Key Opera Software Employees quit
If you are following members of Opera Software's Developer Relations team on Twitter or elsewhere, you may have noticed that most announced that they left the company recently or are about to leave it.
Bruce Lawson, Andreas Bovens, Shwetank Dixit and Vadim Makeev all announced in the past couple of days that they have parted ways with Opera Software or are about to.
In fact, the only DevReal member left standing is Mathias Bynens who joined Opera Software in January 2014.
- Bruce Lawson was Opera Software's Deputy Chief Technology Officer and worked at the company since 2008.
- Andreas Bovens was Opera Software's Android Product Manager and Dev Relations Lead. He worked at the company since 2007.
- Shwetank Dixit was Opera Software's Extensions Program Manager and Web Evangelist. He worked at Opera since 2007.
- Vadim Makeev worked as a Web Evangelist at Opera Software since 2009.
Opera Software's DevRel Team quits
Are there any indicators why the team left? Three of the four posted the information on Twitter. They did not reveal why they are leaving or left Opera Software, only that they did and that they are looking for new job opportunities.
This, and the fact that they have all quit at around the same time, suggests that the decisions have been recent and not planned for a long time.
There was one major change recently, the acquisition of Opera Software's browser and Opera Max by a Chinese consortium.
Bruce Lawson more of less confirms that the acquisition has something to do with him leaving the company in a blog post on his personal blog.
After Opera’s consumer products (browsers and Opera Max) were taken over by a Chinese consortium on 4 November, Opera and I are parting ways by mutual agreement. I’m no longer a representative or spokesman for Opera products, or the Opera brand.
It seems likely that the other team members of Opera's DevRel team based their decision on that as well but this has not been confirmed by the team members leaving or by Opera Software.
All quitting team members are looking for new jobs. All four are highly experienced with lots of expertise and knowledge. While there should be plenty of opportunities for each of them, it would not be much of a surprise if they ended up working for another "web browser" producing company.
Which company that could be? Microsoft for one. The company tries to stay in the game with its Edge browser, and while it certainly has good developers, adding one or multiple experienced members to the team should certainly give it a boost.
Mozilla would probably be the better fit for the team members, but it is unclear right now whether there are any openings there.
Now You: What's your take on key members leaving Opera Software?
New development: Late Spring 2017: Opera Oslo Desktop Dev Team laid off. Many quit.
“These people weren’t really that “key” members of anything people should think of as Opera.”
True. They weren’t even developers of the Opera browser, as the article suggests. They were mostly “spokesmen”, as Bruce Lawson called himself. If they did some development – it was web development for Opera company’s web sites, not Opera browser. And I doubt that they developed much even there. They were mostly “spokesmen”, PR people, nothing wrong with it, but not enough to qualify as key developers.
FWIW, I’m leaving Opera too.
http://gbtimes.com/business/new-chinese-owner-plans-enhance-opera-browser-ai
They said that this AI driven thing will be introduced in the mobile browser someday. More interesting is that this AI company is located in California. Oh no. Chinese browser powered by NSA America. Omg.
Lol, China already has the world’s first AI microchip (dubbed Neural Processing Unit). Google Vimicro NPU for more details. Software AI is like a small fry in the pond to the Chinese. Opera’s Chinese AI unit based in Cali isn’t of any significance in the least…
Am I the only one cheering this move? Opera Chrome sucked arse. Can’t wait to see the Chinese steal the core Opera technology (well not really steal since they bought them) and deliver an Asian Opera Presto 2.0 type browser. (Google and Facebook currently banned in China, so makes no sense for the Chinese to continue updating Opera Chrome and indirectly support Google). In 2024, China may be the only country in the world with an operational space station. Imagine the wonders they could do with a simple browser. Also, I personally don’t think the Chinese cares if users from the West leave the browser. There’s a larger market for it in China.
Sorry, no clue where you got that idea from. No one pays 600 million just to get the rights and patents for a dated browser engine. Plus, it was announced that the new owners would like to implant some sort of AI for advertising purposes (don’t get me started) into the browser. I’m no dev but using Presto for such undertaking seems very unlikely.
Or… umm… idk maybe contribute to a little known browser called Otter or even Palemoon.
Relaunch presto is not possible. Only choice go to team of Vivaldi Browser. Vivaldi is life saver for opera users.
Maybe to team of Vivaldi Browser, not of Microsoft or Mozilla how in article.
These people weren’t really that “key” members of anything people should think of as Opera. The actual key members left/were let go a long time ago and since then half the company has been in Poland and development on ChrOpera has been slow and not great. Now it’s just another shift and development will probably move somewhat to China. Smart people leaving before they are kicked out with a lot more people and having to compete harder for jobs.
As far as privacy concerns go China is no worse than any country in the west.
“These people weren’t really that “key” members of anything people should think of as Opera.”
True. They weren’t even developers of the Opera browser, as the article suggests. They were mostly “spokesmen”, as Bruce Lawson called himself. If they did some development – it was web development for Opera company’s web sites, not Opera browser. And I doubt that they developed much even there. They were mostly “spokesmen”, PR people, nothing wrong with it, but not enough to qualify as key developers.
“ChrOperaâ€! That’s great. It’s especially fun to say out loud. :)
“As far as privacy concerns go China is no worse than any country in the west.â€
I don’t want to get derailed on this but I feared sooner or later, predictably, this would come up. From this seemingly uninformed and ill-considered contention one might surmise that you’ve never lived there, or known well people who have. I don’t want to go into this further, so will just say: from my work with human rights lawyers there for the past 15 years, you are sadly, tragically wrong.
They left because of the privacy issues especially since this Chinese company acquired it. Google was already in Opera’s pockets. Opera Presto 12.16 was updated to always default to Google for search. isn’t it obvious…..? i will install other browsers on my Windows XP, but only Firefox on anything else. When i launch Google Chrome there i always see the cookies, “google-analytics.com” , “doubleclick.net” , “googleadservices” & “googletagsevices” and even after i blocked those 4 cookies and delete them they always come back when i re-launch Google Chrome, who would’ve thought? And when i launch Opera Chrome i also get the cookies “google-analytics.com” , “doubleclick.net” (i can’t remember if the cookies “googleadservices” and “googletagsevices” are their as well), and even when i block those cookies and delete them and i re-launch Opera Chrome they’re back, so even Opera Chrome doesn’t honor my blocked cookies, who would’ve thought? But you know what? When i launch Firefox i never see those cookies even when not blocked, but i shouldn’t see those cookies because they’re blocked, because Mozilla honors what cookies i block. Who would’ve thought…..? Actually, even Vivaldi doesn’t force those cookies when i launch it. at least on Windows XP.
People better realize that they better support Firefox, because if Google was to dominate every browser and wipe them out, you think Microsoft is bad, wait till you see what Google does with their terms of service for Google Chrome, they might even require you to have a Google Plus account to use it……….
In the end, only Firefox remains the one browser you can – more or less – trust around privacy…
“In the end, only Firefox remains the one browser you can – more or less – trust around privacy…â€
I agree about Firefox (and Cyberfox, I would add), although I would hope too that Brave Browser could also be trusted somewhat. At least, I am inclined to trust Brave more than Microsoft IE/Edge, Google Chrome, and Opera and other chromium browsers.
Thanks very much for the reply and the information! I haven’t had any crashes with Brave, but I also haven’t tried importing any bookmarks, either. :) I stopped using sync functions awhile back, and hadn’t noticed it was lacking. I agree it would be nice to have that option available for people who use sync. I agree also about the extensions, but since Brave already had several important things built-in which I would normally have to use extensions for, that was good enough for me, as I don’t use it as a primary browser. I agree it’s a promising project, and I hope it keeps getting better!
I always thought that the fuzziness I noticed could be due to the rendering engine (simply because of the word “rendering†:) ), but since I know nothing in detail about things like Gecko and Blink I didn’t want to write that on a tech blog without first being sure. :) One of my favorite quotes, attributed variously to Mark Twain, Abraham Lincoln, etc.: “It’s better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt!†:) I agree that Firefox is much better in this regard.
That’s incredible to me that the Chromium rendering engine can display things in such a fuzzy way. That’s one of the main reasons I could never use Vivaldi or Brave full-time. Strangely, I don’t remember things looking fuzzy like that on the newer versions of Opera, or on Chrome, when I saw it on other people’s machines…
@Hy: Brave is still in a relatively early development stage, and it still crashes (at least on my system) whilst doing simple tasks such as importing bookmarks from Firefox. Moreover, it doesn’t have a sync function yet, and extensions are still mostly unsupported through a straightforward installation process. Having said that, it’s quite a promising project.
By the way, I have been using Brave pretty much from the earliest publicly available version.
Finally, the fuzziness you see is probably due to Brave and Vivaldi sharing the same Chromium rendering engine. Firefox uses Gecko, and it generally shows fonts in a crisper, clearer way. One of the biggest assets of Firefox, if you ask me!
“Brave is created and developed by people with very good industry credentials and an excellent privacy pedigree, but the browser itself is nowhere near ready for day-to-day use right now…”
I agree that Brave is created and developed by people with very good industry credentials and an excellent privacy pedigree, but I disagree that the “browser itself is nowhere near ready for day-to-day use right now…â€
I use Brave only as a third or fourth back-up browser, but I like it better than anything else for that purpose, including the current darling, Vivaldi. Actually, I have used Vivaldi since it first came out as a third or fourth back-up browser, too, and I feel about Vivaldi like you feel about Brave: it’s okay, but nowhere close to good enough for me to use it day-to-day. And I keep feeling like (and hearing about) Vivaldi has so much potential, but it sure is taking a long time…
In my opinion Brave is ready to go out of the box, and the people I’ve suggested it to seem fine with it, too.
I also like that Brave has ad-blocking, tracking protection, fingerprinting protection, and HTTPS Everywhere built-in and ready to go out of the box.
One thing I don’t like in either Vivaldi or Brave is that web pages sometimes don’t always look so crisp in them–they can seem a bit fuzzy or blurry sometimes, at least compared to the same pages when viewed in Mozilla browsers. Not sure why that is…
Oh, and the newly re-launched Brave tabbed browser for Android is fantastic. I just ditched Firefox Android for it. Brave for Android is much faster and uses less battery, too.
Brave is created and developed by people with very good industry credentials and an excellent privacy pedigree, but the browser itself is nowhere near ready for day-to-day use right now…
And I believe the Pale Moon browser
is very good too, ref Privacy.
Been using it for 3 years+
with minimal problems.
All my Firefox addons work
in Pale Moon.
@GB: Glad I made you laugh with my one-liner. That’s something, at least. :-)
FYI, Pale Moon 27 has been released today. Try it out! It has received a “full upgrade of [its] back-end platform”, the biggest upgrade in its history! So no, Pale Moon is NOT outdated, period.
The release notes => https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=13717
Happy browsing with Pale Moon!… or any browser of your choice, of course.
GB i grant you only one thing. Pale Moon is indeed outdated at least web-technology wise, as it supports only parts of what for example latest Firefox or Chrome is supporting which is limiting functionality of web pages. So one has to admit that Pale Moon is only a temporary solution. Let’s see how long it lasts until pages show massive incompatibilities.
For this reason i examine also browsers like Otter-Browser with the new enhanced QTWebkit – which was revived and serves as good alternative to sucking Chromium based QTWebengine.
Anyway…. rather would use Pale Moon instead of Chrome clone Firefox. Also, security wise Pale Moon is not outdated. Pale Moon gets security fixes, that is good enough for me. Mozilla totally lost their way and today they are an equally sucking company same like Google. Add-ons are overrated. If i would want to play around with stuff i would install a game. A browser is no toy and no media player.
Ditched Vivaldi and Brave too, Chromium is just garbage. And every browser based on Chromium is equal with garbage – which includes Opera.
Anyway, no surprise that Opera devs leaving. But i hope they are not joining Vivaldi. They should create a fresh browser with a fresh engine or at least reverse engineer Presto.
Nothing else to say.
“Actually, Pale Moon does better than Firefox privacy-wise.â€
That’s hilarious. But, as you seem to believe this seriously, a response is necessary so that others will not be misled by this false claim.
We’ve been over this already a million times here, but in short: Pale Moon is a forked piece of browser software built on a very old, outdated, insecure version of Firefox. There are privacy and security shortcomings BUILT RIGHT INTO Pale Moon because of this!
A great number of privacy and security add-ons WILL NOT WORK in Pale Moon also, because of the old, outdated, insecure base it is built on. On their own website they even have a page with a HUGE list of all the add-ons that won’t work on Pale Moon, and even the so-called “workarounds†they tell users to do involve running OLD, OUTDATED, INSECURE versions of the add-ons, because Pale Moon simply CANNOT RUN the most recent versions of the add-ons which are updated with the latest security and privacy features.
And, sorry to say, that list of add-ons which Pale Moon cannot run is ridiculously incomplete–they don’t want to show the FULL list of ALL the add-ons that Pale Moon can’t run.
You claim Pale Moon does better than Firefox privacy-wise, but it CANNOT run add-ons by one of the biggest advocates of privacy on the web, the EFF, like Privacy Badger add-on, etc.
Also, at last check Pale Moon also can’t run add-ons used to ensure your privacy on encrypted connections, like ones which force PFS Perfect Forward Secrecy to be used.
But that’s not surprising, since the “MoonChild†maker of Pale Moon has written publicly on his website, even AFTER the Snowden revelations, that, “Encrypting the web is stupid and a bad goal.†And you’re going to seriously say that sounds like something BETTER for privacy?
I see he still has little thing about “paranoia†in his signature tag on all of his forum posts–but you want us to believe that someone who considers privacy concerns “paranoia†is “better privacy-wise� Yeah, right.
Regarding that silly joke of a page from more than 1.5 years ago linked to to show how Pale Moon is better for privacy: what a silly and thin piece of fluff that is! I don’t have the time to investigate if the claims made there are even true, but let’s take them at face value anyway:
Claim: Firefox gathers some telemetry data but doesn’t send it anywhere if you’ve switched it off. OMG!! Then he admits that Pale Moon ALSO gathers its own telemetry data, but claims it’s “mostly halted†(whatever that means) and DOESN’T SAY ANYTHING about what Pale Moon does with it, or whether it’s sent anywhere else or not!
Pale Moon is much smaller than Mozilla and there is virtually no scrutiny and oversight–basically they can do anything they want collecting your data, selling it, etc., whatever they can get away with, and most users would never even know!
Claim: If you use add-ons in your Mozilla Firefox browser, Mozilla knows which add-ons you are using. OMG! How horrible and privacy-invading that is! I want to use their browser and browser add-ons, but I don’t want them to know I am using them! Ridiculous. Love the exaggerated language used, too, all in scary bold letters, to try to scare users: “a full enumerated list of all of your add-ons is sent to Mozillaâ€.
Claim: “Checking for add-on updates in Firefox sends a whole lot of data about your system…†What in the hell does that mean? “A whole lot of data?†The language and the vague, unsubstantiated claims are designed to scare, obviously. And what does he say Pale Moon does? THE SAME THING! But they keep the data for themselves, and claim they don’t pass it on to Mozilla! The bottom line of this point, and his next one? “We do the same thing at Pale Moon that Firefox does. You shouldn’t trust them, because we say so, but you should just trust us more than them, because we say so.†Gee, I’m feeling more privacy-protected and better already…
Listen: ANY website you ever visit knows a “WHOLE LOT OF DATA ABOUT YOUR SYSTEM!†If this is unacceptable to you from a privacy perspective (and it may be, and I respect that), then you don’t need Pale Moon or Firefox or any web browser–you just need to never go online again.
Finally, something about “PROPOSED advertising†in Firefox. Well, I have no idea what this proposal is, and if it ever became a reality; all I know is that I never see ANY advertising of any kind in Firefox, or Cyberfox either, for that matter.
You will never convince me that a web browser forked from an old outdated insecure piece of code, which lacks many of the privacy and security features which up-to-date modern browsers like Firefox and Cyberfox have, and which cannot run many of the privacy and security add-ons, and if it can, can only run old outdated insecure versions of them, and which comes from a tiny unscrutinized outfit with little to no oversight is “better†“privacy-wise.â€
Actually, Pale Moon does better than Firefox privacy-wise.
Here’s why: https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?t=7788
“More or else” ;)
It’s now “more of less”?????
I’m not surprised that management has been leaving, I’m only surprised that it’s taken so long. I for one have gotten tired of all the coincidences.
In July, Opera is sold to a Chinese consortium that includes “Qihoo”.
In August, Opera’s sync server was hacked. Coincidence? I don’t know.
At the beginning of November, Firefox and Google banned the certificate authority “WoSign” because they weren’t following protocol. Qihoo is a majority stockholder of WoSign. Coincidence? For me, the WoSign Qihoo link was the last straw, I then uninstalled Opera Beta from my computers and mobile devices which is too bad because I was always happy with the performance, and I really loved that Opera Beta (android) still had text reflow. Oh well!
Not a surprise, not because the new owners of the company are Chinese, but because the primary company that comprises the consortium is shady as hell. I could care less if Opera was owned by a Chinese company, an American company, or a German company. What I do care about is when companies that have gotten caught doing shady things (like 360 Security) own the damn browser. I dropped Opera some months ago and won’t be going back.
I’ve been using Opera 41 Desktop since it became available. After customizing it, I loved it except it’s not updated as often as Chrome, which left me feeling vulnerable. Now with the Opera layoffs and new ownership, I’m back to Chrome x64 stable as my default browser. It would be great if Google hires the right people from Opera to implement a working SpeedDial function.
Heh Martin….You should stop using this man…Seriously too much in your articles :)
“but it is unclear right now “
From one side data collection from users, and from the other a confidentiality clause for employees. As user you must participate, as dev you must shut up. JMO.
So you wonder what happens in Opera? Help yourself with Google Translate and read this http://www.digi.no/artikler/opera-sier-opp-mange-ansatte-og-hardest-gar-det-ut-over-oslo-kontoret/364077
That’s nice info!
So…the downsizing of both Oslo and Warsaw team after the acquisition. Many people lost the jobs here. :(
Martin, you need to read this.
I use(d) Opera Mini on my Android phone. About one week ago I noticed that the news it offers on the home page was full of fake stories and Hollywood drivel. I’m about to move to AdBlock browser as Chrome’s ads drive me nuts on my phone, wasting so much space, time and bandwidth. Opera has been great for decades. It will never be the same again.
Its simple to block them. Click Settings->Customize start page. Turn everything off/choose only the stuff you need in News & Sports.
Now got to Advanced->Start page content and choose Speed Dial only.
Now change the App layout to Phone or Tablet. Now you won’t get any news.
Adblock Browser/Chrome is heavier than Opera Mini and slower in older devices. However, from security point of view, Firefox/Adblock Browser is better choice.
From what I know, from last few years main Opera web browser desktop team and second mobile team is working in Wrocław in Poland. They starting working on mobile browser when Opera desktop team working in Oslo in Presto basted Opera. After restructurization in Opera, they remove Oslo development team and swith desktop browser to cheap, good and effective team in Wrocław (Poland) because they have many success with mobile opera.
In Oslo stay after that only few department of Opera. Main office with management team, PR team, web service and someone other. So look like Opera Olso small team now quit. This should not affecting working on desktop and mobile browser because on both working Wrocław Team.
My take? I’m going with the obvious answer. Whatever their reasons, they want nothing to do with the new owners. For me that is reason enough to avoid Opera.
Oh well, I was avoiding it anyway.
more irrelevant news about an irrelevant product.
more irrelevant drivel from an irrelevant commenter
What dp said ……
ha, saw what you did there… almost clever
You said it! +1 :)
The timing and contents of these messages makes one thing pretty clear: this was a coordinated move to leave Opera together. It also makes it very likely that they all left for the same reason.
Is that something to be concerned about as a user? Possibly, but there are plenty of other reasons why someone would not want to continue being employed in a company that changed ownership.
The suspicions and worries about Opera software being developed along a series of goals set from China or a Chinese company have existed ever since news about the potential sale became public. It’s useless to speculate though and at this time it’s nothing more than unfounded speculations. I’d rather see someone ask those four recently directly if they had concerns of an ethical nature that led to their departure and specifically, if they believe that Opera users should continue to feel safe using the browser they helped develop over the past few years. If their replies aren’t flat our “no” and “yes” answers, that’s warning enough for me to choose a different Chromium fork.
“What’s your take on key members leaving Opera Software?â€
I hate to say it–and it’s based only on an intuition and on the belief that it’s better to be safe than sorry–but I am going to believe that this sudden departure of key people at Opera, coming just several days after Opera’s takeover by its new Chinese owners, is no coincidence. Obviously the people who left did not want to stay anymore with Opera, and I’m thinking that they perhaps did not like the direction they saw the company may be going in now under its new owners.
Based on all of this, I have serious concerns about Opera products, particularly regarding privacy, and I am going to uninstall their browsers from my desktop and mobile immediately.
Uninstalled Opera from my mobile and replaced it with Brave Browser for Android.
Brave Browser for Android looks fine to me for a secondary browser that will be getting very little use. It runs very fast and light on my device, faster than Firefox, I have to say. And Brave comes with built-in ad-block, built-in tracking protection, built-in fingerprinting protection, and HTTPS Everywhere built-in.
I didn’t realize until today that Brave browser for Android was just re-done and re-released last month. It’s on version 1.0.4 right now. Brave’s original Android app, built on LinkBubble browser, was something that I really didn’t like when it came out, and I stopped using it quickly and uninstalled it. This new Brave browser is much better.
First impressions are very good, and what’s amazing me besides the speed is the battery usage–I’ve been testing it a little today, and there is hardly any battery usage at all. This stands in sharp contrast to Firefox for Android, which can use significant amounts of battery, at least on my device.
I’m really surprised to be saying this, but after more testing I might just end up replacing Firefox for Android with Brave as my primary Android browser.
Maybe is it indeed related to Opera’s takeover by its new owners, their aims, without their nationality as such being involved.
China wanted a backdoor??
Microsoft doesn’t seem so viable for these people to go to. Vivaldi seems like the more logical choice as Vivaldi is run by the original Opera dev(s) and shares a lot of the vision these now ex-Opera people had when they joined when Opera was still empowering said vision.
While I agree that Vivaldi is the best fit, I’m not sure the small company can support hiring four experienced developers at this point in time (not sure because I don’t have any insight in the company’s financial situation. I do know it is a small team).
This is exactly what I wanted to say.
Wish someone would develop Presto by one if this devs.
Yes, I’m too eager to get a new Presto based browser which would be a kick start for Presto development. Also, if Mozilla does bad with WebExtensions, many developers would join the Presto development with a new browser.
I’m sure that there are many still sticking to Opera 12.18 while Vivaldi is out there. The reason is Vivaldi is Chromium($h*t Google) and not Presto(The Great).