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News Opera browser gets a built-in ad blocking engine

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Gareth Halfacree, 10 Mar 2016.

  1. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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  2. GeorgeStorm

    GeorgeStorm Aggressive PC Builder

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    Ooh I might check this out this evening.
     
  3. jb0

    jb0 Minimodder

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    Hey, remember when Opera integrated a banner ad into the browser UI?

    My, how the tables have turned.
     
  4. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Hah! The true history does spoil the joke a little, though: back in the day, you bought browsers. (I have a boxed copy of AWeb for the Amiga somewhere around here...) Then Microsoft came along to embrace and extend with Internet Explorer, which was free with any given copy of Windows 95. Rival browser makers had to respond: the majority of 'em switched tactics and released their software free of charge.

    Opera, though, was a hold-out. It continued to charge for its browser, but offered a free version which was ad-supported. If you didn't like ads, you bought the full-priced version.

    A few years ago the company caught up to the 20th century (not a typo) and did away with the advertising and paid-for versions, releasing a single free version which relies entirely on a cut of search revenue to keep the lights on.
     
  5. Mr_Mistoffelees

    Mr_Mistoffelees The Bit-Tech Cat. New Improved Version.

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    I knew nothing about this, until reading this article. It does seem to speed things up compared to using Opera with the Adblock addon. Thanks Gareth.
     
  6. Alecto

    Alecto Minimodder

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    Lynx was free. Mosaic was free. Netscape (Navigator) was free. Firefox was/is free.

    Free as in free beer. The only other browser I ever needed to use (for some web-services that wouldn't run on Firefox), namely Internet Exploder, also pretty much free.
     
  7. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Bzzt. Netscape Navigator was not free. I refer you to Pikiwedia, which sayeth:
    D'you know what other browsers weren't free? SlipKnot, IBrowse (got a boxed copy of that), MacWWW (developed by CERN, that one), Cello, OmniWeb, Opera (but I repeat myself there), Voyager, and iCab.

    Yes, Lynx (text only, no graphics) was (and is) free; Mosaic (lacking in features compared to commercial rivals) was free; Firefox was and is free - but Firefox was only released in 2004, so a fat lot of good that did you in the 90s.
     
    Last edited: 10 Mar 2016
  8. Alecto

    Alecto Minimodder

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    Mine was (only got on board with 1.22). Not sure where I got it but I know I never paid anything for it. Don't think it was pirated though.

    I stayed with Netscape Navigator (Communicator by the time of 3.x) through 2.x and 3.x. 4.0 was huge disappointment so I stuck with 3.x (3.7 ?) for quite some time until it could no longer render most pages I cared about :) I went for Firefox at that point (already called Firefox by that time).
     

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