Track Opera Downloads “Live”

By | June 28, 2011 | 16 Comments

Track Opera Downloads "Live"

Refresh the page and timer restarts.

With the launch of Opera 11.50, curious users can now track Opera downloads “live”.

However, don’t get too excited as this is not an actual live tracker. Instead, it’s just a script to trick you into believing that this counter is tracking something. Like: var spot = 350736,rate = 8. Obviously, Opera Software did not say anything other than:

This record was beaten as part of our counter to measure the amount of Opera 11.50 downloads.

So here you have it folks, no live tracking, welcome to the age of false marketing.


About (Author Profile)


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.

  • Darklink2303

    seems like the “live” countdown itself is not real, but they update it with the real number of downloads when a particular goal is achieved

    • Geroie

      The counter updates itself with updated numbers every time you reload the page, it seems. After loading the page, it just calculates an estimated amount. So reload to get the latest.

  • Operrauser

    For those who can not wait to see when and what the other facts are, go to the source of opera.com (right click – source)
    and search for:
    div class=”step”

  • http://rudivisser.myopenid.com/ Rudi Visser

    Polling the server for every single update, from every single user watching is not viable, of course it’s going to have the average update rate and do it client side.

    However, the ‘spot’ is updated periodically with the actual value… And when I refreshed once, it had actually updated to be *more* than what my client had counted. I’d say that’s pretty good going, and they’re selling themselves short if anything. Definitely not “false advertising”.

    • http://www.favbrowser.com Vygantas Lipskas

      You are correct!

      Thanks for that.

  • Heath

    I agree with Rudi. It’s not that bad at all.

  • Anonymous

    Stupid to claim that this is false advertising! Obviously no website can update the counter in realtime. Its impossible. Its updated periodically.

    • Taaard Alrt

      Yeah, it’s completely retarded to claim “false advertising” when the page actually shows an updated number every time you load it. That it can’t keep polling the server every single second should be obvious even to someone like the favbrowser fool.

      • http://twitter.com/TiagoMorbusSa Tiago Sá

        False advertising is a redundancy. It’s advertising for pete’s sake! Of course it’s false! Where have you guys been for 50 years?

      • Anonymous

        ———————————————————————–

        pramod ghuge wants to stay in better touch using some of Google’s coolest new
        products.

        If you already have Gmail or Google Talk, visit:
        http://mail.google.com/mail/b-7da1a58e48-8d24cb867e-fweExp45vH-pY2SFWtQqm-uHoOA
        You’ll need to click this link to be able to chat with pramod ghuge.

        To get Gmail – a free email account from Google with over 2,800 megabytes of
        storage – and chat with pramod ghuge, visit:
        http://mail.google.com/mail/a-7da1a58e48-8d24cb867e-fweExp45vH-pY2SFWtQqm-uHoOA

        Gmail offers:
        - Instant messaging right inside Gmail
        - Powerful spam protection
        - Built-in search for finding your messages and a helpful way of organizing
        emails into “conversations”
        - No pop-up ads or untargeted banners – just text ads and related information
        that are relevant to the content of your messages

        All this, and its yours for free. But wait, there’s more! By opening a Gmail
        account, you also get access to Google Talk, Google’s instant messaging
        service:

        http://www.google.com/talk/

        Google Talk offers:
        - Web-based chat that you can use anywhere, without a download
        - A contact list that’s synchronized with your Gmail account
        - Free, high quality PC-to-PC voice calls when you download the Google Talk
        client

        We’re working hard to add new features and make improvements, so we might also
        ask for your comments and suggestions periodically. We appreciate your help in
        making our products even better!

        Thanks,
        The Google Team

        To learn more about Gmail and Google Talk, visit:
        http://mail.google.com/mail/help/about.html
        http://www.google.com/talk/about.html

        (If clicking the URLs in this message does not work, copy and paste them into
        the address bar of your browser).

  • http://twitter.com/cristianer304 Cristian

    http://bit.ly/kxlPPQ

    Opera says it’s REAL

    • Wicket

      It says, that they are pulling the real number once, when you load the page. They do not say that the counter counts the actual downloads.

      • Anonymous

        It would be impossible to count the actual downloads because it would bring the server to its knees. That’s why the server generates the JS code, where it adds the latest (real) download number and the average number of downloads per second (or something like that). Based on that, the script can keep counting, and give you a fairly accurate portrayal of how fast downloads are coming.

        So the counter when you actually load the page shows actual downloads. Then it uses JS to calculate based on the average number of downloads in some time period.

        People were discussing this on Twitter a while ago.

  • Mikah

    glad to know its not completely bogus , correcting periodically from Opera severs or when  a user refreshes a page is honest enough compared to the typical advertising Bullshit you get everywhere these days.

  • Mikah

    refreshing the page does not not give the true number I think it just starts the counter from the latest updated figure from Opera 

  • The Brightest Fire

    I see a fail attempt at beating Glow.

«
»