DISQUS

VentureBeat: Opera Unite turns your computer into a server — is that a good thing?

  • Alex · 5 months ago
    Hi, Anthony

    "...for people whose only computer is a laptop that frequently goes on and offline, this makes no sense whatsoever."
    Think about in the same way as of an instant messenger. If you are not online - your absence is visible there if you are - your presence is visible.

    IMHO this is not a REPLACEMENT of the web it's for the real-time collaboration.
  • Anthony Ha · 5 months ago
    A fair point -- it's probably overstating things to say Opera Unite is completely useless. But I certainly think its usefulness is much more limited that Opera suggests.
  • Michael Richardson · 5 months ago
    From reading a few artlcles and Opera's own releases, it seems that actually one's content is served via a proxy server --- really, a giant cloud operation being run by Opera. What they're offering seems to be a new "view" for file synchronizing between one's computer and the cloud --- using an interface that's perhaps nicer and more feature-rich than, say, DropBox's public folder or FTP or whatnot. The _impression_ might be that one is serving material directly to the web, but in fact, one is operating via the "Opera Unite Proxy". They've made a small leap in the right direction, but are being pretty deceptive with their "evil server towers".
  • Scott · 5 months ago
    In a way Opera Unite sounds like the very method of what individuals are trying to do with peer to peer networking.

    However, this is actually not the case, which Opera even admits to in their own marketing material:
    http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/opera-unite-...

    So much for freedom from "servers belonging to strangers" or not being at the "mercy of middlemen who control the servers of the world"

    What a laugh!
  • Wolve · 4 months ago
    If you read the blue info box below that, you'll see that they did include a method for direct connect, through UPnP, but that have set up proxy servers for people who don't have access to it, such as those (like me) leeching off of a friend's network that can't set up forwarding through the router.

    Opera Wrote:
    -----------------------
    Note that the proxy is really only a fallback mechanism, to ensure that data can be delivered in case NAT traversal fails. Opera Unite has support for "UPnP", meaning Universal Plug and Play, which allows you to share your data using direct connections to your computer, if available. This can make loading speeds for your services faster, as they will bypass the proxy server. However, as it is up to each service to load content using the direct connection, it may not always run services faster. UPnP has no authentication mechanism, and assumes that local systems and their users are completely trustworthy.