Opera 9 Is Music to eWEEK Labs' Ears (eWEEK)
One of the coolest and most valuable new features in Opera 9 is its search customization feature. On any Web site to which we surfed with Opera 9, we could right-click in a search field and then choose to add the site's search engine to our list of integrated engines. We could even make it our default search engine. This is a feature that we have been looking for in browsers for a long time now, and Opera 9 has finally pulled it off."
Posted Jun 23, 2006 5:52 UTC (Fri)
by gvy (guest, #11981)
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I sorely miss it since...
Posted Jun 23, 2006 14:06 UTC (Fri)
by Richard_J_Neill (subscriber, #23093)
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Posted Jun 23, 2006 20:39 UTC (Fri)
by holstein (guest, #6122)
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And I've been filling all of this by hand all this time...
Posted Jun 26, 2006 1:41 UTC (Mon)
by bignose (subscriber, #40)
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Sounds like one good reason to choose free software: if you want a feature, with non-free software, you have no choice but to wait for the software vendor because no-one else can change the code.
With free software, there's no need to "wait for a long time" for improvements. Call on another developer who will act on your request more promptly, because they already have freedom to improve the software on your behalf.
Posted Jun 26, 2006 14:47 UTC (Mon)
by tjc (guest, #137)
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Posted Jun 30, 2006 1:34 UTC (Fri)
by bignose (subscriber, #40)
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To be more clear, the option is there to *pay for someone else* to add features to free software. That option is not available with non-free software, leaving its users to "wait a long time" for the vendor's interests to somehow align with their own.
The benefits of free software are not simply that the *user* can improve the program. The benefit to the users of free software is that *anyone* can improve it, allowing any user to help themselves by finding someone skilled and offering an incentive to do the work.
That option simply does not exist with non-free software.
Technically similar, although of course more rough and less discoverable from user's standpoint, feature ("smart bookmarks") was present in Galeon 0.12.prior art ;-)
In Firefox 1.5.x, right click any search box; choose "Add a keyword for this search". Opera 9 Is Music to eWEEK Labs' Ears (eWEEK)
Wow, thanks!Opera 9 Is Music to eWEEK Labs' Ears (eWEEK)
> This is a feature that we have been looking for in browsers for a long time Opera 9 is impenetrable to users' eyes
> now, and Opera 9 has finally pulled it off.
Opera 9 is impenetrable to users' eyes
With free software, there's no need to "wait for a long time" for improvements. Call on another developer who will act on your request more promptly, because they already have freedom to improve the software on your behalf.
Well, yes in theory that's great, but... have you ever actually looked at the source code for Firefox? Or Openoffice? If your employeer gives you 48 weeks vacation a year, then modifying your web browser might be viable.
In the quoted part you respond to, I said "Call on another developer who will act on your request more promptly". It isn't clear to me why you mangle that into "modifying your web browser" oneself, on holiday.Opera 9 is impenetrable to users' eyes