Never really got into Opera, too much like the old Netscape Navigator, tries to do everything instead of doing one thing really, really well, (yes, I know I can just not use the parts I don't want to but then...why have them there in the first place?).
-4wd
Convenience and exclusivity when you just need things to work.
There are no other notepad/browser hybrid that is as lightweight as Opera's. (Maxthon cloud comes closest but more because it has a built-in app launcher for an actual external notepad.)
Torrents are meant for seeding but sometimes you just want a no-nonsense quick install of an iso and here again, there are no torrent programs that have a native built-in browser for this type of purpose.
The same can be said for a native Speed Dial, a native RSS Reader, a native mail client.
It's more of a remote control than an I don't need it problem.
The features are nice in theory because they are exclusive to Opera in a pure .exe type of situation. There really is no singular executable out there that does what Opera does at providing a seamless torrent client or a seamless panel notes and many of the seamless features was then adopted by more modern browsers such as cloud sync for notes, active extensions in tray for Chrome (the old Widgets of Opera that need not have Opera open) and things like cascading windows are still trying to be mimicked by tiletabs, vertical splitters and other clunky features in other browsers.
It's really all great exclusive features IF Opera does not bungle up the presentation...
but it's still exclusive one of a kind features that when other browsers took it, they were able to present it as a way to differentiate their browser.
Key examples:Maxthon's "Cloud" Browser is pretty much Opera Unite with an interface and a lot less powerful.
Firefox's exclusive Scrapbook add-on is pretty much Opera not being smart enough to integrate Obook.
Opera mail and rss is pretty much an early edition of Flock's sidebar. (Flock was even smart enough to empower their notes sidebar as a clipper but dumb not to mimic Opera's basic plain text notes for non-clipped content)
Opera links is basically an underpowered resource sniffer that Maxthon has sold as a way to quickly download youtube and image files.
Opera torrent is/was basically the only torrent client that can trick you into thinking a torrent download was a regular download.
Opera widgets is basically one half K-meleon preloader/other half Google apps that stay active when the browser is closed.
Opera MDI like cascading windows is an under-animated illusion that gave the Chrome the illusion of having lightweight separate process tabs.
Opera stacks is a fully featured successor of the Taboo Firefox Add-on if Opera understood not to delegate it to opened tabs.
Opera sessions is still one of the native sessions that could save active window only and can recover full windows via a separate trashcan but Opera just insists on not making it easy to manage it like their bookmarks.
Opera's start bar was the reason why Google's chrome star was better integrated as a lightweight feel bookmarks than Firefox's star which of course Firefox also kind of took and Opera kind of took away.
Opera's keyboard shortcuts are still uniquely it's own for being to switch around tabs by using 1-2 and using gestures right mouse hold - left mouse to move back and forth between pages because of how powerful and unanimous the keyboard shortcuts allow it to be.
...these are not your regular "add-on developers will develop for it" add-on designs nor are these your typical Opera has innovative concepts that get stolen theory. Presented, named and given the same focus as Opera likes to give focus to their Speed Dial and Extensions correctly...these things changed the other browsers and still could have changed the desktop software world forever. There's just no software that presented these ideas other than Opera and by present, I don't mean introduced or included the feature but literally present a product that literally competed and out-exclusive other non-browser software if Opera only went to "update" these features to their modern capability.
(Example, torrent download could have been marketed as a unified download manager that combined the explanation Maxthon has for it's resource sniffer with torrents in general and then re-combined with the wand for private torrent usage while adding some statistics like how many times you leeched/seeded specifically from a wand account but not just for torrents but like a download history integrating with notes log and a wishlist bookmark integrating with weblinks that function as a native way of say...viewing a piratebay link reminder when you are viewing an IMDB page.)
