{"id":667,"date":"2015-12-02T11:24:45","date_gmt":"2015-12-02T11:24:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hostingnotes.com\/?p=667"},"modified":"2017-09-20T11:46:47","modified_gmt":"2017-09-20T11:46:47","slug":"opera-usage-stats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.webdevelopersnotes.com\/opera-usage-stats","title":{"rendered":"Opera usage statistics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Opera web browser has been around for years. Available for Windows users in 1995, it&#8217;s seen the slaughter of Netscape at the hands of Internet Explorer in the first browser war. Opera was just a bystander then and, I suppose, continues to remain so as the world&#8217;s popular web browsers clash once again.  This time the war is between Firefox and Internet Explorer with Chrome also chipping in.<\/p>\n<p>Thus, the <strong>usage graph of Opera is not very &#8220;exciting&#8221;<\/strong>, though it&#8217;s had ups and downs. But that hasn&#8217;t stopped the company from unveiling great features (tabbed browsing was just one of the many firsts from Opera) and making their browser the fastest in the world.<\/p>\n<div class=\"clr\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"bottom-ads\">\n<h4>Sponsored Links<\/h4>\n<script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\n<!-- Inner Page Top - Non Responsive -->\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\n     style=\"display:inline-block;width:336px;height:280px\"\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1043128618639037\"\n     data-ad-slot=\"5670477364\"><\/ins>\n<script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"clr\"><\/div>\n<h2>Opera global usage<\/h2>\n<p>Opera commands a little more than 2% of the market share as per both <a href=\"\/\/www.netmarketshare.com\" title=\"NetMarketShare\" target=\"_blank\">NetMarketShare<\/a> and <a href=\"\/\/gs.statcounter.com\" title=\"StatCounter\" target=\"_blank\">StatCounter<\/a>. This isn&#8217;t great. Why? Google&#8217;s Chrome over took Opera in less than a year. In fact, based on the numbers of this web site, in the first month of its launch more people were using Chrome than Opera!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/\/www.webdevelopersnotes.com\/articles\/opera-global-usage-stats-2010-11-02.gif\" width=\"450\" height=\"316\" alt=\"Opera global usage and statistics from NetMarketShare and StatCounter\" class=\"full-width\"\/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/\/www.webdevelopersnotes.com\/articles\/opera-usage-compare-chrome-safari-2010-11-02.gif\" width=\"450\" height=\"316\" alt=\"Opera usage on WebDevelopersNotes.com\" class=\"full-width\"\/><\/p>\n<p>However, Opera users are fanatically loyal and they consider it the <a href=\"\/\/www.webdevelopersnotes.com\/best-web-browser\" title=\"Which is the best web browser in the world? Chrome, Opera, Safari, Firefox or Internet Explorer\">best web browser<\/a>. Additionally, Opera has a built-in email program which integrates well with their online service.<\/p>\n<p>Though Opera mini is one of the most popular <a href=\"\/\/www.webdevelopersnotes.com\/mobile-web-browsers-list\" title=\"A list of mobile web browsers\">mobile web browsers<\/a> its usage numbers haven&#8217;t been taken into account when  creating graphs for this page.<\/p>\n<h2>Why hasn&#8217;t Opera become popular?<\/h2>\n<p>Let me first list down some salient points of the Opera web browser:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"withbullets\">\n<li>It&#8217;s available for all popular operating systems.<\/li>\n<li>Opera is head to head with Chrome when it comes to being the <a href=\"\/\/www.webdevelopersnotes.com\/fastest-web-browser\" title=\"Fastest web browser - quick checks to find out the winner\">fastest web browser<\/a> in the world.<\/li>\n<li>The installation file is a small download.<\/li>\n<li>Browser features a built-in email program.<\/li>\n<li>Extremely loyal user base.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>However, Opera didn&#8217;t become popular. Why? Here is what I think:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"withbullets\">\n<li>It never had a backing of a big company. Look at what Google did to Firefox and Chrome. The latter now commands a tad more than 10% of the global market share&#8230; and that&#8217;s in just a couple of years &#8211; check graph below.<\/li>\n<li>Till mid 2000, Opera was available only as trialware. Yes, you had to pay to get a fully functional copy. Now who would do that when one had a pre-installed alternative in Internet Explorer?<\/li>\n<li>Though Opera was available as a free download sometime around the middle of 2000, the non-paid version  was ad supported. This was the time when Netscape was badly defeated by Internet Explorer in the first browser war. The company should have just released their browser 100% free with no strings attached and taken advantage of the market conditions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/\/www.webdevelopersnotes.com\/articles\/chrome-global-stats-2010-11-02.gif\" width=\"450\" height=\"316\" alt=\"Chrome global stats from NetMarketShare and StatCounter\" class=\"full-width\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Sadly, Opera continues to remain as an also ran though it&#8217;s such a great piece of software.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Opera web browser has been around for years. Available for Windows users in 1995, it&#8217;s seen the slaughter of Netscape at the hands of Internet Explorer in the first browser war. Opera was just a bystander then and, I suppose, continues to remain so as the world&#8217;s popular web browsers clash once again. This [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stats","category-web-browsers"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webdevelopersnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webdevelopersnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webdevelopersnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webdevelopersnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webdevelopersnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.webdevelopersnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webdevelopersnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webdevelopersnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webdevelopersnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webdevelopersnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}