Opera’s Browser Ballot Screen Results

By | March 18, 2010 | 20 Comments

According to Opera Software, more than a half of web browser downloads from Europe is a direct result of Ballot Screen launch.

This confirms that when users are given a real choice on how they choose the most important piece of software on their computer, the browser, they will try out alternatives,” said Håkon Wium Lie, CTO of Opera Software.

Company has also shared the following statistics:

Opera's Browser Ballot Screen Results

Those numbers were collected in a period of 2 days (from March 12th to 14th).

[digg-reddit-me]


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Vygantas is a former web designer whose projects are used by companies such as AMD, NVIDIA and departed Westood Studios. Being passionate about software, Vygantas began his journalism carrier back in 2007 when he founded FavBrowser.com. Having said that, he is also an adrenaline junkie who enjoys good books, fitness activities and Forex trading.

  • Golden Boy

    Something is fishy here, why not March 11 results when screen was launched, instead when opera 10.50 was launched? they are playing with stats. where are opera fanboys now?

    • http://my.opera.com/DanielHendrycks/ Daniel Hendrycks

      “why not March 11 results when screen was launched, instead when opera 10.50 was launched” 10.50 was launched on March 2nd, not 11th. :)

    • Dels

      Fishy or not, they surely has got some new user there… and that’s the fact, beside the main user base for Opera was not US, but some Europe (such as Russia) and Asian country (in Indonesia was the 2nd most used browser after Firefox).

      Just remember every browser got market share increased after ballot screen including Firefox and Chrome.

      The main fail with Opera is that they usually disappointed the new(bie) user with complicated user interface (better said most newbie not familiar with tabs on top, address inside tab, sidebar thing etc) and hell lot feature that they don’t even know how to use it (they even don’t know there’s sidebar there).

      But since 2009, the new CEO has the new vision, new ui designer got new design, design has changed (and keep evolving), user friendliness and accessibility has increased to greater range, etc… (They even finally decide to unify UI for Opera Mini and Opera Mobile).

      • Crackerflack

        Eh. Opera got a new CEO this year. The new UI in 10.50 was made last year. The new designer was hired more than a year ago. The new UI for Mini and Mobile were also made last year (and they said something about having worked on Opera Mini 5 for two years already).

        New vision with a new CEO? Hardly. Everything you see today is the result of the old CEO. The new CEO hasn’t had the time to do much yet.

  • Eric

    I Love Opera and I am a user of Opera 10.50.1 but every time I hear about the Ballot Screen I get mad. It is so babyish of the Opera ppl to force MICROSOFT to do this. It is after all THEIR Operating System.

    • blah

      It’s the law. Suck it up, or go change it mr. Eric.

    • Crackerflack

      Say what? Opera didn’t force anyone to do anything.

      You are simply deluded if you think Opera has the power to force anyone.

      The ballot screen was Microsoft’s own suggestion.

      And Microsoft broke the law, so it doesn’t matter if it’s their operating system. You break the law, you face the consequences.

  • web

    lol

    the ballot screen doesnt even mentions the release of new versions, so it doesnt matter.

  • nobody

    well, downloads..

    i wonder how do they measure increase in usage, esp. when 10.50 is completely unusable for some and simply not polished enough for others

    will it be again that opera claims something that no other source can verify?

    ps. that new designer left opera (or was fired) after finishing opera 10.50 skin, new changes/fixes are probably done by other people

    • Somebody

      John Hicks wasn’t fired and hasn’t left (yet). He will leave in April and he has also said that he might be working part time on some projects for them. So no, the new changes for the skin are still being done by him, atleast for now.

    • Somebody

      Firefox recently claimed that they had 100 million downloads of Firefox 3.6 inspite of their market share declining continuosly for the past 3 months. I haven’t heard anyone complaining that they cannot be verified. So why should we not trust only Opera’s numbers?

      Besides, I agree Opera 10.5 is not completely rounded and still has a few flaws. But inspite of that , it is not completely unusable as being said. It is quite usable and i think it is among the best browsers out there.

      • Eice

        “Firefox recently claimed that they had 100 million downloads of Firefox 3.6 inspite of their market share declining continuosly for the past 3 months. I haven’t heard anyone complaining that they cannot be verified. So why should we not trust only Opera’s numbers?”

        Simple. Because every credible browser usage statistics survey agree that Firefox has more or less ten times market share than Opera. Ergo, Opera’s self-reported numbers are fictitious bullshit.

        • Crackerflack

          Opera’s numbers are required by law to be correct because Opera Software is a public company. And besides, Norway has extremely harsh laws for these things (it’s a left-leaning country, after all).

          So we know that Opera’s numbers are truthful.

          That means 50 million desktop users, and another 50 million Mini users.

          So Opera has at least 100 million active users.

          Last time Mozilla said anything, they had 300 million active users. Let’s say they got another 100 million users in these few months.

          That means that the facts show that Opera has at least 1/4 of Firefox’s user base in total.

          The stats do not show this. Conclusion: The stats are nonsense.

          And the fact that they claimed that Chrome had 2x Opera’s market share when Opera had more users than Chrome confirms that the stats are wrong.

          • Eice

            “Opera’s numbers are required by law to be correct because Opera Software is a public company. And besides, Norway has extremely harsh laws for these things (it’s a left-leaning country, after all).”

            And those extremely harsh lawmakers have apparently yet to investigate Opera for its cock-and-bull numbers that nobody else can seem to corroborate.

            All you have to back up your baseless claims are yet more baseless claims. The only thing worth learning from your post is the absurdity and volume of the nonsense you can spew while keeping a straight face.

      • lucideer

        That would be the mind-numbingly complex distinction between the percentage-based market share and the hard-number-based download stats

        100 million downloads can be a completely different percentage of the total at any given time, as the total number of internet users is generally increasing constantly. So number of downloads can go up, while the percentage that number represent can simultaneously drop.

        Obviously, not everyone who downloads Firefox actually uses it (I have 3 different copies of it installed, for example – I use none of them for browsing) – market-share stats are based on actual usage on the web.

  • http://www.pneumatig.com.pl pneumatyka

    http://www.ranking.pl doesn’t show any unusual increase yet, however their charts are only up to 8th March for now. They have also stats for other eastern countries.

    • http://www.pneumatig.com.pl pneumatyka

      I’ve checked today – no increase at all, and gamius (owner of ranking.pl) is the biggest and most accurate internet stats company. There is even slight decrease. Probably some people downloaded opera, and then switched back to their previous browser (so they didn’t surf long enough), or maybe they are only “sunday” internet users. Besides maybe more time is needed.

      In my opinion this whole EU regulation is evil (like all government intervention), and I hoped its impact will be minimum (most people which are used to IE will choose IE). I will be very happy if it turns out to be correct. :P

  • ay

    I have been using it (and rather heavily too) at office since it came out. 10.50 is quite usable. Though I would call it a bit of a disappointment especially in the memory usage department.

  • Somebody

    Opera have released version 10.51 today. I think this version is much better than 10.5 and has fixed most of the problems with the previous version. Opera is now among the best browsers out there.
    This is the same build as the last snapshot.

    http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/2010/03/22/opera-10-51-for-windows-released

    Also, Opera has now dethroned Chrome as the fastest browser on the peacekeeper page after scoring 13011 points. Opera says this version is upto 30% faster than 10.5 on the Peacekeeper benchmark :).
    http://clients.futuremark.com/peacekeeper/results.action?key=3070

    • http://www.pneumatig.com.pl pneumatyka

      ” Opera is now among the best browsers out there.”

      It always was :)

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