The Opera web browser was always the underdog in the web browser world. First it was Internet Explorer and Netscape battling it out and then later on Internet Explorer and Firefox. Opera was always a solid alternative that had a very loyal user base. The situation does not seem to have changed by much in 2010 with the exception that Webkit based browsers have been introduced as additional competitors.
Opera Software today announced in a press release that the desktop version of the Opera browser has surpassed the 50 million unique user mark in March 2010 and that an additional 50 million where using a mobile version of the browser.
That’s an increase of over 30% from last year”s desktop user share which can be partly attributed to the browser ballot screen but also to the improvements made in that time.
The Opera developers released one of the fastest web browsers in March 2010 with Opera 10.50 which has not only been improved speed and performance wise but also functionality wise with new or improved feature additions like Opera Turbo and Opera Unite.
How is that figure comparing to the market share of other web browsers? Firefox 3.6 for instance has been downloaded more than 390 million times since its introduction. Downloads on the other hand do not equate active users. Still that figure alone shows that Firefox is currently playing in another league.
It might be easier to compare that figure with the Google chrome browser. Google Chrome had, back in November of 2009, a user base of 30 million, based on an article over at Techcrunch, a figure that likely increased quite a bit in the last six months. Some websites refuted those stats back then and claimed that the user base was larger or unreliable.
The most interesting figure is the 30% increase in a 12 month period which should give Opera enough momentum to continue to extend their browser market share. Congratulations Opera from the ghacks team.
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Nice milestone. Keep it up, Operators :-)
Opera it’s the best web browser, if Opera it’s no popular it’s because of Microsoft and Google. They control everything. Firefox was lucky at the beginning because Google said go ahead Firefox, You have my blessing.
Opera is a wonderful piece of software, i don’t understand why it’s so far behind. Maybe because it’s not owned by some greedy corporation like google or microsoft. Maybe if it goes open source things would change, but that won’t happen.
Frankly, there’s no need for Opera to go OS because its developers do a fairly decent job under given circumstances, pity most people will never see and realize it, either because of naivity (IE) or hype and coolness factor (FF, Chrome). Respect, though, to all knowledgable users who do know why they choose the browser they use, whichever one it is.
Maybe Opera is so far behind because people can’t figure out how to use it, & give up on it, as I have done after three sincere trials.Confusing &annoying.