Okay, since Opera seems to have gone the way of the dodo: Is there a browser for power users? I mean, good luck to Firefox and Chrome, but considering I rarely use flashy websites, I really would rather use something that only works with half the sites, but has the experimentation and hunger for ideas for the sake of ideas more than for the sake of market share these so sorely lack.
Actually, it's called coding them myself, but even then I'd rather do that in C than with several layers of abstraction (coding in javascript for a XUL interface or whatever that is -- let me know how startup and runtime performance works out for you when you have 50 of them and 50 tabs open).
Why do you think Opera has gone the way of the dodo? It's an excellent browser, by far the best browser in my opinion. Furthermore, they're changing their renderer to webkit which will ensure no more Opera incompatibility. If anything, Opera just keeps getting better.
I know it's the best, I am using it was we speak and have been doing so since 2000. The last time I tried it Opera Next after the switch to blink, I couldn't install it -- so I read the comments instead, and it sounded like a gazillion of features were missing. If those get all transferred, I am happy and you can strike that comment. But if they only transfer the shiny stuff "most people need", I'd love to move on, just because all of this is sad and I don't wanna see it anymore.
Don't get me wrong, I always wished Opera mainstream success. But I think there is also something to be said for niches, and the desire to appease the existing average just because the balance book says that's the best, needs to be called out on sight. Imagine authors only writing books 98% of the people agreed with or cared about. We'd still be in caves with that attitude.
I know making tools isn't exactly the same, but it's also not totally different, IMHO. We need to aim higher than were we are. Every sports fan knows more and more complicated facts than even using all features of Opera would require. Riding a bicycle, much less driving a car, is more complicated than being aware of what option you just clicked - ffs!
If even Firefox can't help but caving in like that, I simply won't dare to hope Opera does better, until I actually see that happening.
I am sorry for ranting, this topic is a huge pet peeve of me. Like when Apple talked about how folder hierarchies are "too complicated", gah. I know I'm expecting too much of people, but I really would rather err on the side of that, than on the side of expecting too little, and then getting exactly that.
I thought Opera Next is just a beta for testing the renderer. I don't think they consider it the new version of Opera yet, as it doesn't come up as a new version. I'm sure they wouldn't be so stupid to remove all the nice new features they've recently added and that their loyal following rely on.
