Opera Dropping Presto In Favor Of Webkit?

Thank you jeffrey i may give the trial a spin...if i ask you nicely would i get a freebie lol.!!!!!..(joking)

 

You're welcome Beethoven1770.

 

Some articles are saying they are dumping Presto, even for Desktops. That essentially, development is going to focus on fixes for Presto while they transition over to Webkit. Apparently a desktop version of Opera-ICE will arrive in March;

http://pocketnow.com/2013/01/18/opera-ice-browser
. A desktop version is also in the works, considering how many computers now include touchscreens, which should land in March.

 

I don't want to scare you (I read your issues with AM, lol) but each of those sites are working perfectly fine here - and I'm comparing what Opera 12.12 x86 displays with what IE 9 x86 displays. FWIW, I also read several news at Ars Technica with Opera on a daily basis and never experienced these issues. And many times, I open the Ars links from Google Reader.

 

These are the ones I use:

Adblock Plus
AutoStack
LastPass
SaveFrom.net helper
gPDF

They are working flawlessly here.

 

Lmao I'm not scared, I've become entertained by it all after being mad. Truth is, both IE 10 and x64 Opera (especially Opera) looked much better under AM. Why that is, I wish I knew. AM didn't help Opera rendering issues, but it did the job it was supposed far better under that browser.

 

I know what you mean. I have never really like the Webkit 'feel' as well and I think it would be a shame if Opera dropped Presto in favor of Webkit.
Btw, I think much of this 'feel' has to do with how the engines load pages. The logical thing to do would be displaying the content of a website as soon as the data has been transferred(meaning individual pieces of content are displayed once ready.) The browser makers however seem more obsessed these days with giving the perception of speed instead of improving the actual speed of their rendering engines. For example they introduce a small delay in the page displaying so more data has been transferred before the first item is displayed, since more has been loaded they can display more at once and the time from the first piece of content displayed till everything is fully displayed will be shorter. Thus many users will perceive this as faster, even though the total time loading the page starting from when enter was hit after typing the URL or clicking a link is not shorter and may even be longer.
Most browser makers use techniques like this and they all have their own variants, I think the reason some people don't like the Webkit feel because their variant seems more 'artificial'. What are your thoughts on this?

 

From what I have read the WebKit engine will be for browsers used on touch-screen tablets & mobile devices, this is due to the dominance of sites that render WebKit based browsers well in the mobile environment.

There is no evidence that Opera ASA are going to abandon the Presto engine for the normal desktop PC releases. I would be surprised if they abandoned the only decent x64 official browser other than IE. Presto has always been a light nimble engine compared to WebKit which is huge.

I will bet good money that this time next year Opera for (non-touch) desktop will still have Presto & Opera ASA will not be owned by Facebook.

BTW, Opera is still running well on all of my machines.

 

You're on In the meantime, I'm enjoying the 18.01 version of Cyberfox. That little fella is speedy and *crosses fingers* so far no Flash crashes that regular FF likes to taunt me with. If Webkit helped Opera get past some of the issues so many have dealt with over the years, I'm for it. But if it won't and they're just doing it because it's the "in" engine, then I'm against it. Opera needs to pause worrying about new things and fix what they already have. And for God sake if nothing else, hire me to do your marketing, Opera. I'll make darn sure people outside of Eastern Europe know you exist.

 

I honestly can't see them dropping it for normal desktop releases. I believe that they have only adopted the WebKit engine for mobile devices & tablets because of the way WebKit has become the dominant rendering engine for mobile pages. In some ways it is a logical move. I am not a huge fan of WebKit anyway, I have never thought it loaded pages particularly faster than Firefox or Opera.

I think that this is very true. In fact, I first noticed this actually on Chrome. I have often wondered if this effect is what many are confusing for 'speed'. There are a lot of things I dislike about the WebKit engine, apart from the fact that it is huge, it would almost certainly bloat Opera, which was always one of the lightest browsers. Presto may not be perfect, but a lot of the problem could be that a lot of web pages are incompatible with it. This is more to do with those who have designed the page in the first place than Opera ASA IMO.

Either way, I still say that this time next year, Opera for normal desktop will still be running the Presto engine.

 

I've not tried Cyberfox, does it do well with AMD processors? As for Opera & WebKit; well, the last thing the world needs is another WebKit browser! I can't see them giving up Presto that quickly as they have so much independent control over it for one thing. Opera with WebKit would probably act more like Safari for Windows than Chrome. Opera has so many unique features that I don't know how they would add them all to a WebKit based browser without ending up as huge & bloaty as Maxthon (which is huge). I think that they made this decision for mobile devices & touch screens because of the ubiquity of pages that only really render well with WebKit in that environment. Chrome actually breaks more pages for me than Opera on a normal desktop computer.

 

I'm not sure how well Cyberfox does with AMD, I'm running Intel. I don't know about this Webkit idea, but again if it helps them, great. Maxthon has gotten huge and bloaty? I haven't messed with it since 4 started getting worked on. I'm not even sure how far along they are or if it's already completed.

 

It will certainly help them in the mobile market. I don't see the advantage on normal desktops.

The portable was huge anyway. Not only has it got WebKit, itself big, it had a lot of other built-in features. I honestly don't think that any WebKit browser that isn't as paired down as Chromium/Chrome/Iron/Dragon will be particularly unbloaty. If the Opera desktop did change to WebKit it would end up either like Safari for Windows or just nothing much more than a Chrome clone.

The Chrome-bois would probably love it. Most of the rest of us probably wouldn't.

 

I threw Cyberfox on my wife's laptop a couple of days ago, it's got an AMD processor. Cyberfox is running perfectly, no issues whatsoever.

 

OK, thanks for the info.

 

Another thing I like about Opera is the ability to turn off the side scrollbars, and then if needed use your own. I like either popout or 'tiny' bars, or both.
https://addons.opera.com/en/extensions/details/slim-scrollbar/

Also, Opera just makes 'sense'... Chrome (and to some extent FF) seems like it is programmed by morons that don't even use it. I love how speedy it is, but much of it doesn't make any sense at all. Their marketing phrase should be: "Opera, not programmed by retards."

 

LOL! Yeah, I think it may be viewed as a tad politically incorrect by some though ...

 

Anyone who thinks a switch ti webkit will fix Opera's problems needs to keep in mind that Opera consists of 3 parts.

rendering engine
javascript engine
interface

each of which has its share of bugs.

replacing presto with webkit could only potentially fix 1/3 of the bugs so the bugs that actually annoy or bother you the most may not be fixed at all.

That's why I think such a move would be fruitless.

 

Call me mad, but I think Opera developing a standalone WebKit browser may actually help the "real" Opera. If Opera Ice and the other WebKit variants gain popularity, Opera may encourage compaitibility with Presto while developing with Opera's WebKit variant. This will help raise marketshare for Opera as a whole and Presto in particular.

Other than that, I don't see a reason for Opera to simply throw away years of effort on Presto, which remains a very good engine today. They'll probably continue with the current engine at least for desktops

 

I have zero problem with their new Ice browser as long as it remains a separate product.

if their desktop browser continues to get presto updates in a timely manner then I'm good.

 

All browsers have bugs, but that's not the point.

You claimed that they are not succeeding in fixing broken sites, and that bugs should be their very first priority, as if broken sites are somehow irrelevant... Then you bashed standards, and I pointed out that if Chrome starts using a standard, sites will start using them, and Opera will be forced to implement it to be compatible.

The point is that Opera is fixing bugs and compatibility. It's just that browsers are insanely complex, and the web is too.

What?

 

At the moment im using the notscript extension to block scripts and java etc.
Is there any better ones or a custom program i can use.

 

You would be better off removing that extension and installing Ad Muncher.

 

hi jeffrey and thanks.
Yeah i would install admuncher in a second if i could purchase it but i cant online.
Notscripts is free so more practical for me in that respect.

 

You could try this:
http://www.admuncher.com/free