Ask HN: Is Opera stagnating?

9 pointsby glenstein15 ปีที่แล้ว1 comments

I feel if there was ever a time for Opera to break into the mainstream, it would have been these past few years. Internet Explorer's market share has gone nowhere but down since 2009, Chrome usage doubled in 2011, and Safari is always making steady gains. [1]

I ask because I am an Opera user. Over 2011 I have experienced imperfect support for Google+, Google Docs and Twitter. I've seen Unite, which I feel is still ahead of its time, fail to take off. The Widgets seem all but dead. The extensions development community seems much less robust than for other browsers. One would have expected Opera to benefit from the gains made by Firefox and Chrome in recent years. Yet Opera market share always seems to be just under 2%. In fact, their market share has been shrinking of late. [2]

Is Opera going to be forever stuck under 2%? If so, doesn't that mean Opera will never have success with features that depend on community involvement such as widgets, extensions, and Unite?

1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_browser_market_share

2: http://insights.chitika.com/2011/web-browser-market-share-november-2011/

1 comments

rapidstuff15 ปีที่แล้ว

Opera still commands a large & growing market share of browsers on mobile phones with Opera Mini. This is evident in Asia / developing countries where partnerships with mobile operators are helping them stay relevant. But as these countries switch to mass adoption of smartphones, I sense they will struggle to keep up the momentum. See http://www.opera.com/smw/ for current growth story of Opera Mini.