Opera Shoots For No. 2

**peat moss** · 09-20-2005, 11:43 PM

[news=http://www.opera.com/img/operalogo.gif]Opera Software wants to be the world's number two browser, said the Norwegian company's chief executive, and one step in that direction is to dump ads in its software.

"Our goal is to become the number two browser," said Jon S. von Tetzchner, Opera's CEO. "It's going to be tough to get the number one spot from Microsoft."

That means supplanting Mozilla's Firefox, which by all metrics owns second place. As of last week, NetApplications pegged Firefox with 8.3 percent of browser market share, compared to Microsoft Internet Explorer's 86.3 percent.

"We just want to have more users than Firefox," said Tetzchner. "I hope they have a significant market share as well."

Chutzpa aside, Tetzchner said he's counting on the removal of ads from Opera to grow his browser's user base. That, he said, is more important than the revenue from the ads once placed in the program.

"Over time, our revenues through third-party agreements, such as with Google and eBay, grew more than the revenues from the ads within the browser," said Tetzchner. "Right now, 45 percent of our revenues are coming from things other than ads, including search deals [with Google]. It's these improved agreements that allowed us to go free."

The more users for Opera, he said, the more lucrative those deals become

Source: http://www.informationweek.com/story...00326&tid=5979

Homepage: http://www.opera.com/[/news]

**maebach** · 09-21-2005, 02:46 AM

smart move, I never knew IE had 80% of market

**JunkBarMan** · 09-21-2005, 02:57 AM

How much of a difference is there between Foxfire and Opera?

They seem to share a few of the same features, like tab browsing and the integrated Google/Amazon search bars. But, other then that, how do they differ?

**peat moss** · 09-21-2005, 03:26 AM

Originally Posted by JunkBarMan

How much of a difference is there between Foxfire and Opera?

They seem to share a few of the same features, like tab browsing and the integrated Google/Amazon search bars. But, other then that, how do they differ?

I think its in the extensions that one must install in Firefox to make it more like Opera . But then thats the beauty of FF you install just what you use . For instance I only have 6 , two spell checher related , adblock , ie view , download manager and a card game .

But FF's file size is much larger mabye Java related ?

**JunkBarMan** · 09-21-2005, 04:05 AM

Thanks for the info, I just got Adblock and Noscript. Also, reskinned the browser, I went with the Silver Skin 2.6.3.

Where did you pick up the Spell checker?

**peat moss** · 09-21-2005, 04:11 AM

Originally Posted by JunkBarMan

Thanks for the info, I just got Adblock and Noscript. Also, reskinned the browser, I went with the Silver Skin 2.6.3.

Where did you pick up the Spell checker?

Here friend : http://spellbound.sourceforge.net/

**Barbarossa** · 09-21-2005, 10:56 AM

Competition is a good thing, so long as everyone adheres to the standards.

Opera is more compliant than IE.

**zapjb** · 09-21-2005, 04:53 PM

I was using Opera as my primary browser long before FF. I think Opera is the best browser of the 3. But somehow, can't figure out why, I use FF the most.