World record browsers: lessons for Opera

[This post is less about software than it is about the business and appeal of software]

Firefox, the world's second most popular browser, released its third avatar this week, and decided to have some pizzazz to go along with it. The world record (for the maximum number of software downloads in 24 hours) was bound to be achieved, since the record had never been set before. But Mozilla (the makers of the browser) more than achieved their target figure of 5 million, in just around half the time. They eventually hovered around 8 million by the end of the 24 hour deadline.

Of course, the fact that Adobe Flash player accounts for 12 million downloads per day does make it that record a little less unprecedented. But the fact that a browser that was largely unknown just four years back is now posing a legitimate challenge to Big Brother's (you know who that is) bloated browser, is indeed impressive.

Predictably though, Firefox's attempt at the world record did peeve a lot of Opera fans. This is truly the dark horse of the browser wars. I'm regarded by many as an unabashed Firefox fan, and I do earn the label by virtue of the fact that I was motivating many friends to help set the record. Yet the one thing I do agree is that Opera has indeed been an extremely impressive browser.

Simply put, most of the innovations you see that have changed browsing in the last 8 years or so, were Opera inventions. Tabbed browsing, for which a lot of people wrongly give credit to Firefox, were introduced by Opera in 2000. Firefox got it only in 2001. Of course, Big Brother introduced them only in 2006 (which was its first browser version since 2001) and had the temerity to pretend like it was their idea. Adding the search bar at the top of the browser, in the toolbar, was an Opera idea. It was also the first browser to block pop-up ads, again something that Firefox gets credit for inventing.

Even today, Opera offers inbuilt features that leave Firefox way behind. For example, a torrent download client. An ability to save sessions, which is something even Firefox 3 does not have.

The truth is, Firefox never invented many of the features that they are praised for, they just popularized them. And that, for many in the Opera community believe that Firefox has simply been playing catch-up and perhaps even stealing Opera's thunder. On most forums, a praise of Firefox is guaranteed to generate at least one comment on Opera's superiority.

The trouble is that a lot of this bitterness is unjustified. Though Opera and Firefox are two good browsers, browser choice is quite personal and not everyone might like Opera or Firefox. I'd say that Firefox has been a godsend for Opera. After the demise of Netscape, Firefox was the first browser to give any serious competition to Big Brother. Without Firefox, Big Brother would have virtually owned the internet and filled it with proprietary code. With its well-earned reputation of being a shark, Big Brother would have either bought out or stomped all over Opera.

Firefox has done a favor to not only its own users and Opera's who need to thank the makers of the browser, but also the users of Big Brother's bloated browser. Without Firefox, that browser would never have innovated. Even though it is abomination of a browser, at least its users have something more advanced than a stone-age non-tabbed browser.

Like I said, browser choice is quite personal. Yet, there has to be a reason why the same features didn't get Opera landslides of users while they did for Firefox. Why did Firefox become more successful despite being the less innovative browser?

The answer, in my view, is usability, simplicity and customisability. Firefox has long been the browser with the largest add-on or extension community. You can probably get a Firefox extension that will make you a sandwich. Now a lot of Opera users speak out at this and say most of Firefox's extensions, and then some, are already available in Opera. Does Firefox have a torrent downloader, they ask.

And that is exactly where Opera lost the plot.

Most people browsing on the net aren't really interested in all the extra features you have. For example, the torrent client. I certainly do use torrents to download Linux distros and would need a torrent client, but most people I know wouldn't know what a torrent was, let alone wanting a client. And even though I want a client, I wouldn't consider it a significant bonus to have it in my browser. It's not too much work for me to go download a dedicated client like Azureus which gives me more control and more info about my torrents than Opera. Certainly, the fact that Opera features a torrent client would hardly be a consideration for me to download it.

Another add-on in Firefox is the stupendously popular (among web designers) Firebug. I use it quite regularly, and I think its the best add-on I've ever used. In fact, its one of the finest pieces of software anywhere that I've used. But would I be very thrilled if they included Firebug in Firefox 4 by default? Nope. Because again, it doesn't take much to install it anyway. Yet, this is exactly what Opera have done in their latest version 9.5. They've added a new feature called Dragonfly which looks pretty similar to Firebug. And that is one of their biggest mistakes.

Why? For the same reason that RGV Ki Aag was a mistake. When you try to imitate a legend, a cult, you better have something that is at least 95% as good as the original if you want to just avoid the brickbats. Dragonfly is not as bad as Aag, but it doesn't have one of the most important capabilities that made Firebug a legend: CSS editing. To boot, its also clunkier to use. Result? People are going to compare it with Firebug, and since it doesn't come up to scratch, they're going to trash it anyway.

Will features like Dragonfly help Opera? I think not. Because most users aren't interested in things like Dragonfly/Firebug, and those who are, would not mind downloading a specialized and possibly better add-on. This is true for most of the extra features that exist in Opera but not in Firefox. People don't really mind downloading an add-on - if anything, it gives them a feeling of control and makes them feel like its their personal browser.

So what has Firefox done right? Most of the things that matter to users, in my view. A very important attribuete for a browser is to have a look consistent with the OS. Though no one can look entirely like Big Brother's browser, I've found that Firefox adopts the look of its environment to quite a large extent. Opera, though, has an entirely unique look and feel. The dialog boxes, the menus, all look entirely different from the OS you use. It's beyond just the looks - its also in the the interaction with the user.

Back when Big Brother was not so big, and was actually lagging in the spreadsheet market behind Lotus 1-2-3, they made a decision that would be one of their best designs decisions at that time. Senior people at Big Inc. were not impressed by the "battleship style" A1, B1, C3 notations of Lotus 1-2-3. They preferred the L1C1 format. They finally decided to include the A1, B1 naming and have L1C1 format as an option. The result? People using Lotus 1-2-3 did not find it hard to migrate to Big Inc's spreadsheet. By not making it harder for Lotus users to make a shift, Big Inc. just increased their chances of breaking the stranglehold of 1-2-3.

There is a lesson for Opera in this - it's not the features that are paramount. It is how you allow users to access those features. If you want to open a link in a new tab, Shift-Click is no less illogical than Ctrl-Click. But Ctrl-Click has become the de facto standard today. Like it or not, that is the fact. It's like, in India, people drive on the left side of the road, and so buy right-hand drive cars. There is nothing more logical about right-hand drives than there is about left-hand drives, but if someone introduces a left-hand drive in India, it won't do as well as a right-hand drive.

A very good example of where Opera (and all other browsers, including Mr Big's) lost out is the humble Find, or Ctrl-F.

This is how Opera reacts when you try to find some text.

See? You need to type the whole search word, in this case "Lenovo". There may be no word starting with "Len" in the whole page, but you wouldn't know unless you typed the whole search word, clicked "Find" and were told it doesn't exist.



Now this is how Firefox deals with it.

You fire Ctrl-F, and a bar appears at the bottom for you to type the search word. It searches as you type. So if there is no word starting with "Len" in the page, you won't need to waste your time typing the whole word. The browser will inform you immediately that there is no such word.

As one commenter on a site said, Ctrl-F alone is enough to put paid to all claims by Mr Big and Opera. That's exaggeration, but it has a point. The thing most users require won't be torrent downloaders or Dragonflies. What they need is instant accessibility to your features. This functonality alone goes a long way to show that Opera have faltered in trying to be a technically centred browser while entirely ignoring the ease of use. Incidentally, this is also the mistake Linux distros have made, a mistake that distros like Ubuntu are slowly trying to correct.

All that I've said may look like small niggles, not major problems. But I feel it is these small problems that hold Opera back.

Firefox understood this. They mimick the OS look - their latest versions go one step further and customise themselves to look very much like a "native" app. They also try to mimick the shortcuts and the interface of Big Brother's browser. And yet in that, they end up providing most of the features that even though Opera provided earlier, could not effectively use to pump up its popularity. Which is why Firefox introduces features later but makes it easier to use them.

I'm considered a Firefox fan, but I do wish for Opera to understand this and do really well. Because the last thing I want is for Firefox developers to sit on their laurels. Big Brother provides a very pathetic browser that millions use only because it is bundled with their equally bloated and slow OS. Big Bro is indeed the biggest and most fierce opponent to Firefox. But it is Opera that blazes the trail for all others to follow.

Without Firefox, the internet would be in Big Brother's clutches, in other words, dead. Without Opera, innovation would certainly slow down. Just as Firefox's success benefited Big Bro's users, Opera's success too is important for Firefox users.