Opera Unite Web Server Benchmarked

worb writes "Opera Unite comes with a web server which is supposedly going to 'redefine the web.' But how well does it actually perform? Is it a threat to other server solutions? Someone put it to the test, and published the results. While nginx, one of the fastest web servers available, is 5 times faster, a PHP+Apache+MySQL server is only 2 times as fast. A compiled C++ server, the MadFish WebToolkit, is 6 times faster. He concludes that Opera Unite's server is impressive, and that the others come nowhere close to the ease of use."

Re:Misleading, again

[SteelRealm]

Considering how quickly Opera patches everything, I don't see this as any bigger a threat than normal browsing. People who use your Unite page to access things have only got access to what you allow them to see and what you've choicen to host through Unite.

Re:Disturbing trend

[sjstrutt]

Opera Unite is not as decentralized as you may think. It still requires that you initialize connections via the machinename.username.operaunite.com domain that you are required to register with Opera. Sure, this is set up to easily traverse a NAT, but it isnt as decentralized as advertised (and you're restricted from hosting content that they consider "obscene, vulgar, hateful, threatening, or that violates any laws".

A more thoughtful take on the subject can be found here: http://factoryjoe.com/blog/2009/06/16/thoughts-on-opera-unite/ [factoryjoe.com]

I feel vindicated to some extent

[bogaboga]

...He concludes that Opera Unite's server is impressive, and that the others come nowhere close to the ease of use...

When I suggested that Apache needed some thing near to easy configuration, I was labeled a troll and requested not to tinker with such a server if I did not know what I was doing. By the way, I know Apache has some configuration GUIs but none comes close to Opera's offer.

In fact, I was castigated for being one of those who crave "point and click" interfaces that are "responsible" for most of the chaos on the internet.

I am happy that I have one fellow who agrees with me. I will not be surprised if Opera's web server snatches market share from the established ones.

Re:Still an Epic Fail

[Fallingcow]

If you want to do all the tasks done by Unite but easier, get cheap or free web hosting and a Facebook page.

I can set up 40GB+ of music to play via a decent-looking web interface for anyone I send a password and URL to in less than a minute and with 5 or 6 clicks using my Facebook account and some shared web hosting? 'Cuz I did that earlier today with Opera Unite.

I went in to this skeptical, and I barely even used Opera before this (I'm a web developer and, though I admire Opera, I need the tools available in Firefox) but it only took about 5 minutes of tinkering with this thing for me to be sold on it. I believe my exact words on testing the media sharing were "whoa, fuckin' cool!"

Re:Disturbing trend

[Translation Error]

That's true, but doesn't it also serve as added security versus people connecting directly to your computer?

Oh no! I'm going to kill my HDD!

[chdig]

From TFA:
"Well, since I don't want to kill my HDD I'm doing a test where PHP takes a value from simple MySQL table, increments a value and saves it back (using a set of functions that are typically used in web programming)"

What am I going to do?! I'm running complicated PHP scripts on my development machine... is my hard disk going to die?
..
but seriously, the author is converting the value received from an integer column in mysql to... an integer:
$i=intval($i)+1;
--
What happened to /. and why are the most incompetent articles imaginable being posted?

Re:So Opera web browser now runs as a system servi

[dreemernj]

Mileage always varies. I use Opera because if I open up 6 or 7 tabs of the pages I usually visit in Opera, it takes up 90 megs of RAM. If I open them in Firefox they take up around 750 megs. For others the results could probably be the exact opposite.

I will say that, as a long time Opera user, Opera 10 is turning into one of the best releases they've ever done. It outperforms Opera 9.x in any way that matters to me. Speed, memory usage, stability. 9.6 was starting to get on my nerves and I was beginning to use Chrome more and more. But 10 has been a dream.

Re:Disturbing trend

[Chainsaw]

and you're restricted from hosting content that they consider "obscene, vulgar, hateful, threatening, or that violates any laws"

Dude... You're talking about a company residing in Norway. The third largest export after oil and salmon is Black Metal [norsksvartmetall.com]. Which is kind of bizarre, as Norwegian is probably one of the most cheerful languages there is.

Re:So Opera web browser now runs as a system servi

[worb]

You are comparing apples and oranges. The 10 MB version of Opera has 30 languages included. Compare the basic English version, and the story is quite different.

I don't know about memory usage. In my experience, Opera does better than any other browser there.

Websites from behind corporate firewalls

[orin]

One of the most fun things about Opera Unite is that it allows standard users to enable it and run websites from behind the corporate firewall. As long as Opera has been installed on a computer, a standard user doesn't need admin privileges to enable Unite. Most corporate firewalls won't block the traffic because the local version of opera will establish the session tunnel to the opera unite servers, through which all incoming web traffic will travel. More here: http://bit.ly/4gmpFv [bit.ly]