Oh, so I should use Opera just because it's produced by a cool company?
Firefox is Open Source and they champion (or so they say) the cause of a more standardised Internet. Oh, they also raise money to donate to charity. Does that mean I should use Firefox?
And speaking of standards: Your typical end-user doesn't give a monkey's about whether all the browsers use the same standards, or whether they all use different engines and different versions of HTML and force web designers to run browser detection algorithms. As long as the page looks good, and loads fast, they'll be happy.
Browsing data sync is also available on Google Chrome. And you're mentioning it even though it still hasn't been implemented on Opera 15? Well that's quite something. Saying that "Browser X is better because in the future it will have Y and Z" debases your credibility as a browser user. I don't use Chrome because "in the future it might use quantum computing and fly." I use chrome because it has bookmarks and it has them NOW. I don't have to wait.
Last but not least, extensions. Opera is perhaps the one that's lacking the most when it comes to extensions. It is good that they'll start supporting chrome extensions, but that doesn't automatically makes it better than chrome. If anything, it reinforces the idea that it's just a cheap clone of Chrome.
So there you have it, at least to me your "5 reasons to choose Opera" post should be renamed "Opera has server-side compression. Yay!". Don't get me wrong, I'm not an Opera hater. In fact, I used to love it. I installed Opera everywhere I could. I showed Opera to a lot of people, and explained to them why I considered it to be the best option. That was one year ago. Today I would recommend Chrome. That's just my point of view, of course. Opera can still improve. That's what I hope, that they will turn Opera 15 into a beast, as fast as Chrome and boasting all the features from the previous versions. But in the interim, I'll stick with Chrome. Is not everything I want in a browser, but it's close enough.
Browsing data sync is also available on Google Chrome. And you're mentioning it even though it still hasn't been implemented on Opera 15? Well that's quite something. Saying that "Browser X is better because in the future it will have Y and Z" debases your credibility as a browser user. I don't use Chrome because "in the future it might use quantum computing and fly." I use chrome because it has bookmarks and it has them NOW. I don't have to wait.
Last but not least, extensions. Opera is perhaps the one that's lacking the most when it comes to extensions. It is good that they'll start supporting chrome extensions, but that doesn't automatically makes it better than chrome. If anything, it reinforces the idea that it's just a cheap clone of Chrome.
So there you have it, at least to me your "5 reasons to choose Opera" post should be renamed "Opera has server-side compression. Yay!". Don't get me wrong, I'm not an Opera hater. In fact, I used to love it. I installed Opera everywhere I could. I showed Opera to a lot of people, and explained to them why I considered it to be the best option. That was one year ago. Today I would recommend Chrome. That's just my point of view, of course. Opera can still improve. That's what I hope, that they will turn Opera 15 into a beast, as fast as Chrome and boasting all the features from the previous versions. But in the interim, I'll stick with Chrome. Is not everything I want in a browser, but it's close enough.