Whenever I think about what Opera means to me, it always comes to this. One small, simple, cute little GIF smiley I’ve first seen God-knows-how-many years ago:
That’s basically it. For such a simple thing, it really does sum up my feelings spot on. Though it might almost be more accurate to say it DID sum them up. We’re still not quite there, though. There’s some hope left just yet, but it’s getting harder and harder to hold on to it.
That tiny little image right there represents a ton of emotions and memories for me. Sure, some of it is for personal reasons – that image popped up on the internet around 2003. Or, to put it on a more personal level, just around the time I met my girlfriend. I was already an active Opera user back then – I’ve been using Opera as my main browser since around version 3.5 or 3.6, meaning since something like 1998 or 1999. From 2000 up, I was already pretty enthusiastic about Opera – the fastest browser available, jam-packed with revolutionary things and features no other browser had back then, and customizable like nothing you’ve ever seen. So yeah, I was really digging Opera, as they say (or at least I think they do). And I was spreading the word.
