back to article Ad-slinger Opera adds ad-blocking tech to its browser

Ad slinger Opera is to add ad blocking to its eponymous web browser – but the company insists there isn’t a conflict. The Opera Mediaworks advertising business contributes 75 per cent of Opera ASA’s overall revenue, and it’s a booming business, up 40 per cent year on year to $145.5m. The Opera board has recommended that it …

  1. wolfetone Silver badge
    Stop

    Correction

    "But Opera is best known amongst consumers for its pioneering web browser."

    This should actually read:

    But Opera was best known amongst consumers for its pioneering web browser, up until it elected to use Chromium and become YAGTB (Yet Another Google-Type Browser).

    You're welcome.

    1. Fonant

      Re: Correction

      I'm pinning my hopes on Vivaldi, complete with M3 mail when it's ready. Liking it so far :)

      1. wolfetone Silver badge

        Re: Correction

        Vivaldi is the same as Chrome though. Which annoys me, as it's a lovely browser. But I'm sick of this Google domination bullshit. I'm using PaleMoon instead!

  2. hplasm
    Paris Hilton

    Eh?

    Opera always used to have a nice point-and-click blocker for adverts and unwanted screen crap. I wonder where that went- probably discarded along with the original browser engine?

    1. SuccessCase

      Re: Eh?

      Why the image of an Oric-1? That takes me back. I was 1 of about 5 people who had one of those. Superior to the Sinclair Spectrum, yet for some reason (lack of marketing I guess) it never took off. What a shame.

      The only reason I had one was because my dad knew the bloke who made them and he got me one instead of the Sinclair Spectrum I wanted. I needed an upgrade from my ZX81 because the wobbly RAM pack had wobbled it's way into short circuiting the main board. But on getting the Oric-1, I wasn't disappointed. To my surprise, comparatively, it was an excellent machine.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Eh?

        I don't get the Oric 1 reference either.

        My best guess as to why it never took off is the network effect. Sinclair was the first to get a computer with colour, high-resolution graphics and "sound"- and hence play a passable approximation of late-70s/early-80s standard arcade games- at anything like that price point on the UK market.

        Which meant that it was the first to get games written for it, which meant that people bought it because it had the games, which increased the userbase, which in turn made companies more likely to write games for it... (#)

        ...and on the flipside, the would-be rivals to the Spectrum that came out later *didn't* have that established software base when they came out, making people less likely to buy them, making companies less likely to write software for them.

        I got loads of my Dad's old Your Computer magazines from circa early 1982 to early 1985, and there seem to have been a ludicrous number of would-be home computers released at that time- almost all incompatible, and almost all sunk without trace. Many of those were aimed at the same market segment as the Spectrum. The Oric, oddly, seems to have been quite well-known despite its lack of software in the UK (apparently it did better in France...!).

        (#) This is almost certainly why the Spectrum survived until the early 1990s. The ZX81 lasted around three years before it was discontinued. The Spectrum was starting to look a bit dated by the mid-80s, and it's noticeable that it was around that point that the hobbyist market around it seemed to die off or move on- i.e. at the point the machine probably would have died if its established software base hadn't been such a selling point- leaving it as a gaming machine, despite its limitations in that area. Why? Assloads of games.

        1. Steve Todd

          Re: Eh?

          The early Oric 1 was horribly bug ridden. Printer output was corrupted by the key scanner routine for example. The keyboard was also unpleasant to use. They fixed both of those things with the Oric Atmos (and if you knew what you were doing you could burn a copy of the Atmos ROMs and drop them in to the 1) but it was too little too late. At that point it was the lack of software support that killed it.

      2. To Mars in Man Bras!
        Thumb Up

        Alas, Poor Oric!...

        *"...Why the image of an Oric-1? That takes me back. I was 1 of about 5 people who had one of those..."*

        I was the other 20% of the user base. High fives all round!

        *"...Superior to the Sinclair Spectrum...."*

        Yes. I remember the Oric had a HIRES graphics mode, which allowed you to display images on-screen at a dizzying 240x180 resolution [if I rem the figures correctly]. Given it was also manufactured by "Tangerine Computing" I reckon there's some pretty clear-cut "Prior Art" there, as regards Retina displays and 'Fruity' brand names.

        Anyone know a good lawyer?

        1. Ramlen
          Thumb Up

          Re: Alas, Poor Oric!...

          Another one here...and I still have it along with the Atmos I bought from a friend.

    2. Steve Foster
      Boffin

      Re: Eh?

      Yes, it was part of the Presto-based Opera, and that and so much more was all lost when Opera became a reskinned Chrome derivative.

    3. Planty Bronze badge
      FAIL

      Re: Eh?

      You might have forgotten how badly presto worked on the modern web. Go back and install it and visit some complex sites, and then understand WHY opera NEEDED to adopt blink. Websites working is far more important than being able to edit an ini file to make a toolbar appear in a different place.

      I really hope you don't work in engineering...

  3. Known Hero
    Alert

    Ok I apologise if it seems like spamming, just posted on the forums regarding a new browwser from Ex mozilla founder, based on this concept.

    They have just released a new browser designed to block ads and protect privacy from the ground up.

    if your interested http://www.brave.com

  4. Ian 56

    This just in: Jeremy C Hunt describes the Opera organisation as "digital terrorists". Says "this wouldn't have happened if my buddy Rupert was in charge."

  5. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    Thanks, but no thanks.

    I'll be the judge whether an ad is acceptable for me or not.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I'll be the judge whether an ad is acceptable for me or not.

      Quick question from a fell ad-blocker: How do you propose doing that if you never see a single one to judge for yourself in the first place?

      1. Lysenko

        Maybe by going to an advertising site like Alibaba or Amazon and browsing through the promotional guff at a time and place of one's own choosing? Subscribing to mailing lists works too.

      2. To Mars in Man Bras!
        Thumb Up

        Re: question from a fell ad-blocker...

        You block ads while endurance running up hills?

        Respect!

  6. John Lilburne

    TEH INNERNETZ companies ...

    ... need a new business model. It may be as simple as giving us more control over the type of ad content that gets slung at us. A couple of years back Last.fm were stuffing "Asian women want to talk" banners from Ad-Choices that site went from whitelisted to blacklisted. FB wants to shove political ads at me. Not wanted, not needed, my political views are fully formed they aren't going to change. If these companies had any real profiling experience they'd know that.

  7. Uncle Slacky Silver badge
    Stop

    Why no timings with uBlock Origin?

    Does anyone still use the bloated ABP?

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      History shows that young, sleek and efficient add-ons are never chosen for deals with any platform.

      It's always the bloated, way-past-their-prime, drowning-in-useless-gimmicks add-ons that are preferred.

      With the added advantage of having sold out to Google, APB was a shoe-in for the contract. Nothing else had a chance.

    2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Why no timings with uBlock Origin?

      "Does anyone still use the bloated ABP?"

      NoScript and Ghostery seem to block 99% of all known ads. Dead!

      So no need for an ad blocker per se. Now, if those same ads came without offsite scripts and offsite trackers, maybe I would see the ads and my pages would still load just as quickly.

  8. djstardust

    Ha ha

    Sounds like something Microsoft would do.

  9. Tannin

    "Opera is best known amongst consumers for its pioneering web browser."

    Yer right .... As you would know if you troubled to consult anything other than the in-house press releases, Opera hasn't pioneered anything for a very long time. Opera development was abandoned three years ago and the once-loved browser has vanished without trace.

    (There is a rebadged version of Chrome marketed by what's left of the Opera company now, but it's certainly not Opera, and it isn't even remotely "best known amongst consumers" because hardly anyone bothers using it. What would be the point? You might as well just use Chrome - which is exactly what most people do.)

    1. werdsmith Silver badge

      What would be the point? You might as well just use Chrome - which is exactly what most people do.)

      I guess that would depend on whether you think you need their "turbo mode" pre-rendering servers or not.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Has the author ever used Opera himself?

    "What Opera will do when users are able to block what they consider to be non-relevant in-app ads, at the network level using technologies like Shine, remains to be seen."

    Remains to be seen how exactly? It seems to me as if the author is under the impression that this is the first time when Opera users can block ads, and that idea is a grave oversight. I've been using Adblock plus ever since I made the switch to Opera; and it has kept me safe all this time. And things don't stop there. I discovered that NoRef is an excellent way to block even more idiocy on certain sites, especially if those try to pull in contents from "overseas" in somewhat weird ways.

    So to answer the raised question as to what Opera will do? Well, it seems obvious: giving their users exactly what they want by supporting popular features themselves. Of course, that's assuming that this feature will actually be added to the upcoming version.

  11. toughluck

    Those test results

    What happens when you edit your hosts file to appropriately redirect everything undesirable to 127.0.0.1? Adblock no longer has anything to do, it could speed up Firefox and Chrome. What about Edge? Would it get an edge?

  12. chivo243 Silver badge

    Trial started today

    I saw this mentioned earlier today, and thought, what the heck, let us give it a go. So far, it's working nicely.

    1. chivo243 Silver badge
      Meh

      Re: Trial started today

      And sadly working with imported bookmarks seems to be unstable with folders with dozens of bookmarks. Yes, yes, I will restart.... everything.

  13. This post has been deleted by its author

  14. Outcast !!!

    Repeat after me,

    There isn't such a thing call 'quality advertisement'.

  15. Andy The Hat Silver badge

    Oric 1?

    Anyone see the link between a splash of a magazine ad for the 1980's Oric 1 and the story of the new Opera with web ad blocker? Apart from they're both 'ads' as is a billboard on a city roundabout or the latest Screwfix catalogue ...

    1. Alister

      Re: Oric 1?

      Umm, they both begin with "O"?

      Don't get it myself, but nice to be reminded of the Oric.

      My mate had a Lynx (he always was a flash bastard), which was a similarly obscure alternative to the Spectrum.

  16. Gene Cash Silver badge

    Does it do element blocking?

    I use the "element hiding helper" of adblock A LOT, for example hiding the annoying "people you should follow" in Twitter and the top-of-the-page menus that's the current trend, that hides a lot of the content and makes using the page-down button a pain in the ass.

    This is the only reason I'm still using Firefox.

    1. Anomalous Croissant

      Re: Does it do element blocking?

      Element hiding and its helper is one of the reasons I still use ABP+ over uBlock. uBlock has an element picker but it's just too buggy in my experience.

  17. Florida1920
    Unhappy

    Not feeling the love

    Installed new Opera (automatically made itself the default browser), went to El Reg. All ads gone except Red Hat's, top,left and right. No "shield icon." Went to a major newspaper site and after it loaded the content, task bar spun away, downloading whatevers, but still no shield. Same site loads fast in Chrome with uBlock Origin, ScriptBlock and Vanilla. Uninstalled Opera. Too bad, really used to like it, about 10+ years ago.

    Personally, I'm waiting for the Trump browser. He'll build a wall against advertisers and make them pay for it. Our browsing experience will be great again!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Flame

      Re: Not feeling the love

      Just had a spin myself. Found the button of "exceptions" includes all the ad pushers and trackers you *don't" want. Deleted the whole list. Of course, this being AdBlock Plus we are talking about, I'm sure Taboola still isn't blocked. But I don't dare going to any website I know that uses that cesspool of an ad slinger.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    You're a bit early...

    "... beautiful and engaging ads ..."

    Sorry, but April 1st is still weeks away, and anyway, it still wouldn't be funny.

  19. aj69

    Seriously, what's Opera?

  20. Steve Knox

    Well, as it's Opera we're talking...

    What Opera will do when users are able to block what they consider to be non-relevant in-app ads, at the network level using technologies like Shine, remains to be seen.

    Any guesses?

    The image of an amply endowed maiden waxing lyrical springs to mind...

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Thanks to Opera

    I agree with their statement. A profitable ad company can raise their voice about current ad system, Microsoft(pre Nadella) added tracking blocker in their browser(IE). Google should learn something and respect users privacy.

  22. ParasiteParty
    Big Brother

    Try HostsMan...

    I'm running HostsMan alongside Opera... don't need that third party adblocking.

    http://www.abelhadigital.com/hostsman

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