skullbochs

I am not a browser elitist. I frequently switch browsers just for the fun of it. When I’m on a Windows machine, I’ll even use Internet Explorer just for kicks (IE7/8 have a great UI, IMO; if only the backend wasn’t a piece of junk…). So it’s always with a heavy heart that I declare my undying hatred for Opera.

I wish it were not so, especially now that they’ve released Opera Unite, which is something I’ve thought should be down for a while. Opera has also been pushing for browser-native audio and video support w/ Ogg. On top of that, their theme system is better than Firefox’s.

The problem comes down to its lack of compatibility with a lot of the sites I use. Not only the occasional site that flat out won’t work (which I don’t actually mind too much), but also the sites that it renders annoyingly wrong, like Twitter.

Now, the general response you get to this around the web is this: Those sites are written using bad HTML/CSS/JavaScript. Opera is highly standards-compliant. So it’s not Opera’s problem.

I really hate this elitism. It may not be Opera’s problem that people write poor HTML/CSS/JavaScript, but Opera should make it their problem. Otherwise, it becomes my problem when I use their browser. Standards be damned, the web needs to work.

I’ve read that Opera labs are working on better compatibility for the next version. I hope so, because I really like what they’re doing with Unite and would like to be able to add Opera to my browser repertoire.