Opera 9 will get a BitTorrent download manager! :)

[Elias]

Don't know where to place this thread, so I'll put it in general for now.

http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/02/06/opera_9_preview/

http://www.opera.com/

I have to ask you guys about your take on it all:

1) How do you think this will affect the movie industry and their incessant whining about illegal movie downloads and piracy (no, I'm not trying to start a discussion about piracy and I know it's against the rules... just want your point of view on this)?

2) Do you think this move will increase the popularity of the Opera browser?

3) Do you think that a lot more websites out there will offer torrent downloads for their otherwise normal bandwidth files?

4) If so, what about Doom9.org?

5) Do you think that this will be a feature of other major browsers, like Internet Explorer?

6) How long do you think it will take until Firefox implements this cool feature as well? To me, it's only a matter of time.

7) And last but not least: do you think that this is a good move from Opera's part? If not, elaborate why.

Update 2006-02-07 11:22
Thanks for the answers you guys. I personally think that the BitTorrent technique is a very important one for the future, and I hope that it gets more support and that it becomes some kind of a real download standard. It's very efficient... although it has its pros and cons. Personally, I'd like to see it implemented in all browsers, and not some screwed up MS DRM version like Neo Neko mentioned in this thread (let's hope that MS won't do that).

[DeathTheSheep]

1) Make them cry bloody murder.
2) Opera? Never heard of it. Bittorrent download manager?! Sign me up. ;)
3) Sure.
4) WE shall fight it to the death. It could spell out DEATH for the doom9 community, cuz people will all download stuff illegally and come here for help. AS 4 D9's hostin', well no. not really worth it to host a few MB of stuff by my reckonin' anyway.
5) MS will lift its fingers to implement it only if ppl scream bloody murder for them not to, or if it means vast amounts of $$ and monopoly. (Or maybe not).
6) Eventually.
7) No, BT gets shot a lot by bigwigs, and poor little Opera might not be able to FIGHT like SHEEP IN HOT WATER!

Dante: Let's Rot, Baby!?
Alucard: I will Bittorrent!!
:D :D
Cheeers, and may BT live on.

[Elias]

Dante: Let's Rot, Baby!?
Alucard: I will Bittorrent!!
:D :DHaha!

[Sirber]

I'm already on Opera 9 preview 1. I love how everything is integrated :D

[Elias]

I'm already on Opera 9 preview 1. I love how everything is integrated :DWhere can I download it? And how long until Opera 9 is released for the public?

[foxyshadis]

Firefox has the successful advertising chops and the fanatical core userbase, Opera hasn't been able to match that. Opera users are simply too reasonable. :p And I thought firefox had an extension to integrate torrent support, but maybe not.

I really doubt it'll accellerate any trend toward torrents, sites will just steadily switch over to them. Torrents are still difficult to manage server-side compared to just throwing up a download, and have availability issues (server-fallback torrent seeding helps with that, though only a few client support it). I just use an internal redirect that forwards all requests for large files to my high-speed mirror.

If they integrated Dijjer (http://www.dijjer.org/), that would increase Dijjer's popularity significantly, since that wraps up most of the messiness of torrents in a package that's simple and management-free on client and server side. (It's a sort of evolution of torrent made for regular sites, rather than distro sites, designed by the same people.) Still hasn't quite taken off, so it may not be the last word in site bw saving via p2p.

[Elias]

And I thought firefox had an extension to integrate torrent support, but maybe not.What I meant was to integrate a BitTorrent manager in Firefox, not any extensions.

[Sirber]

Where can I download it? And how long until Opera 9 is released for the public?last october :)

http://snapshot.opera.com/windows/w90p1.html

[communist]

1) Not much.
2) Unlikely. I mean do I have to keep the browser loaded (in memory) in order to have the BT client work (similar to Mozilla/FF's "download manager"). I rather use a dedicated low-memory / optimized standalone client (like µTorrent).
3) Unlikely, Opera is even less used than FF AFAIK,
4) What about doom9.org? No changes I think - see 3)
5) IE - who cares - the most we will see is an integrated solution called MS BitTorrent :sly:
6) Hopefully never :) Standalone client all the way, maybe as an extension. For small downloads this might be convenient but then again who will distribute small files with BT?
7) In order for the integrated BT client to be of relevance it has to be either better than current ones or be of unique use which I dont see (see 2) & 5)).

[Neo Neko]

1) How do you think this will affect the movie industry and their incessant whining about illegal movie downloads and piracy (no, I'm not trying to start a discussion about piracy and I know it's against the rules... just want your point of view on this)?

Because it is opera I think it will have very little effect on the movie industry. Though it will be yet another point towards bittorrent's legitimacy. Integrating everything into one program is foolish. Having everything work together is fine. Under Windows FF an microtorrent do just fine.

As to a discussion about piracy you know why it is against the rules? Very few of us here actually own boats. And the few that do rarely if ever use them to board other peoples vessles and steal from them at end of a weapon. So it is very off topic. :p


2) Do you think this move will increase the popularity of the Opera browser?

No. Not likely. In a small sense Opera is to FireFox what BSD is to Linux.


3) Do you think that a lot more websites out there will offer torrent downloads for their otherwise normal bandwidth files?

Not because of opera no. But more and more they will for other reasons. One of my new favorite games uses a launcher with integrated bittorrent functionality to get patches and updates. www.gunzonline.com It works quite well.


4) If so, what about Doom9.org?

The problem with Doom9.org is that there are so many indiviual files. That would mean we would need alot of seeders etc. It could be done. But there is just no need right now. Bittorrent is great for static content. Such as music, movies, and documents. But some issues arrise when aplications enter the mix. Aplications are regularly updated. And it is sometimes hard to kill off old torrents and get everyone over to the new one. Especially with DHT. Long after the torrent is gone from the tracker it will still be sustained by DHT.


5) Do you think that this will be a feature of other major browsers, like Internet Explorer?

Yes and no. Microsoft will try to come out with a DRM laden incompatable bittorrent workalike when the cartels demand it. But it will fail for all the obvious reasons. Firefox will for sure. But not likely ever officially. Because it just is not needed.


6) How long do you think it will take until Firefox implements this cool feature as well? To me, it's only a matter of time.

The firefox crew themselves will likely never implement it. They are writing a browser after all. Other people can and do do better jobs writing bittorrent clients. And I hope that never changes.


7) And last but not least: do you think that this is a good move from Opera's part? If not, elaborate why.

I can't say one way or the other. It is not a great move. But neither is it a bad move. Ultimatly I think it will have very little effect. What opera should do I can not say. They are in a tough position.

[ppera2]

I never liked to go to Opera... Was only once, and it was disaster for my ears.

Uhm. I just think about that, when will Opera team fix remain displaying bugs. There is still couple very iritating, which I didn't see in other, less known browsers (Linux).

PS: tried V 9 preview. Bug of relative positioning is fixed... Very promising. V 10 will rock certainly :D

[Elias]

Uhm. I just think about that, when will Opera team fix remain displaying bugs. There is still couple very iritating, which I didn't see in other, less known browsers (Linux).What bugs? Anything in particular? From what I've noticed so far, Opera seems rock solid stable.

[dragongodz]

What I meant was to integrate a BitTorrent manager in Firefox, not any extensions.
why ? the whole point of extensions is so that you can add the extras you want and not have a lot of stff you dont. Firefox is a web browser first and gives the ability for other to extend it beyond that if they wish.
as for extensions for Firefox, a little googling found these for those interesting in this sort of thing.
http://moztorrent.mozdev.org/
http://firepuddle.mozdev.org/

[ppera2]

What bugs? Anything in particular? From what I've noticed so far, Opera seems rock solid stable.

Here may see mentioned relative positioning bug:
http://piters.tripod.com/zx.htm

V 8.5 displays top incorrect. It has nothing with stability.

[Elias]

why ? the whole point of extensions is so that you can add the extras you want and not have a lot of stff you dont. Firefox is a web browser first and gives the ability for other to extend it beyond that if they wish.Because I personally think that BitTorrent is so important that it needs higher and wider compatibility, and Firefox is a great platform to improve that part for BitTorrent. Sure, extensions will do a lot of good for BitTorrent, but it won't increase the popularity of BitTorrent as much as it would if integrated within the browser.

[dragongodz]

Because I personally think that BitTorrent is so important that it needs higher and wider compatibility, and Firefox is a great platform to improve that part for BitTorrent.
and for people who either dont use it or want to use it seperatly as a standalone program it would be seen as bloat. exactly what extensions are meant to help avoid.

Sure, extensions will do a lot of good for BitTorrent, but it won't increase the popularity of BitTorrent as much as it would if integrated within the browser.
and why should the mozilla crew care about promoting or increasing the popularity of bittorrent exactly ? it has nothing to do with web browsing no matter how important people think it is. from doing a quick searh i can see there are quite a few bittorrent clients already. if people are not interested in making the effort to find these then what makes you think most wouldnt just ignore it if it was intergrated anyway ?

EDIT:
i notice opera 9 preview 2 has just been released aswell for those wanting to check it out.
http://labs.opera.com/news/2006/02/07/2/

[Elias]

and for people who either dont use it or want to use it seperatly as a standalone program it would be seen as bloat. exactly what extensions are meant to help avoid.You might as well remove everything from Firefox and just provide HTML 1.0 support, and back/forward/reload buttons if you care so much about not bloating Firefox.and why should the mozilla crew care about promoting or increasing the popularity of bittorrent exactly ? it has nothing to do with web browsing no matter how important people think it is. from doing a quick searh i can see there are quite a few bittorrent clients already. if people are not interested in making the effort to find these then what makes you think most wouldnt just ignore it if it was intergrated anyway ?Because not everyone is a tech savvy geek like us who hang at Doom9. There are lots of people I know who don't know how to install let alone use a Torrent client, and if a browser has this integrated, then it's a good start for people which aren't in the know. Also, far from everyone using Firefox knows that it has extensions.

The Mozilla crew should care because this benefits the Internet, and that's their goal, right? A built in Torrent manager in Firefox would help out a lot for websites out there, and save lots of bandwidth (even for the Mozilla.org site).

[foxyshadis]

Most sites with torrents have a little "made for utorrent" or "we recommend azureus" with a link, it's not that hard for surfers to follow and install. That's not even the largest client-side problem with torrents, port-forwarding is, except in the rare cases upnp works perfectly. And adding it to Opera doesn't make that any simpler.

Server-side, torrents still need all kinds of babysitting and handholding, and building it into opera isn't going to fix that. An http server that passed large-file requests from clients that signal torrentaility, to a torrent server that parsed the file and returned a torrent file would be something special. This is why Dijjer is practically perfect, that's what it actually already does, no need for nonexistent torrent integration. Torrents aren't made for the vast mojority of websites, Dijjer is, so why continue to push torrents for that?

I don't personally use Dijjer, because I'm a bit of a curmudgeon about what I install, but it does fit this problem like a glove. (Compared to torrents' baggy pants without a belt.)

[Elias]

Dijjer sounds interesting... never heard of it actually, but if it's so good, then why hasn't it become popular like BitTorrent?

[foxyshadis]

If Opera is so good, why has it languished in single digits since its inception, when firefox only took about a year to hit 10%? :p Marketing, perception, adoption by high-visibility sites, and luck. They really need to do a lot more to push their protocol.

It's actually a little more similar to magnets, which actually have caught on. I guess it's just more scalable and easier to publish. And of course, it's a lot newer, so it's still on the uptake curve. We'll see if it ever manages to catch on big-time.

[sysKin]

I hope Opera makes a difference here - BT is indeed ideal for any file sharing, be it software page on Doom9 or anything like that. It costs a lot when done over http.

As for Firefox, the integration is definitely not ruled out, and it's known as bug 236755 (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=236755).

I hope Opera's BT will win and push FF support too.

[dragongodz]

You might as well remove everything from Firefox and just provide HTML 1.0 support, and back/forward/reload buttons if you care so much about not bloating Firefox.
oh come on, talk about an over-reaction.

The Mozilla crew should care because this benefits the Internet, and that's their goal, right?
their goal is to make a great standards compliant extensible web browser as far as i can see. no more, no less. :)

A built in Torrent manager in Firefox would help out a lot for websites out there, and save lots of bandwidth (even for the Mozilla.org site).
i do agree i can see how this could be good. for example many linux distros have torrents i have seen. however that doesnt mean it needs to be built in to be of use or effective even though you say not everyone knows about extensions etc. that was my arguement.

Most sites with torrents have a little "made for utorrent" or "we recommend azureus" with a link, it's not that hard for surfers to follow and install.
good point. i am guessing if they are really interested they would put in just a tiny bit of effort. then again its amazing how lazy some people are nowdays aswell. :)

As for Firefox, the integration is definitely not ruled out, and it's known as bug 236755.
thanks for the link sysKin. interesting reading on how it could be done(including as plugin) etc.

[zilog jones]

If Opera is so good, why has it languished in single digits since its inception, when firefox only took about a year to hit 10%? :p
Those figures are highly dubious, mainly due to this option in Opera:

http://www.skynet.ie/~zilog/pics/opera-id.png

This setting allows Opera to be identified by servers as other browsers, mostly to solve the issue of poorly-designed non W3C-compliant (usually IE-orientated) websites not recognising Opera as a suitable or modern browser at all, or not working/displaying correctly. This was set to IE by default up until recently (it's Opera now). Therefore there were (and maybe still are) potentially millions of Opera users going unnoticed by servers.

Also, up until last year when Opera went totally free, it was only available for free as a 30-day trial or (after version 5) with an ad banner, which probably put off a lot of people from using the browser (I found the Google ads on later versions very unobtrusive though). I wouldn't be surprised if there were a lot of people who tried it before still haven't realised that it has become ad-free now. JavaScript and HTML DOM support was a bit dodgy up until the last couple of years too, but it's all good now ^_^

[sysKin]

Those figures are highly dubious, mainly due to this option in Opera
Nah, it still appended "OPERA" at the end of its user agent string, so all sane statistics caught that.

IMHO, Opera was just scary, at least until recently - ad banners were evil, and Opera kept pushing many of its features in the face of the user. It was difficult to just use Opera as an IE replacement, and many people just didn't bother to turn stuff off or learn about it. That's all IMHO.

Great browser otherwise, and definite leader in innovation.

[zilog jones]

I don't know much about how websites measure statistics, but some of them are definately not picking up Opera right... or anything to be precise. I'm the admin of a Mambo website, where there's about 20-odd "regular" forum users. There's at least 5 of us who access the site always through Opera, and we probably post the most too - one Opera user has made over 2,000 posts in the past 2 years. Most others would use Firefox, or if using a college pc (the site's for a college society) probably IE6.0 (which is the standard on them - though I use Opera installed on my USB flash thingy ^_^). Yet the statistics only show about 1,300 hits from Opera 8-9 users, and about 1,700 for Firefox (all versions), yet confusingly over *65,000* hits for Mozilla 5 and nearly 9,000 for "uknown". For IE6.0 it says around 6,800 which sounds plausible, but then over 2,000 for IE4.0 - that really doesn't make sense for a website that's only been around for 2 years.

There's some obscure stuff that makes perfect sense - I used Lynx and Links on it a couple of times (for a laugh ^_^), and they're noted there correctly, and the W3C HTML Validator is listed as being used once - which I also did (and it failed, then again it is PHP ^_^). I really can't see how there can be such a large amount of people who viewed our crappy website with Mozilla 5 - it just doesn't make sense. And if it wasn't people that it recognised using that browser, it makes this whole browser statistics thing very inaccurate.

[Elias]

If Opera is so good, why has it languished in single digits since its inception, when firefox only took about a year to hit 10%? :p Marketing, perception, adoption by high-visibility sites, and luck. They really need to do a lot more to push their protocol.Because Firefox has a fanatic userbase similar to Linux... and it's open source (yes, that helps a lot).

[Elias]

oh come on, talk about an over-reaction.No. Accusing every extension to be a bloat is an overreaction. Some extensions are important, and they most definitely should be included in Firefox by default. For instance, the tabbed browsing feature was an extension from the beginning that got included later.

[zilog jones]

Tabbed browsing (something Opera's had for ages, BTW ;) ) is quite a significant improvement to a web browser, and that is probably the general consensus of internet users. A built-in BitTorrent client, in comparison, has limited use and is not a very well known method of file transfer (well certainly not as well accepted as HTTP or FTP by far). I personally only see it useful for downloading large files or archives, like Linux distros - but this is definately an action less commonly performed by the average user compared to having multiple web pages open at the same time.

[Elias]

A built-in BitTorrent client, in comparison, has limited use and is not a very well known method of file transfer (well certainly not as well accepted as HTTP or FTP by far).How can it possibly hurt Firefox in any way, to integrate a Torrent Manager in it? You answer me that.

I mean, it's a matter of AT MOST, 100 kilobyte I'd guess.

[foxyshadis]

Firefox has an interesting habit of turning 100k of code into 1 meg. It's like magic! Next thing you know you'll be wishing they'd bundled Azureus, it'd be so much smaller and faster.

I have no objection to torrents being added, per se, I just feel it's a waste of development resources and not anything worth crowing about. (Although I'm sure we will get all the usual posturing from those who get paid to crow about p2p...)

[dragongodz]

No. Accusing every extension to be a bloat is an overreaction.
hmm and i said that where again ? i didnt so maybe go reread what i did actually say before saying such things.

Some extensions are important, and they most definitely should be included in Firefox by default.
geez did i disagree with that ? no, i actually agree. however an extension that may not be used by as many people doesnt HAVE to be included be default and can be left as a seperate extension. that way its there for those interested. ye i know you said you know people that dont even know about extensions. these are the types of people that dont change default options etc anyway soyou can eaither educate them yourself or let them go on in blissful ignorance. :)

For instance, the tabbed browsing feature was an extension from the beginning that got included later.
and the same may happen with bittorrent since there are 2 extensions in the works that i infact already gave links to. also if you read the link sysKin gave there is discussion there about how it could be done. so who knows.

How can it possibly hurt Firefox in any way, to integrate a Torrent Manager in it? You answer me that.
you are getting yourself quite worked up over a simple discussion about something we dont have any control over anyway. i suggest you take a good deep breath and calm down a bit.
i neither know not care why you are so worked up over this being included. i do know that anyone can do a pretty simple search and find plenty of clients etc. also as foxyshadis said many sites may have "download torrent client x here".

[Elias]

you are getting yourself quite worked up over a simple discussion about something we dont have any control over anyway. i suggest you take a good deep breath and calm down a bit.
i neither know not care why you are so worked up over this being included. i do know that anyone can do a pretty simple search and find plenty of clients etc. also as foxyshadis said many sites may have "download torrent client x here".I am very calm (seriously). In fact, I just woke up. I've been calm all the time. You can't possibly judge my mood by reading from text... That's like supposing. :)

[dragongodz]

I am very calm (seriously). In fact, I just woke up. I've been calm all the time. You can't possibly judge my mood by reading from text... That's like supposing. :)
of course one has to go by what a person types. some of your posts have been rather aggressive and reactions a bit over the top. so what would you expect people to think ? ;)

[Elias]

of course one has to go by what a person types. some of your posts have been rather aggressive and reactions a bit over the top. so what would you expect people to think ? ;)Yeah well :) Anyway, I just don't see why you're fighting me on this. I mean, as I see it, a built in Torrent manager in Firefox would do a lot of good, and I hardly doubt that it would bloat Firefox. Oh well, my two cents anyway.

[dragongodz]

I just don't see why you're fighting me on this.
i was not fighting you. i was giving an alternative opinion, simply that it doesnt need to be built in or come as default. its as simple as that.

[Amnon82]

A little late but they released the second tech preview ...

Link to the news (http://labs.opera.com/news/2006/02/07/2/)

Opera 9 Technology Preview 2
Feb 07, 2006 — Håkon Wium Lie

We've released a technology preview of Opera 9, codenamed Merlin, on Opera Labs. There are some very cool features we want you to try:
Screenshot: Widgets

Opera Widgets – Widgets are small AJAX applications that provide specific functionality – like getting your favorite news, converting currency and so on. We've posted documentation on Opera Widgets – not only how to use them but also how to make them. Go to My Opera Community to download Widgets.
Screenshot: BitTorrent

BitTorrent – BitTorrent has become one of the most popular file transfer protocols around. We built it right into the browser so you can download torrent files easily. No more hassle finding the right port, no worries about setting upload and download speed. We've worked to optimize all of that for you.
Screenshot: Create search

Customize your search engines – Use your favorite search engine in the search box. Go to the site you want and right click on the search field site and click on the search field. You will then be prompted to “create search”
Screenshot: Block content

Improved content blocker – Cosmetic surgery for Web pages. Just right click on a page and select “block content”. Any content not greyed out can be blocked with a click. Select “done” and see the page the way you want.
Screenshot: Block pop-ups

Improved pop-up blocker – Just try it with some nasty popups. We added more intelligence to help weed out even more pop-ups. But since not all pop-ups are created equal, use the trash can to retrieve pop-ups you may want.
Screenshot: Site preferences

Site specific preferences – For those of you who want to control settings for specific pages. Want to accept some cookies and deny others? How about setting your own style sheet to make the site more accessible? Just right click on the page and select “Site preferences”.
Screenshot: Thumbnail preview

Thumbnail preview – Opera conserves system resources and uses less memory than other browsers so it's easy to have many tabs open at once. But just what tab had that video you wanted? Using the thumbnail feature, you can find out by resting the mouse on any tab.

As with any of our technology previews, this is not meant to replace your current version of Opera. That caveat aside, we welcome you to download the TP and let us know what you think.

Download Opera 9 TP2 (http://labs.opera.com/downloads/)

[dragongodz]

A little late but they released the second tech preview
didnt read all of this thread did you. :)
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=782280#post782280