[WEB4LIB] Opera is adware, not free (was Re: Opera 5 (Win) release FREE)

[Thomas Dowling]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Raymond Wood" <raywood at magma.ca>
To: "Multiple recipients of list" <web4lib at webjunction.org>
Sent: Thursday, December 07, 2000 5:36 PM
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Opera is adware, not free (was Re: Opera 5 (Win)
release FREE)


> Opera is *not* free - it is adware, and that is a huge difference
IMNSHO.
>
> I will *not* support adware in any way shape or form, and I encourage
> others to boycott this silly commerical software concept and send a
> message loud and clear.
>
> Why *should* I pollute my computing fun with garbage ads anyway?
>
> Raymond (who has had it with ongoing 'commercial-creep')
>


Will you be sending in your Opera registration right away, then, or
sticking with Mozilla?

Opera is between a rock and a hard place; they're competing directly
against companies with some of the deepest pockets in the world--Microsoft
and AOL, both of whom have many other revenue sources, and both of whom
work hard to tie their ad-free browsers tightly to ad-riddled home pages.
One of the most consistent complaints about Opera has always been that
their browser costs cash money while the other major browsers do not.  The
free-with-ads/paid-no-ads solution they hit on strikes me as a reasonable
response to this complaint.

Some adware is also spyware; I'm convinced Opera is not.  They have done a
good job of explaining how their ads work, what data is and isn't
collected, and how they differ from the radiate.com's of the world.  See
http://www.opera.com/privacy/adinfo.html

Thomas Dowling
OhioLINK - Ohio Library and Information Network
tdowling at ohiolink.edu