Facebook To Buy Opera? Maybe.

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/05/25/facebook-to-acquire-browser-maker-opera-maybe-heres-what-we-know/

by ssclafani • 14 years ago

129 137 14 years ago

thenextweb.com

mathetic• 14 years ago

One billion dollar? I don't think so.

arkitaip• 14 years ago

Agree, it should be more.

chucknelson• 14 years ago

I didn't see any purchase price mentioned, but would you be surprised? Billion is the new Million!

deno8• 14 years ago

Called it first! Or whatever… :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4021065

stfu2• 14 years ago

I have been an Opera user for many years and truly love this browser. Somehow I can't see myself using a piece of software that is controlled by Facebook - ever.

deno8• 14 years ago

The same could be said about Chrome. As long as there’s Operium to Google’s Chromium, I see absolutely no problem.

stfu2• 14 years ago

Therefore they would have to go open source first. I have my doubts that Facebook would pay top dollar just to open source the software. On the other hand that might be a move to put the current user base in a merciful mood, as the userbase is probably the least likely aspect they are interested in for that takeover.

skylan_q• 14 years ago

I believe I speak for every web surfer when I read this headline and say "NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

bard• 14 years ago

I've used Opera for about ten years and have never wanted to switch. If Facebook bought it, though, I would drop it instantly. No guilt, either!

tbundy• 14 years ago

Interestingly I look at this news in almost the opposite way!

I used Opera desktop for something like 10 years too. When I moved to Chrome (maybe 3 years ago?) I was like, "ah, this is what these websites are supposed to be like". I was actually quite sad to say goodbye and I still miss a lot of the features (sidebar!), but it always struck me that Opera was living in a bit of a dreamland where they just hoped the web was 100% standards compliant. Admirable, but unfortunately (in the short term at least) users suffered because so many sites just didn't quite work. This may have improved since I jumped ship.

If a major company could give Opera the resources to catch up to Chrome in that area, then I'd be excited for the potential to create a comprehensively market leading browser.

naner• 14 years ago

Opera Software also owns Fastmail.fm and AdMarvel. It would be kind of sad to see Fastmail go to Facebook.

Though I doubt there's much truth to this rumor.

wib2• 14 years ago

No way I'd renew my paid Fastmail.fm account if Facebook buys the company.

Auguste• 14 years ago

Agreed. If Facebook acquires Opera, I'm out of there. I'm quite fond of Fastmail, so I'm really hoping this is just a rumour.

minikites• 14 years ago

I agree. If this is true, hopefully they leave Fastmail alone.

WiseWeasel5• 14 years ago

Ouch, had no idea Opera owned Fastmail. Here are a few more paid accounts which would not be renewed.

bsg752• 14 years ago

Is Fastmail a reliable provider? Ties to Opera might give it a measure of "perceived quality".

I don't mind paying a few $ for a decent service, not tied to Yahoo, Google, or Microsoft.

WiseWeasel5• 14 years ago

I've been using them for 10+ years, with no complaints. Their webmail is good, never any problems with their IMAP, a bunch of domains to choose from for their free accounts, and relatively cheap paid plans with decent quotas. Plus, they don't read my mail to sell me ads like Gmail does.

sparkie• 14 years ago

Delete your mailboxes soon, because they will be "unforgettable" once facebook has them.

amitamb• 14 years ago

I bet something similar is going to happen sooner than later.

But what is stopping Facebook from forking Chromium(/Webkit) for their own use? Or for that matter even Mozilla might be open for partnership.

deno8• 14 years ago

With Chrome Google added some real value to Webkit (V8, sandboxing, etc.), and in the process they created a unique product.

Just forking Chromium will make it look like Oracle’s Unbreakable Enterprise Linux, i.e. a cheap knockoff of Redhat.

If Facebook wants to enter the game they need something more. At that point doing new frontend for Webkit from scratch is probably not going to be any cheaper than buying Opera. And they’d need to hire people to do that, which buying Opera would also solve.

krrrh• 14 years ago

> At that point doing new frontend for Webkit from scratch is probably not going to be any cheaper than buying Opera

The article notes that Opera's current estimated market cap is $670M, which is a lot of money for a browser frontend. I think it's more likely that they want to lock-in the feature phone user base.

robin_reala3• 14 years ago

Doesn’t appear that Facebook think much of Webkit: https://www.facebook.com/unsupportedbrowser

gcp7• 14 years ago

Or for that matter even Mozilla might be open for partnership.

If they buy Opera they can do what they want. Partnering with Mozilla would probably be a more stressful affair as the goals of the Foundation and Facebook probably don't quite align everywhere. It's like the partnership with Google, but even worse.

markessien2• 14 years ago

It would be strategically important to their growth. Opera Mini is the #1 browser in many developing countries, particularly in Africa and South East Asia. These are the regions that are also showing the most growth (and have the most potential) of new people coming online. If facebook dominates both the mobile browser and the top site in all of these countries, then for newly arriving users, facebook will be the internet. It will be their first experience, and it's where they will feel most comfortable (like AOL was back in the day).

Facebook understands the importance of mobile. If you view fb timeline on your phone, it looks great. Facebook have made the transition to the mobile web already - because mobile will be the dominant entertainment consuming screen in the future.

ajross4• 14 years ago

Surely Opera has that position because those markets are dominated by the cheaper "feature phones" that don't run iOS or Android. That's not a tenable market share: as real platforms push down into the commidity price range, so will Mobile Safari and Chrome for Android. Is Opera actually winning against "real" browsers anywhere it's competing in a browser-choice-based environment?

markessien2• 14 years ago

Feature phones will continue to exist as a cheaper alternative to expensive phones, but they just become more 'featured'. Don't forget that they have a much smaller screen, and chrome/safari may not want to accomodate the huge diversity of screen sizes and platforms out there. Opera has been doing it.

In the software game, there is no point planning 10 years ahead. 10 years ago, software was very different from now. But 5 years from now, there will still be feature phones and africa/se asia will continue to be growing.

Facebook would have purchased the basic platforms it needs for future software, and would be in a good position for whatever comes next.

robin_reala3• 14 years ago

You forget that Mini is a proxy browser that does a large amount of data compression. When your mobile network is constricted and data locally expensive then you want to use the minimum possible.

protomyth• 14 years ago

It might be a while before we get something other than feature phones in the developing markets and the pre-pay market. Pre-pay phones with "Facebook" might be a rather large seller.

mibbitier2• 14 years ago

> "because mobile will be the dominant entertainment consuming screen in the future."

I remember hearing that 12 years ago.

It won't.

mtkd• 14 years ago

Impatient acquisitions when stressed to try and fix numbers/strategy can make any issues 10x worse down the line.

Better to do nothing for 3 months. Take some time out of the office and do some deep thinking.

robin_reala3• 14 years ago

Makes sense. Facebook’s next expansion is going to be developing markets. These are heavily invested in mobile internet, and the way you access the internet on low-end mobiles is Opera Mini. They have a very large group of potential customers and the wherewithal to buy access to them.

WiseWeasel5• 14 years ago

As a web developer, it's been great not having to worry about supporting/testing with Opera's rendering engine, (or simply another rendering engine, nothing against Opera in particular) thanks to its low market share. I hope this doesn't mean I have to start testing with yet another browser. Can't FB use Webkit like everyone else?

Zirro• 14 years ago

Having around three-four rendering engines on the market is a good thing, they each separately fuel development of new standards and other projects. We don't want Webkit to become the new IE6.

mibbitier2• 14 years ago

Webkit is open, and actively developed.

IE6 was closed, and laid stagnant for years.

WiseWeasel5• 14 years ago

How does FB buying Opera change the number of rendering engines on the market? As a user, I wouldn't touch FB Opera with a 10-foot pole, but I do at least consider using Opera as the product of an independent company.

pcwalton• 14 years ago

I think your proposed cure (a rendering engine monoculture) is worse than the disease (having to test in multiple engines).

WiseWeasel5• 14 years ago

I'm not saying it would be good for humanity or anything; I'm just saying I'm lazy and content with not supporting Opera.

mkmcdonald• 14 years ago

> I hope this doesn't mean I have to start testing with yet another browser. Can't FB use Webkit like everyone else?

If you're not testing in more than 2-3 browsers, I seriously have to question your acumen as a "web developer". Browsers do exist outside of the Webkit bubble.

zvrba2• 14 years ago

Noooo! But if it happens, I'll have an excuse for trying IE once more.

tfb• 14 years ago

Why not Chrome, Safari, or Firefox?

zvrba2• 14 years ago

Firefox = bloat and I don't like it.

Safari is affiliated with Apple and I won't touch products of a company whose products and way of running business are antithesis to openness, freedom and hacker culture.

Chrome.. no special reason. I don't particularly like it, nothing I could point the finger at, but.. blah. Is there a way of disabling plugins in Chrome, as in: a placeholder is displayed on the page and the plugin is activated when I click the placeholder?

IE, on the other hand, has "suggested sites" feature which I'd like to test more. Maybe it helps me with discovering some new content on the net.

smashing3• 14 years ago

This reminds me of when Palm bought Be Inc. Everyone thought Palm would start using BeOS instead of Palm OS 5, but really Palm just wanted the patents. So my guess here is, if Facebook really does make a purchase, it will to acquire intellectual property as either patents or evidence of "prior art".

deno8• 14 years ago

Facebook doesn’t have a browser already. They don’t need patents. Your analogy works if you replace Facebook with Google.

smashing3• 14 years ago

I think it is becoming increasing clear, especially with the Yahoo patent suit, that Facebook desperately needs a patent portfolio. Additionally, what makes you so certain Facebook doesn't needs patents? Please, explain.

mike-cardwell• 14 years ago

Great. That's exactly what the World needs. Another browser controlled by an Advertising company.

flexeble• 14 years ago

Let’s face® it the company behind Opera could use the money that this purported acquisition would bring. Facebook on the other hand could use Opera to build a better user experience on the holy grail of social media engament, mobile!

damoncali3• 14 years ago

Can you imagine the privacy issues of Facebook owning a browser? I'd be afraid to install the damn thing.

Edit: For those who point out Google, I would argue that Google has demonstrated only a desire to show me ads (which I actually like). Facebook has demonstrated a desire to show everyone everything.

forgotusername2• 14 years ago

After all, none of the other data-hungry vendors address bars behave exactly like a keylogger (cough Chrome)

esrauch• 14 years ago

The omnibox gets autocomplete recommendations which is a very useful feature, how do you expect they could get autocomplete recommendations without sending the prefix to the server? You can also easily disable the feature in settings, it's even right on the front of settings not buried.

Edit: Also if you change your default search engine to Bing, then Chrome is behaving as a keylogger for Microsoft by your definition.

drivebyacct24• 14 years ago

Besides the fact that that feature is easily disabled (actually if you don't choose Google on first start, it's never enabled).

Chromium is open source, it doesn't include these pieces, yet you still get to benefit from all of WebKit's awesomeness and Google's contributions to it. Like a modern realtime communication platform, new APIs enabling adaptive streaming, WebGL, NaCl and more.

Also, how else would the recommendations work except as described?

ehsanu1• 14 years ago

No less than with Google owning Chrome, and people seem to be quite used to that.

y0ghur7_xxx• 14 years ago

I think the same of google and chrome, but I am almost the only one. So I think most people will not care.

duaneb5• 14 years ago

Google has never tried to sell my data or show it to third-parties, though.

drivebyacct24• 14 years ago

Because it's easy to verify that that isn't the case. If you don't trust the Chrome binaries, feel free to use Chromium (which is of course completely open source). Further, I'm not sure what the actual implication is here (Google is reading your HTTP traffic?), but it would be easily (dis)proven with Wireshark and would be an enormous scandal.

ticks• 14 years ago

A browser is troubling but you can opt-out by using a competitor (I think that's a reason why Google still supports Firefox). It's when they start buying ISPs that you should treat it seriously because that's an attempt to control the platform from the street to the servers.

jjensen• 14 years ago

The main reason Google provides money to Mozilla is to buy billions of search queries from them via default placement in the search bar. That's it.

sevenstar3• 14 years ago

Google is replacing webkit on their Android software with their own Chrome mobile browser. It may already be done.

jnorthrop• 14 years ago

You're fear mongering. Facebook has certainly had its issues in the past but recently they've been very transparent about what they are doing with your personal data. To the point where the CPO has been doing a road show taking questions and asking for feedback[1]. You might not like what they do but there are no secrets.

[1] http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/11/facebook-privacy-policy-cha...

damoncali3• 14 years ago

I disagree. It is still very, very easy to accidentally share something you don't want to be shared on Facebook. That is intentional.

SkyMarshal2• 14 years ago

At least with Chrome you can just use Chromium. It would be interesting to see if FB open sourced Opera.

sevenstar3• 14 years ago

Opera is one of those browsers that stores your cache on their servers to make your browsing quicker.Your browsing habits are already going through their servers.Now add Facebook to the mix.What do you have? The mother of all profiling softwares.☼

CaioAlonso• 14 years ago

Only if you enable Opera Turbo (http://www.opera.com/browser/turbo/), which came disabled by default on my installation.

18pfsmt2• 14 years ago

I was just about to move my email hosting to fastmail, so this will be a significant issue for me. I hope it is confirmed or denied quickly. Any suggestions if this turns out to be true?

rjsamson• 14 years ago

Here's the source link for those of you not wantint to give TNW pageviews: http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/45795/facebook-browser-opera...

robinwauters• 14 years ago

We have our own sources on top of what Pocket-lint reports, for what it's worth.

melvinmt• 14 years ago

> Its market cap currently hovers around $670 million

Ah, should be a piece of cake right? Mark simply needs to bid $1 bn overnight.

rch• 14 years ago

Though obviously impossible, I'd prefer it if Opera were to purchase Yahoo.

cpeterso• 14 years ago

I'm surprised Facebook has not acquired RockMelt. Like Instagram, Marc Andreessen is an investor in both companies. From Day 1, RockMelt seemed like its business plan was "Get acquired by Facebook." Presumably Facebook is more interested in Opera's mobile browsers and users.

Achshar• 14 years ago

Maybe because opera's market share and reputation is alot better than rocklmelt?

eblackburn• 14 years ago

- Access mandated via FB connect - Mini (proxy) allow integration between opt in site on FB platform via http headers? - Proxy sniffs traffic and gets a hi-fi profile of users. Super targeted advertising, avoiding cookies. - Emerging markets; FB account is used to transfer money, for those without bank accounts.

nextparadigms• 14 years ago

Facebook will ruin Opera if they buy it.

Rudism2• 14 years ago

I stopped using Facebook around a year ago due to the crazy privacy issues. Just recently (as in days ago) I also switched from using Google Apps for my email to FastMail.fm for the same reason.

If Facebook buys Opera (who own FastMail.fm), I might as well just quit the Internet.

zobzu• 14 years ago

What about lynx, links, w3m you insensitive clod?!

Or you know, just Firefox. Not cool enough for you? The above 3 are very trendy.

marekmroz• 14 years ago

I think you missed the OP's point. He was complaining about email provider/service, and you gave web browser alternatives...

GeneralMaximus• 14 years ago

FWIW, Rackspace has paid email plans. So do some other large web hosts. If push comes to shove, you could always host your own.

MatthewPhillips• 14 years ago

I tried this not too long ago and gave up. You need 6 or 7 different daemons running, most of which give very little in terms of debugging information. You actually need a decent sized VM to host everything needing to run.

mossplix• 14 years ago

how hard would it be to build their own on top of webkit?

drivebyacct24• 14 years ago

Are headlines that ask and answer questions dumb? Yes.

Flow• 14 years ago

I wonder when we instead of having incognito modes have separate sandboxes per domain. Say one domain that only have data from facebook.com and is only reachable if you are actually visiting facebook.com.

Yes, this will make the web less hyper, but right now some behaviors is out of control for the user.

dredmorbius• 14 years ago

That's a discussion I'd really like to see expanded.

There are various sandboxing models out there, none of which really suitably address my privacy concerns. And most of which will break large portions of the transactional Web as it exists today (that is: websites which interact with other systems, and/or specifically transact commerce).

Of course, there's little to pushing the data sharing from the client to the server either. This is a fluid in a balloon. It tends to spill out elsewhere when squeezed in any given spot.

kijin• 14 years ago

Separate sandboxes per domain sounds a bit extreme. A lot of websites are made up of content from different domains, like images pulled from CDNs. Whitelisting each of them would be an even bigger headache than managing NoScript.

What I'd like to see in the short term is per-tab isolation. If I'm logged into Google/Facebook/etc in one tab and browse other sites in another tab, I want to have the ability to prevent the second tab from knowing which user I'm logged into in the first tab. This could also solve a lot of CSRF problems.

Unfortunately, Firefox -- the only browser that is likely to support such behavior either as a built-in feature or as an add-on -- doesn't even run tabs in separate processes. One tab freezes, the whole browser freezes. Urgh.

harrylove• 14 years ago

Facebook: The Opera. Sounds about right. And then create an off-Broadway play and they've hit the trifecta.

Do you know what's coooooooooooool? Coo-hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo-hooooooollll-ah?

metatronscube• 14 years ago

The browser wars appear to be heating up again. Its happened before and will no doubt happen again. I think this will be a bad thing because I could see each browser becoming a weapon to control privacy and the Internet in the way they see fit.

Imagine installing a browser that forces you to have a facebook account! and facebook logins for websites all over the place. yikes.

dm8• 14 years ago

I like Opera. It needs some serious design love. It would be great if FB's all-star design team do overhaul of design if they buy Opera

g8oz• 14 years ago

It would be a great ending for a brave little company. For the company, not its users.

Facebook To Buy Opera? Maybe.

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