Opera Unite Homepage
After having started this blog just a few days ago, one of my favorite browsers has been released in a new beta version with a cool new feature called Opera Unite.
They call it “reinventing the web”, or “the Internet’s unfulfilled promise”. It’s a platform for providing services to the web from your web browser, rather than just being a mere user of web services. People can share files, pictures, streaming media and web pages, without the technical skills needed to setup a web server or having a domain to host their services.
The number of applications hosted on this new platform is potentially limitless. Third-party vendors can provide their own to take advantage of this technology, and give users new ways to interact between them directly. Currently there are only a handful of services, all created by Opera as the more trivial and straightforward examples of what can be done.
One important feature of this technology, is that users need to use the Opera browser only if they want to host or provide some service. Friends and relatives that you inform or invite to use your services can be using any modern web browser. They’re not bound to use Opera to access services hosted by other people. I have to say that I initially thought this to be a peer to peer platform a-la bittorrent, where both ends (server and client) had to be operating with applications aware of the sharing platform.
To be able to host services you need to have a user account at opera.com. You can have your account active from several computers (home, office, notebook) at the same time, each of which should be given a unique name. So one of the primary uses could be for our own consumption: to have services hosted in the office computer (e.g. file sharing) and be able to download files from home at night.
Opera Unite hosting the fridge service
However, I have mixed feelings about all this. On the one hand, the idea of decentralizing the web, of allowing people to interact without having to depend on a third party, of allowing our own personal computers to be first-class citizens of the web, sounds like a good one. Centralization is almost always a bad thing, and the web today is fundamentally centralized.
But on the other hand I don’t like the Opera browser to be bloated with this or other applications. I like it to be a web browser, and a web browser only. The only other thing they baked into it until now is the email client, and I (and many other people) have always thought they should give the option of downloading the browser without it bundled. But now they’re including yet another application in the package, effectively bloating it even more.
I think Opera Unite should be a separate application, a separate product. Otherwise, I believe it will affect corporate adoption of the browser, in spite of being the most innovative one out there. And what Opera needs right now is to expand the user base of its browser. I doubt that Opera Unite can bring that.
And there are the understandable security and privacy concerns too…
In terms of security, we could ask how insecure my computer turns when I enable these services? How much depends on the platform, and how much depends on the developer of a particular service? What does the platform do to protect users who are not security gurus, but want to take advantage of what it offers in a secure way?
And from the privacy point of view, what role do Opera servers play in this peer-to-peer connections? Do files pass through Opera servers while being downloaded by me from my buddy’s file sharing service? These are questions I have not devoted yet the time to answer. Let’s remember that they claim that client users can browse other user’s unite-hosted services with any modern web browser. I do not know how could they achieve that without using their own servers as a bridge for content to pass on. If both ends of the P2P connection are Unite-enabled Opera browsers, I understand, but otherwise, I don’t. Is this really P2P?
Also, if this actually depends on a central server after all (as I suspect), then the following question comes to my mind: is this predestined to depend solely on Opera’s infrastructure, or can it become an open standard, so that other providers can host their own Unite services platforms? Can third-party browser vendors enable their browsers to host services too? It would nice to be able to host a Unite service provider on our own servers, or to create independent applications to provide services. But this conflicts with the supposed intention of using Unite as a hook to gain more users for the Opera browser.
I am sure these and many other questions, particularly security-related questions, are probably being made by many people out there. And I haven’t even mentioned concerns about file and media sharing and the consequences it has in relation to intellectual property rights violations.
Anyway, it is undoubtedly a very controversial and bold move. Only the future will tell if it was a good one.
Nice post all round.
In response to some of your questions, so many many people complain about Opera being “bloated”, which I’d understand if any of it’s extra packaged features impinged on efficiency. They don’t. There’s a good post on Unite’s performance here:
http://unitehowto.com/Performance
The above page also has info on security, it essentially uses a sandboxed virtual filesystem. Your point about it being dependent on service developers is still valid though – people could develop malicious Unite services, but even these would still be 100s of times more secure than an equivalent malicious Firefox extension could potentially be.
Privacy wise, it’s essentially mostly public that I can tell as it’s http, no SSL, which concerns me to be honest. But that’s the same with any http site on the web, beyond that, not everything necessarily goes through Opera’s proxy. This depends on the service. Of the initial 7, 6 of them go through the proxy, the media player is p2p (apparently).
I was a die hard Opera user. Been using it for more than six years, but am moving to Chrome now because of all the useless stuff they put into that i dont need like:
1. An email client
2. A chat client
3. A bittorent client
4. And now a WEB SERVER!
Opera could have spent the development effort in polishing the UI instead and making it feel more modern and nimble.
@adjmal: It happens the same to me. Plus being a web developer influences too, because Firebug beats Dragonfly.
Opera should separate all these stuff, or at least give the option to download the barebones browser without all the extra apps embedded. It’s a pity, because from the technical point of view I find it to be one of the most advanced browsing engines, if not the most, along with google chrome.