some kind of copy/paste bug and crashes when I try to upload a file (new version fixed this) etc. But now I'm definitely dropping Opera and the question is what to replace it with?
> 
> For now I think I'm going to go with xombrero but for some time now I have been watching over one project that I have always had a plan switching to. It's not not ready yet for nowadays internet but, in time, it will be.
> 
> ...



Yep the copy paste/bug is haunting me right now,  eventually I'll have to dispose of Opera, regrettably.


----------



## jb_fvwm2 (Oct 17, 2013)

webkit > xombrero  consistently fails to build here (the former, not the latter maybe), not to mention  devel/ace, fbsdmon, libxul, pkg, pinot, .... So that is another reason I'd like to have opera continue as it has.


----------



## drhowarddrfine (Oct 17, 2013)

taz said:
			
		

> But now I'm definitely dropping Opera



Why?


----------



## freesbies (Oct 17, 2013)

drhowarddrfine said:
			
		

> Why?



I also replaced my browser of choice (opera) by firefox because the newer version of opera (12.16 if I'm not wrong) is undoubtedly awful. They removed all the useful settings just to be like chrome (do not ask me why they did this since they were the most costumizable browser and that was the main reason that I used opera for many years).

Unfortunately, they will be moving to the new chrome engine, Blink, I already expected this case scenario like raw settings, but, on the other hand I understand their change, their own engine called Presto was really buggy.


----------



## B2Pi (Oct 17, 2013)

*Yep, it's going away*

I've been an Opera evangelist for years (I actually bought 4 or 5 licenses for $35 a piece when they used to sell them). Now, on my Android phone, I've moved back to Opera 'classic' from the newest version, and I'm losing patience with Opera on the desktop. I'm not happy with the alternatives, but I think the writing is on the wall.

It's truly a brain dead move to make a product known for innovation look like everything else.


----------



## taz (Oct 17, 2013)

drhowarddrfine said:
			
		

> Why?



*B*ecause this news from Opera about dropping FreeBSD support is the drop that spilled the cup.


----------



## Beastie (Oct 17, 2013)

For all those who intend to use Opera 12.x indefinitely, may I ask how do you intend to do so? Unless you use Opera for basic low/no JavaScript browsing only, it's highly unlikely to be working properly a year or two into the future. Support for all those (buggy) JavaScript-heavy websites (most of which are constantly being modified/rewritten) depends on an up-to-date browser.jsFILE] exception file. It will simply be getting more and more broken over time.



			
				taz said:
			
		

> for some time now I have been watching over one project that I have always had a plan switching to. It's not not ready yet for nowadays internet but, in time, it will be. It has the ability to run on frame buffers and this is why I'm so interested in it. NetSurf is the name.


Yes, NetSurf looks promising, but just like Dillo, it is far from perfect and lacks even the most basic JavaScript support (even your router's control panel won't work). Also, development is painfully slow.

You're basically left with Chromium and Firefox, which are way too heavy on resources and not as customizable as even the earliest Opera versions. Midori, Xombrero, Vimprobable, etc. are just like Chromium. When it comes to resource usage, the interface is peanuts compared to the layout and JavaScript engines. It's Webkit that makes them all heavy.



			
				drhowarddrfine said:
			
		

> taz said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Probably because it won't be working fine or at all on 95% of the Internet in the near future.

Unless you want us to use the Windows version under WINE (not going to happen in a million years). There's not even a Linux version to run through the Linuxulator (only a half decent idea).

Besides, it's not like the latest NEXT version is any better/more useful than Chrome 1.0.


----------



## drhowarddrfine (Oct 18, 2013)

taz said:
			
		

> *B*ecause this news from Opera about dropping FreeBSD support is the drop that spilled the cup.



Oops. Yep. The topic of the thread. Sorry.


----------



## t0ken (Oct 19, 2013)

vermaden said:
			
		

> Opera (12.16) finaly made me so mad with its COPY/PASTE crashes/issues, that I abandoned it completly.
> 
> I currently use Firefox with these addons, to make it as close to Opera as possible:
> 
> ...



I was a long time Opera user before I figured out they don't really care about *nix users with regards to their new browser.  Given that the 12 branch has basically been abandoned sans security fixes (for now), I decided it was time to switch to Firefox.  I'm not completely happy with it versus my experience with Opera (tabs on the side w/ with preview was a killer UI piece for me w/ with Opera, among others), but I use a Oxygen/KDE4 theme so it integrates nicely with my desktop.  I like that Firefox lets you customize the UI a lot (w/ in comparison to chromium), but still lags behind Opera in that regard. 

You should add "Secure Login" to your plugins list, which adds a "wand"-like button for logins.  I also use "Tab Mix Plus" for tab options that handle a lot of what you mentioned, as well as "Fire Gestures" for mouse gestures.  Check out my UI here.


----------



## vermaden (Oct 19, 2013)

@@t0ken

Thanks, I will try these additions ASAP


----------



## ikbendeman (Oct 20, 2013)

vermaden said:
			
		

> If OpenBSD will get ZFS and VirtualBox then I may consider using it instead of FreeBSD as Opera is dead anyway



I'm inclined to try DragonFly BSD with it's adoption of DPorts (FreeBSD ports rather than NetBSD). I'm not a huge fan of OpenBSD, NetBSD seems interesting but I can never get my arrow keys, etc. working on the console in netbsd NetBSD.


----------



## Whattteva (Oct 24, 2013)

zspider said:
			
		

> I just did a refit of my system and I'm trying to keep the amount of stuff down, so I'm using www/dillo2, it's kind of ghetto looking, but it's quite fast.



How reliable is the JavaScript engine on it? Does it render Flash-based sites well? Their site mentions that HTTPS support is in alpha state and thus, very buggy. I think it's a deal-breaker for me.


----------



## Beastie (Oct 24, 2013)

Whattteva said:
			
		

> How reliable is the JavaScript engine on it? Does it render Flash-based sites well?


Haha, you're kidding, right? Browsers like these have no support for any of this. They were talking about basic JavaScript support years ago, but you know, these projects are very small (fewer than 10 developers) and things tend to take a very long time.



			
				Whattteva said:
			
		

> Their site mentions that HTTPS support is in alpha state and thus, very buggy.


I've built the latest version with HTTPS support on and I can at least log into my webmail account so it's not _that_ bad.


----------



## ChalkBored (Oct 24, 2013)

ikbendeman said:
			
		

> I'm inclined to try DragonFly BSD with its adoption of DPorts.



DragonFly's DPorts are still missing software that ports has. You might want to check https://github.com/jrmarino/DPorts/ and see if all the stuff you intend to install is there. Other than that, it works pretty well.


----------



## hitest (Oct 24, 2013)

fonz said:
			
		

> The one that at least the two of us hated the least is putting itself off the market, so unless you feel like coding your own browser you're just going to have to move on to the next-least-sucking alternative once the current version of Opera stops working on FreeBSD.



Firefox and Chromium do the job for me.  I've learned to live without Opera on the BSDs.


----------



## Carpetsmoker (Oct 25, 2013)

Surprising! Almost as surprising as Oracle dropping OpenSolaris! (</sarcasm>).

The alternatives rather suck, but then again, Opera (12) also sucks, just slightly less so. I've found I can beat Firefox into a decent browser after some amount of effort, strange `about:config' mucking about, and installing a bunch of extensions (I've _really_ gotten used to having my tab bar on the side rather than top). Projects such as Xombrero or uzbl look pretty damn awesome, but are incomplete, and not suitable for day-to-day `it just works' browsing (yet).

In any case, my main gripe with $the_alternative is the lack of what I consider to be a good web debugger, in the end, there are three: Firebug, Firefox native tools and WebKit.

Firebug lacks a number of features I frequently use (e.g., filtering CSS, easily align stuff) and the UI/user-friendliness leaves much to be desired (e.g., I find the net tab just plain awkward).
WebKit just has a funky UI. It throws all the conventions out the window. It also has a very small font size (too small to read comfortably) which can't be enlarged as far as I can figure out. It also lacks features I use, and some of the spiffy advanced features (such as source maps, which are really useful) is something I've never been able to get working (the only docs I could find seem to be outdated, which is hardly surprising, since Chrome seems to change every two months).
The `native' Firefox debugger is sort of okay, and I prefer it over Firebug and Webkit. It _may_ end up anywhere from halfway decent to pretty good, but a this point it's still a a fairly new project and as such incomplete.
I'm not claiming Dragonfly is perfect, hardly, but it seems to offer a number of what seem to be unique (and useful!) features in a simple, unobtrusive GUI.


----------



## drhowarddrfine (Oct 25, 2013)

Carpetsmoker said:
			
		

> - Firebug lacks a number of features I frequently use (eg, filtering CSS, easily align stuff) and the UI/user-friendlyness leaves much to be desired (eg, I find the net tab just plain awkward).


I agree that Firebug and Firefox's native developer tool are different. Even though I grew up as a web developer using Firebug, I haven't used it much in years and have trouble getting used to both after using Chrome's developer tool for so long. I do know people who are very comfortable with Firefox's tools and that's why I think it's just a matter of what you're used to. Most everyone I know uses Chrome's.


> - Webkit just has a funky UI.


So people aren't confused, WebKit is the rendering engine and nothing else. Developer tools in Chrome and Safari are not part of WebKit. However, every WebKit port includes developer tools but that version is different from browser to browser.


> It throws all the conventions out the window. It also has a very small font size (too small to read comfortably) which can't be enlarged as far as I can figure out.


You can but only if you edit the CSS file. 





> It also lacks features I use, and some of the spiffy advanced features (such as source maps, which are really useful)


Source maps



> I'm not claiming Dragonfly is perfect, hardly, but it seems to offer a number of what seem to be unique (& useful!) features in a simple, unobtrusive GUI.


I really liked Dragonfly, too.


----------



## Beastie (Oct 31, 2013)

*No more 'My Opera'*

Yeah, it seems they've completely lost it!



> The explosion of these sites [social media and blogging sites] and the amount of resources we need to maintain our own service has changed our outlook on My Opera. We have made decision to shutdown My Opera as of March 1, 2014.


(source)


----------



## ronaldlees (Oct 31, 2013)

*Opera*



			
				vanessa said:
			
		

> The world has dropped Opera, so no wonder they must cut support. Really, Chromium or Firefox can't do the job well enough?



Opera has dropped the traditional platform, and gone almost entirely to mobile.  That's why they've been reallocating priorities, IMO.  Just my opinion - but Wiki has listed Opera Software with $200 million revenue in 2012, a bunch of it coming from (apparently) an installed base of over 100 million mobile browsers and the app-store that the browsers can link to.  Maybe  Google ads give them some revenue.  Their revenue has increased for 2012.

But - on the desktop, it's fading from the realm of niche OSes that take more resources than the provided revenue.  I remember when Opera was a very nice alternative browser on the desktop, in the alternative OS genre.  I paid for the Opera browser when it was sold (Personal copy I believe was about $40).  Then they stopped charging for the browser, and went to an ad-revenue basis (and other things).  Oh well.  I like Chromium, although by default it lets you step out into the cold - goosepimple naked.  All the browsers are doing that now.  

I've been using Chromium, but will miss the big "O" Opera red banner on the screen.


----------



## ronaldlees (Oct 31, 2013)

taz said:
			
		

> Well this is just great...the reason why I use Opera is because it has no GTK nor Qt dependencies. I could have lived (and I did) with the fact that it works purely on heavy Javascript pages, has/had some kind of copy/paste bug and crashes when I try to upload a file (new version fixed this) etc. But now I'm definitely dropping Opera and the question is what to replace it with?
> 
> For now I think I'm going to go with xombrero but for some time now I have been watching over one project that I have always had a plan switching to. It's not not ready yet for nowadays internet but, in time, it will be. It has the ability to run on frame buffers and this is why I'm so interested in it. NetSurf is the name.



Yes - I looked at Netsurf too.  I comb the world, looking for things that _cost nothing_ and _do everything_.  Jeeez, why can't it be?  Something that will run with (as you say - few dependencies) and (perfect current web compliance).  Ha!

Actually, the reason Opera was self contained is that it used a build of Qt statically linked into the executable.  The statically built package was optional.  You could get one with dependencies if you wanted.  

You could get back some lost ground (with the unfortunate exit of Opera) by creating your own Qt/Webkit, statically built browser.  I'd guess that it would take about a hundred  lines of code to build a simple browser that could load this forum page fairly well.  

Maybe.

Personally, I find that I do most casual browsing of the net, using WebPositive.   It's a browser that works (only) on the Haiku OS.  The rest of the time I'm on FreeBSD, Minix3, or something even more obscure.  Minix3?  Don't laugh - it has Xorg now, and a port to ARM!


----------



## saxon3049 (Oct 31, 2013)

ronaldlees said:
			
		

> Opera has dropped the traditional platform, and gone almost entirely to mobile.



You know I will agree with that, they have dropped the non mobile market like a hot potato with a burning fuse. And I think that might be a good thing for them if not us, they have always been a 3rd or 4th place in the browser wars and only really had any penetration in the mobile and other market. 

While I wish them luck I do wish they would show some love to the traditional browser market.


----------



## zspider (Nov 1, 2013)

Whattteva said:
			
		

> How reliable is the JavaScript engine on it? Does it render Flash-based sites well? Their site mentions that HTTPS support is in alpha state and thus, very buggy. I think it's a deal-breaker for me.



I dumped it, it was light, but it was too light. A lot of stuff did not render properly and/or just looked horrid.


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## vermaden (Jan 9, 2014)

For those missing Opera 12.x series (like me) there is an open source project to recreate the Opera 12.x feeling with Webkit: http://otter-browser.org/


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## throAU (Jan 9, 2014)

In a way, I'm kind of glad. I used Opera on and off and it always had a few quirks with regards to rendering - not necessarily variance from the official specification, but real world applications that I need to use, weird behaviour with proxies occasionally, etc. But, the thing is, is that now there are only three rendering engines. All that needs to happen now is for the Mozilla guys to admit they screwed the pooch on Gecko, and then we're left with Webkit/Blink/KHTML (same original source) and whatever IE uses these days (Trident?). We're not quite pared down to a single unified de-facto standard rendering engine, but we're getting closer.  IMHO, this is a good thing.


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## graudeejs (Jan 9, 2014)

vermaden said:
			
		

> For those missing Opera 12.x series (like me) there is an open source project to recreate the Opera 12.x feeling with Webkit: http://otter-browser.org/


Thanks for _the_ link.


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## Beastie (Jan 9, 2014)

vermaden said:
			
		

> For those missing Opera 12.x series (like me) there is an open source project to recreate the Opera 12.x feeling with Webkit: http://otter-browser.org/


It seems they are Polish and Opera has Polish offices. Could they be former Opera employees?

The project looks very interesting. They've implemented an "advanced configuration page" similar to *opera:config*, which is a good thing. It also provides some improvements over Opera (e.g. private mode options).

However the choice of both Qt and WebKit doesn't appeal much to me.  Yes, Opera was Qt-based in the past, and yes, Otter does have the potential to support other backends, but still.

We'll just have to wait and see...


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## vermaden (Jan 9, 2014)

*Re:*



			
				Beastie said:
			
		

> However the choice of both Qt and WebKit doesn't appeal much to me.  Yes, Opera was Qt-based in the past, and yes, Otter does have the potential to support other backends, but still.




It generally does not matter if it's QT4/QT5 or GTK2/GTK3, You would not use Opera if it would not be QT?

As for the WebKit choice, what else is left? Presto was not open-sourced by Opera.

For me it's not important if it's Gecko, Webkit or even Trident, I care about features/UI more.


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## drhowarddrfine (Jan 10, 2014)

A couple things of note. Opera now uses Blink which is, now, the same rendering engine for Chrome and neither use webkit anymore. The rendering engine is not the UI but handles how things are displayed in the viewport contained within the surround "chrome".


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## vermaden (Jan 10, 2014)

drhowarddrfine said:
			
		

> Opera now uses Blink which is, now, the same rendering engine for Chrome and neither use webkit anymore.


... which is Webkit fork.


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## drhowarddrfine (Jan 10, 2014)

Yes but a ton of legacy stuff removed.


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## Beastie (Jan 10, 2014)

*Re: Re:*



			
				vermaden said:
			
		

> It generally does not matter if it's QT4/QT5 or GTK2/GTK3, You would not use Opera if it would not be QT?


The very same day they started to support multiple toolkits, I set the *DialogToolkit* option to "4" (i.e. X11). That was/is the best: simplest, cleanest  and lightest on resources.



			
				vermaden said:
			
		

> As for the WebKit choice, what else is left? Presto was not open-sourced by Opera.


I'm very well aware of all that. Those browsers that rely on their own layout engines (e.g. NetSurf, Dillo, etc.) are most of the time too primitive for the modern Interwebs.
It's very unfortunate the biggest layout engines are also the hungriest.



			
				vermaden said:
			
		

> For me it's not important if it's Gecko, Webkit or even Trident, I care about features/UI more.


Of course features and the UI are crucial, but the choice of layout engine is as important for me as it is for all those working on older hardware.


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## protocelt (Jan 10, 2014)

*Re: Re:*



			
				vermaden said:
			
		

> For me it's not important if it's Gecko, Webkit or even Trident, I care about features/UI more.



I mostly agree with this however i would prefer the engine be open sourced. It helps _somewhat_ with keeping web standards open IMHO.


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## worldi (Jan 10, 2014)

vermaden said:
			
		

> For those missing Opera 12.x series (like me) there is an open source project to recreate the Opera 12.x feeling with Webkit: http://otter-browser.org/



Meh. The TODO list fails to mention Opera's best feature: a fully customizable UI.

Rant: I still wonder which numbnut came up with idea of nailing tabs to the top of a browser? As if the height of the viewport wasn't important. Last time I checked the content of almost every website out there was more high than wide.

Sigh... Opera was a vim among notepads. :\


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## fernandel (Jan 11, 2014)

I hope that we will see Otter soon in our ports tree.


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## drhowarddrfine (Jan 11, 2014)

@protocelt The only one in your list that is not open source is Trident. You can easily look through the source of Gecko, Blink and Chromium.


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## protocelt (Jan 11, 2014)

drhowarddrfine said:
			
		

> @protocelt The only one in your list that is not open source is Trident. You can easily look through the source of Gecko, Blink and Chromium.



True. I should have worded my reply differently. My point was that I'm not concerned with the engine being used in my browser of choice as long as it's open sourced. Being how important browsers are these days I think it's important to keep standards as open as possible. 

On a separate note, I am a bit wary of Blink. Google has been locking down a lot of access to their services as of late, at least in the mobile space. I hope they don't start adding locked down extensions and APIs to the engine. This would affect Opera obviously as well now.


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## drhowarddrfine (Jan 11, 2014)

Blink is licensed under BSD and LGPL.


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## protocelt (Jan 11, 2014)

drhowarddrfine said:
			
		

> Blink is licensed under BSD and LGPL.



Yes that's true, however from my understanding future added code is not required to be open to be compatible with either of the licenses. Please correct me if I am mistaken.


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## drhowarddrfine (Jan 11, 2014)

Google says everything is about the open web and that won't happen and pointed to this: http://www.chromium.org/blink#new-features and then there's this: http://www.chromium.org/blink/developer-faq


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## sossego (Jan 11, 2014)

```
In file included from ../src/main.cpp:20:
In file included from ../src/core/Application.h:23:
../src/core/SessionsManager.h:135:27: error: unknown type name 'QUrl'
        static bool hasUrl(const QUrl &url, bool activate = false);
                                 ^
In file included from ../src/main.cpp:20:
../src/core/Application.h:25:10: fatal error: 'QtCore/QCommandLineParser' file
      not found
#include <QtCore/QCommandLineParser>
         ^
2 errors generated.
*** Error code 1

Stop.
```

This is from building otter on FreeBSD 10 i386.

Using `#make -i` more errors are produced. The compiler is Clang-3.4. So, if anyone is wanting to port this - as suggested earlier in this thread - then you have a lot to rewrite - patching just makes things worse.


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## protocelt (Jan 12, 2014)

drhowarddrfine said:
			
		

> Google says everything is about the open web and that won't happen and pointed to this: http://www.chromium.org/blink#new-features and then there's this: http://www.chromium.org/blink/developer-faq



Thanks for posting the links @drhowarddrfine. Quite informative. I hope Google continues with this philosophy.


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## JX8P (Jan 12, 2014)

sossego said:
			
		

> ```
> In file included from ../src/main.cpp:20:
> In file included from ../src/core/Application.h:23:
> ../src/core/SessionsManager.h:135:27: error: unknown type name 'QUrl'
> ...



You need Qt5. Qt4 is inadequate for building Otter.


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## worldi (Jan 12, 2014)

JX8P said:
			
		

> You need Qt5.



Which hopefully finds its way into the ports tree soon.

I don't envy the maintainers: figuring out how to patch it was a pain. `gmake install` is running as I write this... let's hope it works.


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## divel (Jan 23, 2014)

Some comments showing happiness for the imminent demise of Opera on FreeBSD. I don't understand how the lack of support from commercial software can be a good thing.


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## Beastie (Jan 28, 2014)

Is it Linux's turn now?! After months of empty "promises", I feel like it might be.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7129955

If he is talking about Opera (very likely, considering his biography), if it's true and if it's a permanent decision, then this is EPIC (as in epic fail)! *shakes head*
FreeBSD really had no chance at all.


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## Beastie (Feb 2, 2014)

For all those who have access to a Windows or Linux system, the second Alpha version of the Otter Browser (hopefully, Opera's FLOSS replacement) has been released.


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## kpedersen (Feb 2, 2014)

I think the idea of the Otter browser is fantastic and when it starts working on FreeBSD I will definitely give it a try.

However, I am a tad worried about the authors choice of Qt5. As in... why? Opera used Qt4 and a software author who always uses the latest stuff is often quite junior or will simply always be playing catch up with technology.

I mean, the reason why we cannot try it now *is* because he decided to use Qt5. I am also worried it will become very bloated (which the older Opera wasn't) and that the port is going to pull in much of the known universe as dependencies.

I guess only time will tell


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## Beastie (Feb 2, 2014)

I don't know much about the difference between Qt4 and Qt5. That being said, I guess a Qt-based application (just like a GTK-based one) doesn't have to be very heavy on resources or have a gazillion dependencies. It's when they require dozens of KDE/GNOME-specific libraries that they become really bloated.

For instance, a Qt4-based browser like Arora has slightly fewer dependencies than (and is as responsive as) the current Xlib-based Opera.

Of course the case might be different for Qt5...


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## Carpetsmoker (Feb 2, 2014)

kpedersen said:
			
		

> However, I am a tad worried about the authors choice of Qt5. As in... why? Opera used Qt4 and a software author who always uses the latest stuff is often quite junior or will simply always be playing catch up with technology.
> 
> I mean, the reason why we cannot try it now *is* because he decided to use Qt5. I am also worried it will become very bloated (which the older Opera wasn't) and that the port is going to pull in much of the known universe as dependencies.



QT5 is from december 2012, and we're currently at version 5.2; so while it's still somwhat `new', it's hardly `the latest stuff'. If you're starting an application from scratch now, it makes sense to use QT5.


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## zspider (Feb 3, 2014)

There's also the Odyssey web browser, it's quite lightweight, but I'm not sure how much it's tied to the Amiga architecture.


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## Beastie (Mar 3, 2014)

Just a few hours ago: devel/qt5 and www/otter-browser. Woohoo!


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## tingo (Mar 3, 2014)

Nice! otter-browser looks good. I'm hoping it will be good and prosper.


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## Carpetsmoker (Mar 4, 2014)

Cool. I had some problems building qt5 though:
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=187260


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## scottro (Mar 4, 2014)

Thanks Martin.  Following your pr, I was able to get qt5 to build.


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## Beastie (Mar 5, 2014)

Thanks @Carpetsmoker. I see you've been active on the project's GitHub channel too. :beer


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## Carpetsmoker (Jun 24, 2014)

A wild Linux version appeared!

http://blogs.opera.com/desktop/2014/06/ ... er-stream/
ftp://ftp.opera.com/pub/opera-developer/24.0.1537.0/
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/opera-developer/

I can't use my WM's titlebars ... Didn't really test beyond that


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## taz (Jun 24, 2014)

This world relay needs just a browser. My vote goes to  netsurf. It has a gtk+ front end but can also run on framebuffers  :beergrin. The only problem is that it dose not support JavaScript at least not jet. If only I had bunch off money to pay someone to speed up the JavaScript development.


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## retrogamer (Jun 25, 2014)

taz said:
			
		

> This world relay needs just a browser. My vote goes to  netsurf. It has a gtk+ front end but can also run on framebuffers  :beergrin. The only problem is that it dose not support JavaScript at least not jet. If only I had bunch off money to pay someone to speed up the JavaScript development.


I actually was under the impression that it had some basic JavaScript support (just based upon using it, having done no research), as when I used it a few years ago, I couldn't get eBay and Amazon to work with it.  Well, when I used it a few weeks ago, they were working. Thanks for pointing that out, I'm wondering if more websites are offering a Basic HTML fallback, or if they already were and NetSurf is just able to render them properly now?  It's already a very usable browser, to be honest.


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## kpedersen (Jun 25, 2014)

I have Javascript disabled on Firefox and it does break many sites. However, I have noticed though that if I fiddle with the User agent and request the mobile version of the sites, it often works fine (i.e doesn't depend so much on Javascript) so you might like to try out the same thing with netsurf.

Frankly I prefer the mobile versions of the site because they not only look better on my 1024x768 Thinkpad but they feel a lot less sluggish (and also don't use up a whole processor core rendering HTML :/)

Edit: I imagine this might also work well with lynx, links or elinks.


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## taz (Jun 25, 2014)

retrogamer said:
			
		

> taz said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yes it has some basic JavaScript support but it's still far from complete. Thanks for pointing out that Ebay and Amazon work.



> I have noticed though that if I fiddle with the User agent and request the mobile version of the sites, it often works fine



Yeah this is a nice trick.


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## Oko (Jun 25, 2014)

taz said:
			
		

> This world relay needs just a browser. My vote goes to  netsurf. It has a gtk+ front end but can also run on framebuffers  :beergrin. The only problem is that it dose not support JavaScript at least not jet. If only I had bunch off money to pay someone to speed up the JavaScript development.



+1

This post was submitted using Netsurf 3.0 running on OpenBSD 5.5


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## jb_fvwm2 (Aug 20, 2014)

FWIW for anyone using Opera, I've just had the first instance of having visited a (Chinese hardware chip-selling) site hacking the toolbar (a new button "buy... "). Restoring standard_toolbar.ini from a previous backup fixed it handily. It also restored a modification to it that had been lost a year or so ago due to a browser crash and new reinstall of it.


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## jb_fvwm2 (Aug 23, 2014)

Well, this browser (12.16) still handily without-screen-tearing-or-artifacts handles loading twenty or so tabs rapidly and reading them one-by-one without freezeups, with handy screen shortcuts, and numerous other advantages over the secondary one (Mozilla) used here. FWIW I've the following enabled 
toolbars) view, status, address, start, tab
and disabled toolbars ) main, navigation, bookmarks
which seems to be what I usually always set it up.   Hard to be sure since they are not in the settihgs dialog correlated to the toolbar onscreen, but one can add a toolbar and see the resulting change in the browser.


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## jb_fvwm2 (Sep 10, 2014)

For some reason the right scrollbar went slightly offscreen, making browsing clumsy.  Restoring the navigation bar, to the right as its preferred placement, edged the invisible scrollbar back into view, it seems.  [ VS what I posted in the previous post above ]


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## ronaldlees (Sep 18, 2014)

Oko said:
			
		

> taz said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I'm with you!  Netsurf will only continue to get better, because it's being developed by a bunch of RiscOS aficionados - and they're a dedicated lot.  

I'm running Netsurf on Linux framebuffer as I type this.  Just a couple minutes ago I went to Amazon and their pages looked pretty good.  What's amazing is that without javascript, or partial javascript - whatever it is - the pages lay out perfectly.  It's just gorgeous when I consider that the alternative from the command line is a clunky no-pics text browser.  The fonts are not quite what I'm used to on a full-blown desktop, but they're not bad, even on the framebuffer version.


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## ronaldlees (Sep 18, 2014)

I should add that I'm working on a FreeBSD sdl version.  It's not quite up to snuff, so I've commited temporary blasphemy, and am using the "L" word framebuffer.  My WIP Freebsd version is using libsvga + sdl + netsurf.

The libsvga+sdl+netsurf stack all compiles and links fine.  When it runs, it connects to sites, but I still have the black screen of death to look at.  Work to do...

Edit 10/1/14:

I'm not sure what I did, but libsvga + sdl + netsurf is working now, at least at 1024x768 24.  The only thing I did differently was to change the OS to FreeBSD 10.0 from FreeBSD 9.1.  Looks sweet - runs great - and there's no X to be found! Yet - it doesn't look that much different than the gtk build, IMO.

This is something I might consider for a beagle or raspi setup, but heck - it's pretty nice to use on my regular PC.  Haven't really considered security ramifications yet.  Before I'd point the stampeding hordes to this idea, there would probably need to be implemented a clean way to drop root priviledge.  Real pretty tho, I gotta say...


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