Opera Will Reinvent The Internet On June 16

Martin Brinkmann
Jun 12, 2009
Updated • Oct 7, 2010
Opera
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opera At least that's what they claim. If you visit the Opera Freedom teaser page you are greeted with an image of a cloud that is split in half by a lightning bolt and the text "15 years of browser innovation. On June 16th at 9:00 a.m (CEDT), we will reinvent the Web". While that is not lots of information about the product or service that the Opera team is announcing it is definitely a bold statement.

If you look at the source code of the web page you get two additional hints. The first is located in the metatags which reads "The Web is your browser. Discover how fast and fun the Web can be" while the second is located as a comment in the html "We start our little story with the invention of the modern day computer. Over the years, the computers grew in numbers, and the next natural step in the evolution was ...".

Taken those two hints into account it is pretty safe to say that Opera will reveal a web browser in the cloud. It is not entirely clear how users are going to access that web browser, could be by using some sort of launcher that the Opera team is providing. Could also be a hybrid web browser that is being launched locally but gets most of its data online.

I could be completely off though but the cloud image seems to hint at this direction as well. Anyone got another interpretation for what Opera is going to announce on June 16?

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Comments

  1. whiztech said on June 16, 2009 at 10:33 am
    Reply

    Its Opera Unite!!! http://unite.opera.com/

    1. Martin said on June 16, 2009 at 11:01 am
      Reply
  2. Dropmeoff said on June 15, 2009 at 7:33 am
    Reply

    My guess is that yes, it will be a cloud-based browser that takes Opera Link to the next level: we will all suply each other the web pages as we surf and store results in Opera’s self-touted “page compression” servers that it also uses for its mobile phones.

    If you look at the press release for the new Opera Mobile 9.7, it mentions that the browser engine for both the mobile and the desktop browser are the same.

    Your bookmarks, history, passwords, and Opera Webmail will all be in a cloud, accessible through a light Opera client.

    Whatever it is, I’m sure it will be lite, fast, and synced over the Internet, which is the Opera way.

  3. Seth Morris said on June 13, 2009 at 10:50 pm
    Reply

    Great. More important software with personal information moving to remote servers I can’t control at home and my IT department can’t manage. I can’t imagine what my end-user benefit might be, but at least Opera doesn’t have to worry about handling addons or extensions, since it’s still purely a networking/HTTP-and-rendering/javascript tool instead of a productivity platform.

    At least I’ll get to pay for the privelege of letting them control my updates and mine my personal and corporate click-trails, usage habits, and bookmark data, which sounds great.

    And some people think Alexa, an opt-in service with a no charges, a privacy mode, clear pro-privacy policies, is evil! But Opera is the browser we geeks love to extoll–as long as we don’t have to use it!

    (Posted from Opera Mobile; yes, I *do* like the browser, even if I hate the hypothetical cloud-browser
    idea and I don’t think Opera is quite worth what they charge.)

    (Disclosure: I used to work for Alexa, I trust the policies I have seen there, I still have friends there, and I am slightly bitter at having to tell every major anti-malware product not to remove the opt-in service–with code *I* wrote–shouldn’t be removed just to artificially up their statistics.)

  4. Basel said on June 13, 2009 at 8:52 am
    Reply

    Good scoop man, good one.

  5. Medieval Mutt said on June 13, 2009 at 7:11 am
    Reply

    Serve static pages off your browser? Blurring the lines between client and server?

  6. Steven said on June 13, 2009 at 5:11 am
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    I was thinking about this idea a few days ago saying “Why not Google do this in Chome”. The idea is browser in the cloud as u exactly mentioned. let me put that in a simple way.

    Browser = address bar (internet access) + search bar (engine) + bookmarks + history + passwords + rendering screen (page itself). That`s it

    Google already have most of those in the cloud. so the idea of hosting all of these items included inside the browser in cloud except the rendring screen will take the browser to the cloud.

    Cons: browser will become a few bytes in size – anytime synchronized – protected – easily retirve

    Pros: nothing i can think of.

    If this is really what Opera is gonna do then good job for them and they make my thoughts come true.

  7. whiztech said on June 12, 2009 at 7:07 pm
    Reply

    Wow.. this is interesting.. Opera is the best web browser during the dial-up era, and maybe today’s too.. Can’t wait to see what they’re up to..

  8. Jussinen said on June 12, 2009 at 5:49 pm
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    Opera’s twitter have been tweeting the additions each time that make up the “story”.

  9. Rarst said on June 12, 2009 at 4:38 pm
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    web browser that is being launched locally but gets most of its data online

    Sounds like every browser. :)

    It’s unlikely it would be pure browser feature, otherwise we’d see hints in Opera 10 betas.

    So some kind of online service or protocol (or both). Such thing can be about interaction with web pages, servers, cloud or p2p (or any combination).

    On protocol – Opera is happy to push for standard protocols but not exactly known for opening own stuff.

    So my educated guess is closed service that has something to do with web pages and cloud.

  10. Saurabh said on June 12, 2009 at 2:04 pm
    Reply

    They are updating the message every few hours. They’ve added ” to connect them together. To share things … “

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