Chrome has started the same way, simple and secure and now integrating plugins. If they fail to keep a handle on them then they will fail like Firefox, if their core code is more secure then I think they will succeed in bringing onboard this (albeit small) community.

For lots of people a simple browser is enough, but then Opera doesn’t really have enough of a marketing engine to get those people away from IE/FF/Chrome. For me personally I need (want?) plugins.

I guess the debate is really whether you want to use a simple browser or whether a browser should be a “suite” to encompass other parts of your workflow.

Web development is hardly mainstream function. And other than that there is nothing that Opera can’t do for me. When Dragonfly gets to the point it can compete with Firebug I will be likely to ditch Firefox for development as well.

I see no point for Opera to go plugins route. That introduces crazy amount of performance and security issues Opera does very well without.

Not saying that Opera’s approach is superior, but I am tired of “but there is no plugins” attitude. You don’t need plugins to have great browser. You need them to make browser do something it is unable to do natively.

As I remember bulk of Firefox users never bothers to install a single plugin. I think this applies to Chrome just as well.

I prefer to keep a single browser for all jobs, hence I was with Firefox. However, Chrome seems to have come a long way since I last tried it and it’s working well so far. I do like Opera, but the lack of plugins is a game changer for me. The browser is starting to become an environment in itself and so far only Chrome and FF seem to have embraced that. Hopefully Opera will follow their lead at some point.

For me personally Chrome doesn’t have enough leverage to make me drop Opera. Initial Chrome version were really primitive in functionality and development is flaky with multiply branches and constant betas.

It got better, but still doesn’t interest me much.