practically nobody used Opera, Safari only was relevant on OSX (when was it released for Win? I do not remember).
Opera was innovating, but did not break any stranglehold. Remember you had to pay for it? Remember it had ads embedded?
My number 1 reason for using Firefox against IE was AdBlock. Killing those damn intrusive ads, banners, popups, the whole infestation was a godsend. IE didn't do it. Opera refused such plugins, because they were ad-supported themselves - I know cause I tried arguing with them at the time.
I don't think it is a coincidence that Chrome took off once AdBlock plugins became possible and available.
I now I am not alone in not being able to browse the web without blocked ads anymore - just like I am not able to watch regular TV with ads anymore as well.
FYI, Opera had been free as in beer since 2006, Safari on Windows since 2007. Irrelevant to the browser market of course because either had the number of extensions FF had available. Opera also had (and still have) a lot of trouble rendering sites that work with FF and IE, and Safari Win was so much unlike everything else on Windows, nobody uses it just because it's weird.
This post is about placing credits where they are due. Copying functionality from one browser to another one isn't innovation, but I have to admit that one major reason Firefox got popular was the extensions that copied all those functionality from Opera over before Firefox had them. For some reason Firefox never really got to reach 40% usage, and now it's too late. I'm just a little disappointed.
Opera was innovating, but did not break any stranglehold. Remember you had to pay for it? Remember it had ads embedded?
My number 1 reason for using Firefox against IE was AdBlock. Killing those damn intrusive ads, banners, popups, the whole infestation was a godsend. IE didn't do it. Opera refused such plugins, because they were ad-supported themselves - I know cause I tried arguing with them at the time.
I don't think it is a coincidence that Chrome took off once AdBlock plugins became possible and available.
I now I am not alone in not being able to browse the web without blocked ads anymore - just like I am not able to watch regular TV with ads anymore as well.