News - Are Facebook about to acquire Opera Software?

[HEXUS]

Cash rich Facebook need to get some mobile monetisation plans in place.

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[Zeven]

Totally comes out of the blue in my opinion. Opera selling out to Facebook? Damn. Maybe Facebook will work in its entirety in Opera once that happens, but still. Also, what about RockMelt?

[Hicks12]

Facebook is the new Apple and EA and maybe MS, STAY AWAY FACEBOOK I HATE YOU AND YOUR STUPID UGLY GUI DESIGNS AND CONSTANT TRYING TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD.

I hate facebook, only reason i use it is that everyone else does , twitter is better but still have major flaws. I can see Opera having integrated FB now and i will have to give it up again if that happens.

[Whiternoise]

Facebook is the new Apple and EA and maybe MS, STAY AWAY FACEBOOK I HATE YOU AND YOUR STUPID UGLY GUI DESIGNS AND CONSTANT TRYING TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD.

I hate facebook, only reason i use it is that everyone else does , twitter is better but still have major flaws. I can see Opera having integrated FB now and i will have to give it up again if that happens.

The difference is that all of the above, except Facebook, have a foreseeable future.

Microsoft is very good at longevity, they have a very active R&D department although we rarely see what comes out of it. Oh and everyone on the planet uses Microsoft and so does everyone's software... Not to mention their gaming side which is very respected these days.

Apple is Apple, they'll probably remain chic, overpriced and popular. They've got a big handle on the smartphone and tablet markets and they're slowly nibbling at computer market shares (laptops in particular).

EA.. not sure about this one. They're easily the worst out of your mentioned companies with regard to employee rights and ethics. Say what you will about Apple/MS/Facebook, they are all spectacular places to work and you're treated very well. EA will bleed you dry and then stamp on your corpse to get a bit more out.

I would imagine Facebook has about 5-10 years left, tops. If they get their marketing/ad strategy wrong, they will start haemorraging users like no tomorrow. Going public was the nail in their coffin, IMO.

[rinoz]

Well not really surprised something like this would happen. Facebook investors want to see a return on their investment so the only thing Facebook can do that presently is through advertising. They've got the money and Opera seem willing.

Thank god I don't use Facebook anymore since the privacy issues they had. Can you imagine now how many ads are going to pop up now.

[Animus404]

I like the opera browser, I hope the facebook guys don't screw around with it too much.

[peterb]

Google has Chrome; Facebook see Google+ as theirt closest competitor, so get a browser. Not sure if it makes business sense at this stage, but who knows what the longer term strategy is?

[Noxvayl]

If they can get Opera to have better compatibility on the internet I'd probably use it more, perhaps Facebook will try to sort that out. I think it is more likely that they'll go for more integration with Facebook which will end up as a Marmite scenario and I'm firmly against Facebook.

Oh and everyone on the planet uses Microsoft and so does everyone's software... Not to mention their gaming side which is very respected these days.

You must be smoking some strong stuff or talking about Xbox gamers because GFWL is a deal breaker for me, won't touch a game with that rubbish attached.

Microsoft and PC gaming are on divergent paths right now and I don't see that changing.

[lkarunan]

Unfortunately I might have to find a new desktop browser if this pans out. The combination of speed, cross-platform, so many useful thing baked in (customisable search bar, Unite, ad blocking, custom plug-in rules etc.) and of course those brilliant ad videos made it my browser of choice since the win 98 era.

Hopefully, if this happens, they will still be able to innovate and continue to bring stuff like speed dial to the market.

[mark22]

Damn I mainly use Opera mobile on my S2 and facebook are bound to ruin it.

[vinnyT]

I think that FB will be mostly interested in the mobile side of Opera, if this is true the desktop opera may not get as much attention paid to it by the developers and this could be bad. Opera is my main browser, I am used to it and am happy with it, as oppose to FB which I have never used, and doubt I will ever use (I'm not very social, I don't care what other people are doing, so long as they do it away from me).

[Kryloch]

I've not used Opera in several months. Though I did like it overall, there were some issues with some webpages when I did use it though. Over all I thought it was rather decent...

I cannot stand facebook and I'm effectively forced to use it for group assignments, if it was not for that I'd attempt to delete my facebook again. I understand they need to try make money for their little flotation. But surely they are big enough to bring out their own product branded from the ground up and there will be legions of people willing to use it with out even thinking twice about personal privacy settings. I can see the attraction of the mobile market, to compete with twitter on the go. Though here again why not create their own?

From Opera's side I guess if enough money is thrown at it, they will eventually accept a buyout offer.

[Zeven]

If Opera sells to Facebook, I'll be switching my family over to Firefox. I myself switched from Opera to Firefox several months ago as it handles my power surfing better.

[Lucio]

They'd be better off purchasing one of the leading FB game developers, the ones that actually make money off of the Facebook platform.

[BobF64]

I like the opera browser, I hope the facebook guys don't screw around with it too much.

Me too, but if Facebook messed with it, I'd drop it in an instant.

If they can get Opera to have better compatibility on the internet I'd probably use it more, perhaps Facebook will try to sort that out.

Actually, I think the general problem is that the internet isnt compatible with Opera. Unless its changed, Opera sticks fairly rigidly to the HTML specs, its website developers that dont.

[crossy]

I like the opera browser, I hope the facebook guys don't screw around with it too much.

Damn I mainly use Opera mobile on my S2 and facebook are bound to ruin it.

What's the betting that - if this does go ahead - that you'll get a "Please log in with your Facebook account to get the best browsing experience" message after a short while.

At which point Opera will be hastily ripped from mobile, laptop and desktop - I can't stomach Facebook, bad enough that I've got (seldom used) Twitter and G+ accounts, (the former for some special offer tweets and school information, the latter because some of the bands I follow issue tour updates via G+).

If Opera does fall to Facebook, then maybe Facebook should then look at plough a bit of ready cash into Tizen - after all it (Tizen) otherwise seems to be wandering around lost, and if Facebook are going to try and match Google then they need an OS too.