Recent Cloud Outages May Give Opera Unite a Second Chance
Back in June of this year, Opera revealed their ambitious plan to "reinvent the web" with the release of Opera Unite, a new feature of their desktop web browser that effectively turns your computer into a server. With tools like a chat application, a photo sharing app, a file sharing app, a media player, and more, the idea behind Unite was to forgo the "cloud" and share your files with others directly from your PC instead. Using peer-to-peer technology that operates through the browser interface, Opera Unite seemed to be going against the current trend that is cloud computing and that didn't win them much love from the tech community.
Despite its ho-hum reception, the company is moving forward with its plans to make Unite a full-fledged feature of the Opera browser. Today, the Opera Unite beta is launching and will be made available in Opera 10.10. Given the recent cloud outages, one has to wonder if Unite will be given a second look by the crowd of naysayers who so recently belittled it.
Opera Unite Beta Released
Not much about Unite has changed since its initial launch except that it initially spent several months as a standalone product before being integrated into the Opera web browser. Now, with the release of Opera 10.10, it's clear that the company intends for Unite to be one of the browser's core features.
Included in Unite are six applications which are the photo app, the file sharing app, messenger, the above mentioned media player, a "fridge" app that lets you post notes on your friends' virtual refrigerators and a web server that lets you host web sites directly from your computer.
Cloud Outages Leave Users Wary; Unite Gets a Second Look?
Although the technology itself remains, for the most part, the same, what may have changed in the time that passed since Unite's June reveal is the sentiment among Unite's potential users. Since the original launch, there have been numerous cloud computing outages which included yet another long-lasting Gmail outage, a DDOS attack that took down social services like Facebook, Twitter, and LiveJournal simultaneously, a Facebook database maintenance issue which locked 150,000 users out of their accounts for a week, multiple Twitter outages (although these are nothing new) and, of course, the granddaddy of them all: a cloud computing disaster at Danger that erased all personal data from the hansdets of thousands of T-Mobile Sidekick users.
All these above incidents occurred in the span of only a few months, too, leaving people to question the stability of the cloud. Perhaps the cloud, often thought of as much safer and more stable than our own personal hard drives, isn't all that it's cracked up to be after all? Instead of just uploading everything to the web and then assuming that it will be there forever, the rash of outages have many tech geeks returning to the old-fashioned computer backup in addition to hosting content out on the web.
This hybrid approach to cloud computing (local + cloud) could mean that some of Unite's former naysayers will give it a second look. Since it's designed for sharing locally stored files on the web using Opera's servers as a proxy, it taps into that whole "forgo the cloud" mentality. While Opera's man-in-the-middle server infrastructure may crash one day (and it's already had its struggles), your data would still be accessible assuming your computer itself doesn't die. To some, that may seem like a safer approach than a 100% reliance on cloud providers.
Others Say: Don't Blame the Cloud, It's Still the Future
However, not everyone thinks that outages, even those as severe as the Danger disaster, spell failure for the cloud computing model - they're only growing pains. Sure, "cloud computing isn't perfect," writes PC Mag's Lance Ulanoff, but Danger's failure is "a failure of, more than likely, a few over-worked IT guys who incorrectly set up data redundancy." Ulanoff contends, and many others will certainly agree, that despite failures such as this, the cloud overall remains safer and more trustworthy than anyone's own home or office computers.
Still, the outages may have some worried. Those who are worried enough to begin storing data back on their own computers, using the cloud only as backup and no longer as primary storage, may now be interested in trying out Opera Unite. That may give Unite a little boost for the time being. But ultimately, the technology that was supposed to change the web seems like backward progress. Cloud computing may have its ups and downs, but it's the future of computing, not Unite's peer-to-peer.
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Opera’s proxies are just a fallback. Unite will always try to establish a direct connection using UPnP. But because UPnP is a science in its own, Opera provides a proxy service as a fallback method.
"Cloud computing may have its ups and downs, but it's the future of computing, not Unite's peer-to-peer."
Jesus Christ. What's with the insane claims?
Why would Unite NOT be the future? If you are so dumb you can't imagine the possibilities that open when any device can not only be a passive on-looker, but can actually receive information from other devices, you don't even deserve to write about technology matters.
@Sarah 'Clueless' Perez
"didn't win them much love from the tech community"
Says who?
A willfully ignorant wannabe tech writer who can't even get basic facts right?
Your insane claims about Unite were torn apart last time you wrote about it, but here you are again, spewing your nonsense.
Quite pathetic.
The problem I had with Unite (though I *love* the concept) was that everything was just too slow. My connection can't compare to a server in the cloud for speed of distributing files.
Unite is not open source and it is NOT de-centralized, since you have to push your content through their servers. If Opera's internal IT has an outage, so does Unite.
http://factoryjoe.com/blog/2009/06/16/thoughts-on-opera-unite
But I dismissed the entire "That cloud service was off line for 105 minutes - ITS USELESS!!!" argument out of hand.
In a 365 calender year, being down for a few minutes is a 99.99% uptime. Completely acceptable when you factor in cost.
Amazon is a few pennies a day, an internal IT department it ten of thousands of dollars a month.
Everyone is entitled to their opinions. But for an extremely thoughtful writeup on why Unite fails to impress, go here: http://factoryjoe.com/blog/2009/06/16/thoughts-on-opera-unite/.
Todd, Sarah Perez:
You are both clearly rather ignorant. If you actually read the factoryjoe blog post and the comments, you will realize that it's all a lot of hot air.
In fact, factoryjoe himself later admitted that he only wrote that not because there was something wrong with Unite itself, but he was angry because of the publicity it was getting!
It's telling that Sarah thinks factoryjoe's writeup is "thoughtful", considering that it is anything but that.
In fact, a couple of people from Opera decimated his blog post, point by point, leading to comments from factoryjoe admitting that he was just blowing hot air:
http://my.opera.com/haavard/blog/2009/06/17/responding-to-unite-misconceptions
http://my.opera.com/Lawmune/blog/2009/06/17/opera-unite-clarifying-the-vision
You are of course going to dismiss these just because someone at Opera wrote them, but that just goes to show that you want to remain willfully ignorant rather than educating yourself.
The fact that you both quoted the factoryjoe blog post in the first place shows how poorly researched your positions on Opera Unite are.
It's one thing that some random guy posting comments doesn't get it. But when someone who aspires to be a tech writer just cuts and pastes a bogus blog post to support her insane claims, that's pretty scary.
Quoting factoryjoe as a response to the rebuttals:
"I can actually be fairly reasonable when engaged in a conversation — but my post was me frothing at the mouth in reaction to both the blogger/press's failure to really look deeply into what Opera was releasing AND at Opera's PR pitch"
And notice this one:
"I was criticizing social media news sources, not Opera."
Oops. Sarah, you blew it again. Just like your unfounded FUD against Unite last time around.
factoryjoe's problems were these:
1. He hates hype
2. He doesn't like that Opera is not open-source
3. The TOS was unclear on who owned what
4. He didn't know that Unite only uses the proxy as a backup if a direct connection fails
5. He didn't know that you can run Unite without using an Opera account
None of this is really a criticism of Unite. In fact, most of it is based on irrelevant ideology or misunderstandings on his part.
IBM, Amazon, and Microsoft do not need the cloud. Economies of scale in providing secure and reliable service mean that many small to medium sized firms do. The cloud providers will have to find ways of demonstrating their reliability, security, and economic benefits. If they can do that, they should prosper.
The next big opportunity for cloud service is in Electronic Medical Records, though the security issues there are huge.
Geez, Sarah, please think twice before posting half-truths about Unite in Opera v10.1.
I still can't believe you just linked to Messina's blabbering, ignorant rant that he apologized for at Haavard's Opera blog. We're waiting for your retraction and some semblance of professionalism, please.
Remember, quality before speed. Your credibility depends on it.
While you are at it, Sarah, nuke the spam from "passport holder" please.
Am I alone in thinking that user access through a browser acting as a server has "security nightmare waiting to happen" written all over it?
@wiipe: To be clear, I stand by my original criticisms of Opera Unite, but respect the updates to their TOS and documentation about relying on the Opera Proxy. I understand that getting a product out sometimes leads to documentation oversight — but given Opera's self-stated grandiose claims, they do deserve some admonishment for leaving out critical details that helped to support their message.
I didn't let Opera off the line entirely, but I did write my post because I was upset by the blogosphere's regurgitation of the Opera press release. Perhaps that's a greater condemnation of Opera than anything I could have written — since I'm fairly ambivalent about the browser myself.
Posted by: factoryjoe.com
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October 15, 2009 11:06 AM
@factoryjoe
Your original criticism basically boiled down to "I hate it when Opera is hyped by the media" and "Opera is not open-source".
How many times do people have to tell you that the proxy is just meant as a fallback in case a direct connection fails? And in those cases, the proxy basically works as a router. Now you are going to write long posts flaming ISPs for using routers to route data, I guess!
But thanks for admitting that you basically were trolling because you were angry that Opera was getting some well-deserved hype for once.
Your hypocrisy still amazes, though. The press regurgitates nonsense from Mozilla all the time, but that apprently isn't "a greater condemnation of Firefox than anything you could have written".
It's rather pathetic, actually.
What about Tonido? Don't they do the same?
@dyno
Indeed. In fact, a growing number of companies are doing exactly this.
And yet, some ignorant wannabe tech journalist keeps insisting that it's all nonsense. She's too narrow-minded to realize the amazing potential of your computer accepting commands over the web.
Hi Every One,
i am totally agree with John G. Bennett.and it's sure The next big opportunity for cloud service is in Electronic Medical Records, though the security issues there are huge.but it take some time....
Hello everyone, I agree with the following statement:i am totally agree with John G. Bennett.and it's sure The next big opportunity for cloud service is in Electronic Medical Records, though the security issues there are huge.but it take some time