Comments on: Opera Unite Seeks to Decentralize the Web

By: Radek

Radek — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:53:37 +0000

In my opinion, Opera Unite is doomed to fail. Do you remember AllPeers project (Firefox extension for P2P file sharing) which debuted about 3 years ago? It is gone by now. Dead. R.I.P.

And there is only one reason for that – it tried to solve a problem which did not exist. Market for this extension was non-existant. And today, Opera Unite is trying to resuscitate this dead horse again, by offering file sharing functionality in their browser. But this time, not even with P2P functionality, but with an integrated web-server on your desktop!

More here:
http://hulan.info/item/opera-unite-tries-to-solve-a-problem-that-does-not-exist

By: XLCowBoy

XLCowBoy — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:32:30 +0000

Great idea.

Now all we have to do is wait for Internet Explorer and Firefox to copy it, and it will be “the next big thing.”

By: Squig

Squig — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 10:43:05 +0000

This is great … except that it only works in the one browser that hardly anyone uses :-)

If Opera are doing this to try to make people switch from IE, FF or Chrome then I think they’re missing something.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 23:51:52 +0000

I say let the conspiracy breed! :) Not exactly sure why I would want to use this though. Sounds like they are trying to build an operating system for the web with social content at it’s heart. Going to be hard to break the habits of people used to email, IM, torrent, regular browsering, etc. One tool to unite them all perhaps? Still, I chose the tools I use for good reason. Going to take more than hype to make me switch.

By: dawgbone

dawgbone — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:58:57 +0000

Nice to see Opera doing something constructive in between their pointless suing of Microsoft.

By: charmedlover

charmedlover — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:09:25 +0000

Matthew Magain, I am very glad to see Opera news mentioned on SitePoint. It is a very refreshing change for once. :)

By: Matthew Magain

Matthew Magain — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:42:46 +0000

And to all those naysayers who say there is a conspiracy to ignore Opera on SitePoint … booyah!

By: Kevin Yank

Kevin Yank — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:37:41 +0000

The more technical discussion of Opera Unite provided on the Opera Developer Community reveals some interesting details, like the fact that requests to your private Unite server pass through Opera’s servers in order to guarantee they will penetrate even the most draconian firewall setups. An interesting competitor with which to compare Opera Unite is Tonido. Launched in beta earlier this year, Tonido is essentially the same thing as Opera Unite, except that it isn’t tied to a particular web browser (a positive), and applications are written in C++ instead of using web technologies (a drawback, depending on who you ask).

By: Barry Carlyon

Barry Carlyon — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:35:19 +0000

Surely the web is already decentralized.

I mean in terms of third party services and API’s no one thing is tied down to a single server.

The one big problem with Opera doing this is that it’s not gonna work well for people with limited upstream bandwidth, how many people do you know who have a symmetric connection?