My Opera will be shut down on March 1, 2014

[Matt]

Norwegian company Opera Software made a bold -- some critics might say foolish -- move when it decided to switch from the company's own Presto engine to Chromium.

The company is currently still in the transition period from Opera 12.x to Chromium, even though some Chromium versions have already been released. Currently, both the old and new version of Opera are available.

That is going to change in the future so that only new Chromium versions of Opera will be supported by the company.

The change affected not only the web browser, but also other parts of Opera Software as well. The mail client for instance, integrated in Opera 12.x, was released as a separate product as it has not been integrated into the new Chromium versions of Opera.

And Fastmail, the company's mail service, has been bought back by the original owners,

Opera Software announced today that it will shut down My Opera as of March 1, 2014. Originally created as a support forum for the web browser and other products in 2001, it quickly became a social meeting place for Opera users.

In 2006, My Opera was improved by allowing all users to maintain their own blog on the site and the service has provided the functionality to all My Opera users ever since.

Note: The shutdown affects My Opera mail accounts as well.

Why is My Opera shut down?

Opera offers two reasons why the service is shut down. The company notes that other social media and blogging services offer "more and better" features, and that it cannot keep up with that. In addition, the resources needed to maintain My Opera have changed the company's "outlook on My Opera".

Time to export your data

If you operate a My Opera blog or have an account, you have until the shut down date to export your data.

Opera has created several help guides that walk users through the necessary steps.

Opera blog owners can move their blog to other blogging services such as WordPress, Squarespace, Typepad or Moveable Type.

To do so, they need to perform the following operation:

Log in to the My Opera website

Hover the mouse over the wrench icon and select account.

Click on Blog settings

Click on export your blog there.

To download all files that you have uploaded to My Opera, perform the following operation:

Hover the mouse over the wrench icon and select files

Select Zip your files and click Start.

Other changes

The desktop team blog will be moved to a new blogs subdomain on the Opera website where you can access it.

Opera Link, the company's data synchronization service will also be moved to a subdomain on the Opera website.

The forums will be moved to Opera.com in the future as well, with the most important threads migrated to the new destination as well.

My Opera users can continue to use their login information to sign in on the Opera website to participate in the forums just like they have done before.

Closing Words

It is clear that Opera Software is trying to streamline its portfolio after the move to Chromium. While services such as My Opera or Fastmail may not have been profitable, or worth the effort in the eyes of Opera Software, long standing users may see this in a different light.

My Opera was the place to hang out for Opera users and to meet like-minded fellows. Removing that option may impact the strong sense of community in a negative way, which may have consequences that Opera Software did not anticipate.

Source GHacks.Net