   Opera Unite
  Today Opera released a demo of a new feature in version 10 of their software - Opera Unite. This feature effectively turns the browser into a server, allowing you to run a variety of services - bundled are services for file and multimedia sharing, a chat room, note sharing and basic web server - extremely easily.Whilst none of this is technically revolutionary (I imagine most of the members on this site would find setting up a personal web server relatively painless) the ease of use makes this quite attractive. Reduced reliance on web services operated by third-parties with dubious notions of who owns the content in their terms and conditions is equally attractive.The biggest disadvantage I can see is having to keep your own PC running to make the content available.Do you think this will catch on? Will people prefer to exchange content on their own terms or rely on third-party service providers?   
  I hope not. My upstream suuuuucks.   ;Quote:Original post by benryvesThe biggest disadvantage I can see is having to keep your own PC running to make the content available.Is this actually the case? The only person I could find who installed it was also a moron who took my critique of the hyperbolic claims in Opera's introduction ">video and article as attacks. The traceroute I performed against the URL he supplied resolved to Opera in Denmark; is the content actually being served from your machine, from your ISP, or is it uploaded to a staging server at Opera and then pushed out to the world? And if the latter is the case, then wouldn't it remain available even when you go offline?Opera, unsurprisingly, are not describing how this works at all. Color me skeptical.This article pretty much sums up my reaction to a tee, including my thoughts on Opera's motivations.   ;  Yeh this would be really cool if it wasn't proxied via their own servers.Or at least have an option for simple direct access...   ;Quote:Original post by HodgmanYeh this would be really cool if it wasn't proxied via their own servers.Or at least have an option for simple direct access...My understanding is that the Proxy is used only if a) you are behind a NAT and b) your NAT doesn't have UPNP. Makes sense actually, you need to be connectable from the outside world to serve content directly.Regarding the service itself, it is interesting that a single install now gives you the ability to both browse and serve content. I can think of a few uses for myself, but it remains to be seen whether this service will gain any traction.   ;Quote:Original post by Oluseyi[...] is the content actually being served from your machine, from your ISP, or is it uploaded to a staging server at Opera and then pushed out to the world? And if the latter is the case, then wouldn't it remain available even when you go offline?The ultimate goal is to have everything running as peer-to-peer service, with Opera sorting out the initial routing, though as far as I'm aware the only service to be exploiting that functionality thus far is the media player sharing. Even if you do end up going via Opera's proxy the data is not stored there permanently.   ;Quote:Original post by OluseyiThis article pretty much sums up my reaction to a tee, including my thoughts on Opera's motivations.My only look at Opera's hype over this was a quick scan over the link in the OP.  Other than that, all I know about Unite is what's in this thread and that article.  To me, it actually sounds exciting.  This, to me, is what the internet always promised but never quite delivered on.  Something like watching those old cartoons of the push-button homes where you didn't have to do anything; we're, what, about half a century later and still don't have flying cars.And, actually, a lot of what that article criticizes about Unite answer concerns I had about it and make me wonder if this could be the real thing.Quote:But I think they’re missing the big picture here — or intentionally obscuring it — which is that, while the idea of owning your own data may be attractive to neo-libertarians and open source geeks — most people really don’t care and are happy to outsource storage of their data to someone else who can be responsible for backing up their data and fending off hackers. 200 million Facebook users can’t be wrong, right?I don't know, my instinct says, "wrong".  The author is right in saying that "they have to go beyond 'owning your own data' to talking about why owning your own data is better or easier," but I think that "owning your own data" can be made easier, and possibly better, than, say, Facebook.I think my friends would love a feature where Unite would monitor their My Pictures directory and share the pictures found there on the web (or just share My Pictures directly).  Just streamlining the process like that would go a long way toward making it "easier".As for better, the author asks, "Is it that Opera hasn’t figured out that the future of the web is in hosted and delegated services?"  I'm not sure my friends figured this out, either.  These things are better for simple things like e-mail (webmail), but only because, when I'm away from my computer, it's easier to use their computer than mine.  It's such a hassle to set up an IMAP account in whatever unfamiliar e-mail client is available to me, check my e-mail, and then delete the account from the computer.  It's just easier to connect to a website and type my name and password.  Make accessing the e-mail off your home computer as easy as accessing webmail and I think people wouldn't bother so much about webmail.Open source?  Most of my friends and family don't even know what source code is.  If I say I broke the code, they think that's a good thing.  I don't even care if it's open source or not.Opera's proxy?  My main concern was how my friends and family would connect to my computer.  Am I going to have to tell them my IP?  Would they even know what I was talking about?  There needs to be some central server.And it seems silly to me to criticize a company for trying to make a relevant product.  Why be critical of them for promoting freedom to increase the relevance of their browser but approve of them supporting standards for the same reason?  In the thread about whether IE would be included with windows in Europe I said that it seemed to me that browsers weren't innovating enough.  Hearing about Unite reminded me why I paid for Opera in the past.The namespace business is probably the worst of it.  It's one more thing they could've done to make it even easier, but it's no worse than what we're used to most places.  This is where Facebook won in the past.  You need a unique e-mail, but once you create your account that doesn't really matter because others don't use your e-mail to find and identify you on there.;  It seems that you'll be able to use your own domain, so no problems regarding the namespace.   