With the release of Opera 10, the Norwegian browser makers are making an effort to personalize the Web. This has taken shape as Opera Unite. They talk about it being a radical change, though from what I’m able to make of things it’s more a consolidation of existing concepts and technology into a more unified service. It’s also the most interesting attempt to compete with Google’s efforts toward creating an online operating system.
In a nutshell, in case you didn’t watch the above video, what Opera Unite does is allow you to turn your own computer into a web server, or at least a file sharing server. This has some great potential, but in my opinion is a disaster waiting to happen for most businesses. Security is the issue. Traditionally, browsers have been very limited in accessing files on your computer, in order to prevent malicious scripts on the Web from stealing, modifying or deleting your data. Given how open we already are to viruses and other malware, I’m extremely concerned about giving a browser more “keys to the city”.
Here’s a few others who agree:
What I would like to see is Opera pushing the idea far enough that enough smart folks are able to make some advances in online security, so that ideas like this can really be enabled. Until that happens, I have to think that maybe some of the Norwegian folks on Opera’s development team have eaten too much lutefisk.
