Opera's 'web serving' browser: revolutionary social networking?

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 15 October 2009 07:38

IT Industry - Strategy

Opera Software has launched a new version of its web browser that, it claims, easily turns the host computer into a web server enabling the user to make files of their choice accessible over the Internet.

Opera Software claims that Opera Unite, available in Opera 10.10 beta - available for PC, Mac and Linux -  is "an extremely powerful platform that opens up a new category of client-to-client applications. Harnessing this power is as easy as coding a Web page. This dramatically simplifies the complexity of authoring advanced Web applications...a Web developer needs only to know the same open Web standards they use every day, such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript."

It adds that, although some operating systems have included Web servers for a long time, the complexity involved in setting these up and using them has meant that they were only used by technically-experienced developers and not the average Web user. "Opera Unite is aimed at a wider target audience and offers the ability to share data directly from a computer to all by offering a browser feature that is enabled with a simple login and that is easy and quick to use, without any complex configuration or set up."

In addition to a web server, Opera Unite also comes with a range of applications for making specific types of content available over the net: photo sharing: instant messenger; file sharing: media player and 'Fridge' ("Post a note on your friends' virtual refrigerators").

More applications are available from http://unite.opera.com/ and Opera is enabling anyone to write applications that it will make available from its web site. There will, however be no facility to charge for apps. If developers want to do this they will have to set up their own sales channels.

"We invite developers all over the world to use their creativity and imagination to push the boundaries of what is possible with Opera Unite," said Opera CEO, Jon von Tetzchner. "We are moving closer to our goal of reinventing the Web and are excited to see Opera Unite continue to evolve in powerful and compelling ways."

Opera claims that Opera Unite runs in a "secured sandbox", where only the files or folders selected by the user can be accessed. All shared content remains on the users computer. By default it is accessed over the net via a user-specific sub-domain of operaunite.com but users have the option of using their own domain names.