I can't access much of the OTN web site with the Opera browser.

It seems that this has been reported many times before, and is met with little concern from you guys. I guess this is a "free" service, so paying customers can't use any weight to get things fixed.

I'd just like to add my name to the list of people who use Opera and dislike having to use another browser to access this web site.

Do you have any plans to add support for Opera? As a browser, it is increasing its market share, especially amongst technologists, the people who might use OTN. Opera is at the forefront of standards compliance, after all. Why not make some statement about future support (or the lack of it)?

And, I wish I could find a supporting URL, but it's been shown in studies that it's more cost effective to develop web sites to adhere to the HTML/CSS/ECMASCRIPT standards then work-around the various IE issues than it is to develop for IE and then reverse engineer for other browsers. (Or: is it just Firefox and Safari? What about partially sighted people who use screenreaders, lynx, emacs, and so on?) The bottom line: are you sure you want to continue to throw your money away and limit your user group at the same time?

Of couse they are, because your web site does not work with them. I'll not visit again with Opera, now I know it doesn't work. It's amazing that you get over 1% of visitors using Opera - given that these are people who can't use the site much, if at all. I imagine, like me, your Opera users arrive from Google, try to click on a "next" link, and it fails. Then, they may try with another browser - which means that they are being double-counted as Opera users and non-opera users. Perhaps there are more than 2% of visitors.

Anyway, the point I was trying to make was that if your web developers had developed a standards-compliant web site, then (a) more people could use it and (b) it might have cost you less.


I'm sure that you wouldn't want me to associate Oracle with a company that ignores industry standards, but that's effectively what you're doing. If it were my job, I'd be keeping everybody happy and developing a web site they all can use, but there are lots of problems with OTN (being able to change the email address of a registered user would be nice, for example) that must need your resources more than allowing people to actually use the site.

Also, more and more people are using mobile devices. People like lead developers and DBAs normally have some kind of device, for work. They could easily need OTN )or another site) for must-fix-now issues. Even for vanilla developers, surfing the web on your phone/PDA/ is becoming normal. Opera is becoming the default browser for more and more mobile platforms now - so you may have to support it anyway, soon.
Or, perhaps your site does not work with another phone's browser. If OTN was pumping out standard HTML, CSS and ECMASCRIPT, it would have a better chance of working "out of the box".

Anyway, I can cope with rendering problems with Opera, but the whole thing is totally unusable - http://www.oracle.com/errors/404.html is about the only page I can see. At least fix the navigation, please.

PS: Try Opera yourself. Try the mouse gestures, the integrated searching (many sites - amazon, google, ebay, etc), the integrated email, RSS, usenet, etc. It's like a right-hand to me now, and when I have to use IE or even FF it's like having that hand removed - it hurts and slows me down. That's why I'm making a point about support - especially as I know that the site could be developed to be accessible to all, probably for little or no extra cost. It's also the laziness of the developers in developing a site that can't be used by all.