A place for our closest friends

— Posted inBlog, Vivaldi — 1 min read

Like many of you, we were very sad to see the recent announcement of My Opera closing down. The user community was such a strong and vital part of Opera, and Opera and My Opera thrived because of you. I spent a lot of time myself reading the comments made by users in forums and in blogs and I continue to do so. The support you gave us at Opera was second to none. Without you there would have been no Opera.

For me, as a co-founder of Opera, I cannot just see the community we built together being ignored and stranded like this. Therefore, some of us got together and created a place for our community, our friends, once again.

As you can see, it’s still very much a work in progress. Things have happened very quickly and we have tried to be quick as well. We wanted to share this with you as soon as possible and let you all know that there will still be a place for us.

We hope you like it and that you will help us improve going forward. You are what makes this community.

Your friend,

Jon

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  3. Interesting move… Not sure where to move my blog yet, but I’ll give this a try for a while.

    This site actually seems vaguely similar to the direction the now-scrapped My Opera redesign was going!

  4. @haavard: What about here? It replicates most of MyOpera already (I refuse to call it community – sounds way too corporate)

    That said, with a few changes, I also see this as a good one-stop-alternative to Reddit, Twitter and Facebook.

  5. Thanks, Jon. Much appreciated. I’m sure as the days pass, many other Opera “refugees” will seek haven here.

  8. Awesome Project Jon! Many thanks. I am registered just since today but I love it already!
    So MyOpera isn´t completely “Lost in Space” and many friendships and the community can be can be continued in the future. Many thanks for this!

    Semper fidelis
    Ice

  14. Do not bring him on strange ideas. At the end he does!
    As you know he has already tried to swim across the the Atlantic Ocean. 😉

  15. Hola señor, esta muy bien este nuevo vivaldi , es una idea que agrada:), pero me gustaría ver un poco de español ,, jj saludos y animo.

  23. Thank you very much for thinking about all of us
    I am looking forward to the development of this new Vivali
    So far so good and a place for friends to meet 🙂

  26. ¡Gracias por abrir un nuevo nicho, para todos los “bichos” que vivían en la comunidad de myopera! Ojala sea un proyecto a largo plazo y sostenible por un buen grupo de personas, aunque sea con publicidad indeseable… ¡Ja!

    Por lo pronto, lo único que no me gusta mucho es el blog, pues me gusta pegar mi propio código HTML para dar formato.

  29. Thank you Jon! I have a few questions:

    1) I see that the server is located in Costa Rica. From a legal/privacy point of view that seems better than having it in USA or Europe, though I’m not familiar with Costa Rica’s laws. Will it remain in Costa Rica?

    2) Why Costa Rica? I heard Panama is very intent on internet privacy (not just banking) and it could have been a location of choice.

    3) Why is the “Registrant name” of vivaldi.net private in the WhoIs?

    4) I was not as familiar with MyOpera as I was with the desktop browser itself. So maybe this platform has functionalities that I’m not aware of. But is there any plan of functionality for putting files at the disposal of our friends (even for just 1 hour or so) like what was possible with Opera Unite? Or if not really hosting files, at least acting as a transit node for file chunks between 2 computers, 1 of which will reassemble the chunks into a copy of the original file? Or any other functionality?

  31. Looks like I’m headed over here. Any advice for the migration? And how do you do 301 http redirects?

    btw… thanks for your efforts in this matter. Here’s wishing you the BEST!

  34. Just saw this on the todays news and registered a few minutes later 🙂 And some familiar names are here too. That might be a fun ride.

    I’m very interested if you have some more things in your pockets.

  35. Thanks everyone in this team for the hard work. Although i am not a migrating opera blogger i find in vivaldi all those i need in a social community. Keep it up.

  38. Hi! I was just joined this site. I’m just curious, will you have wallpapers/themes, that don’t require being downloaded into our computers? I ask this because I was on MyOpera for a second, last summer. LOL! I liked most of MyOpera’s layout. However, it would be best to have an archive of different wallpapers/themes, that don’t require any downloading. Every time you download something into your computer, you lose memory. Vivaldi should have wallpapers/themes, that we can click on and automatically be on our pages rather than downloading them. That’s just a suggestion because there are other weblog community sites, that have that ability.

  39. Just arrived here and tempted to use this as my first blog platform although still getting used to how it all hangs together. All the best!

  43. I am so happy to have another new home and I do hope it will stay and thrive and all of us once more a family as we have on Facebook Opera family where we can do posts.
    Thank you for all your efforts in this Jon and I know we will all be behind you and again make Vivaldi
    a great second home.

  44. Hello Jon,

    I’m a long time Opera admirer namely for its comprehensive set of features like M2, Bookmarks, current Session, History, etc. concentrated in one browser panel. For me decisive point on using Opera was M2 integration, especially with HDMI support, and excellent cache handling leading to very fast tabs switching. I do realize that to offer key differentiators and be truly independent, the browser must have own engine. Of course, it drains extra financial resources, but pays off eventually.

    Situation with your departure from Opera has many parallels with Steve Jobs’ ousting from Apple in 1990. By the same token, Opera reborn from dead will likely begin with you returning back to Opera as CEO a few years later. I’m confident this will happen pretty soon, as Opera offers no real value now to desktop users, and its lack of control over own engine that was enabling force of every innovation in browser would mean fast departure from just about every market. For that very reason current management shutdown My Opera portal, as it clearly reflected negative users opinions about “new” Opera.

    I’m a bit surprised though you left without a serious fight, given the fact that it was the company you created, not just someone from the street invited for a time been and then thrown out without a memory trace. Btw, I’m still using Opera 12, though now in parallel with Chrome and IE, since Opera 12 gradually fallen behind in opening certain web pages due to lack of proper maintenance. But it allows me to continuously auto check multiple email accounts, while browsing the web, and easily see open tab lists, drag and sort tabs in the browser panel, open many saved sessions and bookmarks accumulated over the years, so it remains fast aging but still irreplaceable tool. 🙂 I can’t find this functionality anywhere else, and even the most talented Chrome extension developers struggle within its current engine limitations, and can’t offer anything similar to these features.

  45. I don’t think the comparison with Apple is valid. Opera has never been more successful and profitable than now, and the new Opera for desktop retains far more users than the old one ever did. Its user base is growing. In addition to that, Opera is profitable in several other markets outside of browsers. Even if the browser flopped, Opera would have several other products to keep it afloat.

    Presto was basically holding Opera back. It took too much time and resources to even try to keep up with the competition. We lost users due to site compatibility issues, and couldn’t add new web standards fast enough. This was a problem already under Jon, so it has been there for quite some time.

    The engine isn’t a competitive advantage these days. In fact, Presto was a competitive [b]dis[/b]advantage in many ways. It prevented innovation because we were stuck constantly trying to catch up with others. We’ve also got far more companies knocking on our doors these days looking to get us to help them with browser these days, apparently, because we’re using Blink.

  46. Haavard,

    Over the years I got used to your comments that never really reflected reality except blind support for the employer your were with at that time. I’m quite surprised you are allowed to post here, don’t believe you remain Jon’s friend in any way. Honestly, I was hopping not to deal with you or listen to your endless “success stories” at least here. People aren’t stupid, and certainly many people are indeed smarter than you think they are, and quite possible a lot smarter than you are. Opera was created as browser company – and users couldn’t care less about your shareholders and their quarterly hungry stomachs.

    Where is independent statistics of Opera browser users base? Coming out of your mouse – that’s independent? And closing My Opera portal – that came from sharply growing new Opera user base? There is no need anymore to communicate with “new” users, since they are just stupid Facebook junkies – right? Closing the communication channel says EVERYTHING. This is your current users statistics in action.

    And if someone still knocks at your door as you say, its only because of Jon, his many years of dedicated efforts that made your company known to hardware makers to begin with. Thanks to him Opera brand is still recognized as meaning something, but hardly for a long. And what are your current leaders accomplishments?

  47. My comments about the new Opera are from the company’s latest financial report to its owners. It is publicly available, so feel free to educate yourself. Since you seemed to think that Opera was struggling somehow, I thought I’d point out that you were mistaken.

    I should also point out that Opera didn’t close all communications channels with users. The official blogs have a new home where comments are still enabled, and there is a new official forum which replaces the old one as well.

    Indeed, Jon did great things with Opera. If it wasn’t for him it wouldn’t even have existed. He is a visionary and an innovator. He left the company in good shape, and with a bright future ahead of it. Isn’t it awesome that Jon enabled to company to choose among several paths to success after his departure? He may not agree with everything the current CEO is doing, just like not everyone agreed with Jon’s decisions when he was in charge, but that’s life.

    Accomplishments? I’m pretty sure that taking the company to record revenues and profits counts as one. Also establishing a strong and profitable foothold in new markets, and of course making fewer people stick with the browser after trying it. Just a few examples.

  48. Many people consider it a consumer fraud or highly unethical to exploit a well known and established brand in venues that directly contradict the brand’s known substance. Its like Apple would suddenly start selling Ice Cream instead of iPhones because it appears more profitable to people on its Board who has no in-depth knowledge of neither iPhone, no Ice Cream. They would call it iScream, still charging premium for it over regular Ice Cream, and reporting huge profit and customer base jump on paper no-one can verify as proud accomplishments of the company current leadership. 😉

    Similar fraudulent approach is evident in substituting a feature reach popular web browser with a new skin to Google Chrome while still using Opera brand name despite washing out its substance and the author. In fact it may be a subject of securities fraud investigation. That’s not how this world civilization was built and keeps developing. And throwing Jon out of the company he created was “nothing personal, just business”… sadly they failed to keep at least his Opera browser, throwing it too out of the company they still call Opera to keep exploiting Jon’s former browser image.

  49. Just to give some idea about the validity of Haavard’s “success stories” and never disclosed stats he always tend to refer to – one example:
    – Haavard on My Opera: “People don’t use email any more. That’s why we decided to remove M2 support, which will not come back to our beloved Opera browser – because (of course) users don’t want and seldom use it”. That is how Haavard creates cover-up for Opera leadership decision to cut costs on developing new M2.
    – In contrast, every second poster in “Discarded Opera Feature” thread on this portal’s forum stated – they miss M2, which was one of primary reasons they kept using Opera for years, and keep using Opera 12 now.
    – ComScore’s older numbers have Hotmail at No. 1 with 325 million unique visitors, Yahoo at No. 2 with 298 million users, and Gmail at No. 3 with 289 million users.
    – Google recently cited: “Gmail, launched in 2004, has evolved from a simple email service to the primary mode of communication for more than 425 million [b]active[/b] users globally.

    Apparently, Google, who’s blood is statistics, doesn’t know what Haavard knows – “people don’t use email anymore”. And that’s the level of trust to your company statements most dedicated Opera users continuously expressed on My Opera portal that forced your leadership to close it.

  50. Unless you can provide a source for that quote I’m afraid I’m going to question its validity. Surely you wouldn’t manufature quotes in order to attack another member of the community?

    You don’t have to take my word for any success stories. Feel free to look them up in the quarterly report to Opera’s owners and the market in general.

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