Notes on meeting with the Opera

I, as a loyal fan of Presto opera, understand that the article will be subjective, but I will try to write as objectively as possible.
Please do not kick much, if it turned out to be messy, for the first time I am writing a similar report.
First of all, I want to say thanks to the Opera for the meeting , it was very interesting.

The meeting took place in the KL10CH It-bar and consisted of two parts, two lectures and an informal Q & A session.

First, Andreas Bovens spoke , talked about the new features of mobile opera, about the current distribution of users by platform.
One of the new features is the ability to create application pages for Android, the icons of which appear on the main screen of the system, and when you click on the icon the page opens in full screen, the browser interface is completely hidden. It is possible to work without the Internet, if the developer of the "application" takes appropriate measures.

Following this was Vadim Makeev aka pepelsbey and spoke about the history of the company, the browser, and the transition to Blink.

Some things from the report:

Previously, 80 people were directly involved in the Presto core; now, with the transition to Blink, about 10 people are involved in its core.

Opera Presto had a policy of only adding features, and it was impossible to cut out old features, which led to code swelling and difficulties in introducing new features.

Now the opera is experimenting with the browser interface using a separate product for this: Opera Coast.

Most of the company shifted to the advertising business.

The development of the desktop version has really completely moved to Poland.

After the first part of the meeting, Opera gave everyone who came to the meeting a gift - the opportunity to order any drink in the KL10CH bar at the expense of the Opera. In addition, everyone was given souvenirs with the Opera logo.

The second part was informal, anyone could ask any question.
In addition, feature requests were welcome.

Some questions and answers to them:

What is the fate of the M2 mail client? - will exist while Presto will work.

Built-in mail client - There will be no mail client in the new Opera.

Quick shutdown of image loading - Too specific feature and will not be implemented.

Builds for old Linux distributions - There will be, too small percentage.

Built-in proxy settings - No need, use the system.

Arbitrary arrangement of interface elements - Most likely will not be - too difficult to test, use.

The opera changed its orientation to the majority, but some geeky things will appear, because the developers are geeks themselves.

In general, the following policy - if you need some feature - write the extension.

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Since I never heard answers to questions from this topic, I asked the questions myself.

Will Presto be in Open Source? - Not. Never.
It’s sad, but in Open Source Presto will never be - and do not wait: '(
Presto will be buried.

To the question of what will happen to the Opra Mini when Presto is completely out of date (and it is he who is engaged in page rendering on Opera Software servers), I did not receive an answer.
What will happen to Opera Mini is generally unclear, because from the lectures it can be concluded that Opera Mini is one of the company's main sources of income (developing countries, where for many Opera Mini has a single window on the Internet), but at the same time the company does not want to change the rendering engine or maintain the current one on Presto:


Isolation links - one of the most popular queries, was recorded as a feature requet, i.e. maybe it will be implemented.

A dialog for saving a file or opening in a program was also recorded as a feature request, i.e. maybe it will be implemented.

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With regard to Vivaldi, the company has no official opinion, pepelsbey's personal opinion is approximately the following - the browser from nostalgic geeks and for nostalgic geeks will occupy its narrow niche, but in general the concept is outdated.

The opera will no longer be a “combine” with a bunch of features and settings, now it is a “for everyone” product in which the default settings should suit most. It follows that, according to the possibilities, the old Opera will never catch up with the new one.

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In general, I liked the meeting a lot, but it became sad for the old Opera.

Unfortunately, the Opera that we all love is no longer there, and the new Opera will not be her, because typical housewives do not need most of the functions that we use - adherents of the old Opera. And I think such browsers in the general race for simplification will no longer appear. And the work of many people who created Presto will rot, not seeing rebirth as Open Source.

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