Is Opera 10.5x a Disappointment?

and is this going to be a nail in the coffin?

[Fotiman]

It seems a lot of people have been complaining about Opera 10.5x, and a lot have been having problems with this latest version. With the recent increase in Opera downloads (thanks to the Microsoft browser selection screen), will all of these negative experiences cause even more people to abandon Opera and never look back? For a browser that has had such wonderful reviews (despite a very limited user base), it seems as though the quality of the 10.5x browser may be well below what users have come to expect. Will this be the beginning of the end for Opera?

[willybfriendly]

I rolled back after less than 24 hours on 10.51. Way too buggy - to the point of not being usable.

It will not impress the potential new user base they hoped to reach. These days people expect their software will "just work". Even us geeks are loath to be surfing around looking for fixes or work arounds.

[StoutFiles]

If Opera Mini stays popular it will keep bringing in new people to give Opera a chance on their desktops. I wouldn't count them out yet if they are growing on a growing platform.

[tedster]

We've already got two other threads here about problems with the new version:

Opera 10.51: No Referer header found [webmasterworld.com]

Opera 10.51 cannot log onto Ebay [webmasterworld.com]

I've been having my own frustrations with it, too - especially because of the forced update that was inflicted on me and others. What's with that rudeness, anyway? If you're going to coerce me, then please make sure that the upgrade isn't really a downgrade.

And their home page is still touting version 10.50 - so they rushed it out with no time to update the website. For that matter, many internal help pages at opera.com are still not clued into 10.50. I was trying to figure out one bug, browsing their own site with their own browser, and triggered a message that "we do not recognize your version of Opera."

[lavazza]

Even us geeks are loath to be surfing around looking for fixes or work arounds.

I notice that, among us geeks, I ain't alone in looking here for advice/tips on bug workarounds

I have long had the impression that the regulars at my.opera.com/community/forums/ [my.opera.com] are in an overt state of denial; there's nothing wrogn with teh Opera, it's YOU!11!

[Brett_Tabke]

I've been around since Opera 2.8'ish and have not seen more whining this time than other times. There were some pet features that they messed with this time and alot of people didn't care for it.

- native mdi windows changed in favor of Modal dialog windows (this nuked the unstoppable alerts from popping up from any unknown tab). Thus, they messed with a bunch of pet mdi features that people had been using for 10+ years.
- TLD resolution. All you had to do was type webmasterworld into the address bar and the tld defaulted to your selected tld. So you would go straight to webmasterworld.com. Extremely handy. They changed that.
- all sorts of fresh incompatibilities with certain sites (others fixed) because of the new js engine.

> are in an overt state of denial

Yes, yes they are. It is why we were hoping the new CEO would have the courage to shake up the status quo and make some major changes. Of the top legitimate browsers, Opera has been the last browser on the market for 10+ years by market share. They also have had (imho) a superior product at many stages of the game. Their list of browser innovations is twice as long as the rest of the browsers COMBINED. Tabbed browsing, mouse gestures, user control, cross platform, page zoom, font size control, etc etc, - the list is long and innovative. With all that, you'd think sooner or later, they would almost trip and find a marketing director that could convince the board to get their head out of the sand.

[tedster]

It does seem that some interface changes were made with an eye toward a browser that ordinary consumers might like (e.g. moving View >> Source to View >> Developer Tools >> Source).

[willybfriendly]

Do a search for "Waiting for DNS confirmation of cookie domain"

This bug killed the new version for me. There are, for instance, a number of Y groups that I have to monitor that simply hang with this message displayed in the progress bar. Seems to be an issue with identifying subdomains, and I was unable to find a workable work around.

[lavazza]

>> you'd think sooner or later, they would almost trip and find a marketing director
>> that could convince the board to get their head out of the sand.

I'm not sure that I 'think' so... although I certainly hope so

Despite all of its foibles that make it feel - in comparison with the 'competition' - increasingly klutzy as a surfing browser, Opera remains an invaluable development tool - mainly cos it adheres to the standards

Alas... as a 'business model', Opera sucks - they seem to be either oblivious to or wilfully ignorant of what regular interweb surfers need and want; a browser that works - intuitively - straight out of the box AND a support base that accepts criticism and offers plain-language tips and advice

[mattglet]

Do a search for "Waiting for DNS confirmation of cookie domain"

A lot of reports with the beta builds of 10.52 have said this is now fixed (in the "snapshots").

If it still happens after/if you upgrade to the snapshot:
- Clear cookies for affected site (Edit Site Preferences)
- Clear history/cache
- Restart Opera

[mattglet]

To answer the original question:

I think 10.5 was absolutely rushed, and the overall quality I was used to just wasn't there. There were a TON of bugs that actually had me at least thinking about going to Chrome. Though since the 10.51 release, I've been a lot happier. I was well aware of what 10.5 was bringing to the table (JS engine rewrite, rendering engine major upgrade, etc.), so I didn't expect the world at first... maybe that helped me not to freak out?

I've seen some good progress over the past couple of weeks (I always upgrade to the newest snapshot), and I think the overall quality is getting back on track. I've been a loyal user since 7.5, and even this relative hiccup doesn't change my opinion that Opera is hands down the overall best browser choice to make.

[BillyS]

Did anyone else notice that while 10.51 was installed, there is also a copy of 10.50 left on your machine. I noticed this the other day while cleaning out some old programs.

[dave_f]

I had been an Opera fan since around 2003 but left for Firefox about 2 to 3 years ago. I have recently started using Opera (10.51) again as Firefox 3.6 does not support mouse gestures - yet. I can only say that I have been very impressed by Opera and intend sticking with it. Yes, I had a problem logging on to Amazon but I just deleted my cookies and that solved the problem. It seems faster than Firefox and I don't get the annoying 404 pages I was getting intermittently with Firefox.

[graeme_p]

@dave, there are multiple Firefox extensions that support mouse gestures.

[addons.mozilla.org ]

[Mitchman]

10.52 fixes the infamous "Waiting for DNS confirmation of cookie domain", proxy issues and other issues.