7 things to love and hate about Opera Unite

So Opera Unite tries to change the world of technology as we know it. They are certainly in the right direction but not without issues. Here are 7 things to love and hate about Opera Unite.

7 Things to love about Opera Unite

1. The possibilities are endless.
   Looking at the default services on Opera Unite, one can quickly see the numerous service potentials that can be made out of this. Serving your own torrent server (legit files hopefully), hosting your own multiplayer game, creating your own Facebook clone, having your own online cinema and many more!
2. You don’t need to be a geeky and techie to feel good.
   You don’t need to understand about Apache config files and a Linux shell scripting to host these services. If you said “Huh?”, then read it again: “You don’t need to be a geeky and techie to feel good”. You can set-up and run these services yourself without the need to understand what I’ve just said.
3. People don’t need an Opera browser and an Opera account to access your services.
   This is a big plus. It’s very likely when you find a good service provider on a website, your friends have to register on those services to be able to make use of it. For example, to collaborate with Google Documents, all participants must have a Google account.
4. Works on all Operating System.
   Since you only need an Opera browser to set up these services, any operating system that supports Opera browser will support Opera Unite. Meaning if you are on a Windows Operating System, Linux/Unix, or a Mac, you can setup and run Opera Unite.
5. You can host a service and make money.
   You can host your own service using your own computer and internet connection. Assuming that your computer and internet connection is powerful enough, you can serve these services to people and charge money for it. Those make money at home scams may not be scams after all!
6. No Port Forwarding or messing up with your Router needed.
   If you have a router at home for your internet connection, you don’t need to tweak anything to make Opera Unite works. Opera Unite uses UPnP (Universal Plug n Play) and a proxy server to make sure that your computer is discoverable and connectable. If you want to turn this off, you can and you can still do the old way by forwarding port 8840 for Opera Unite at your router.
7. A powerful community.
   There are lots of Opera lovers (apart from Firefox fans), meaning that you will have access to “home made” cool services in the future and a great support from the Opera community. There is nothing worse than having a new innovation where no one supports it.

7 Things to hate about Opera Unite

1. Not everyone is on a T1 (very fast) internet connection!
   So you think that you are cool to share those photo files hosted in your own computer? Then imagine having thousands of people downloading and leeching files from your computer using your internet connection at the same time. If you are on an ADSL or Cable connection, good luck using your computer while people are leeching from it! Opera Unite is meant for non-technical people but those are the same people that usually don’t realize how important a fast internet connection is to host these services.
2. Mistakes can AND will happen when some things are made so easy to do.
   If you are not careful, you can end up sharing files or documents that you don’t want people to access. Or who knows what other future services that will compromise your computer’s security and your privacy without you realizing it.
3. Opera Unite still relies on an Opera Proxy Server to make a connection to your computer from the outside world.
   Earlier when Opera Unite came out, my friends were having problems connecting to my computer because there was a problem on the Opera Proxy Server. It seems that when it goes down, the connection to your computer (and its services) will go down as well because a connection can’t be made properly.
4. The success of Opera Unite entirely depends on the services.
   Opera Unite depends on the services that the community develops. Although the default services definitely give a good start, they are quite simple in nature and probably not good enough to satisfy advanced users.
5. You are screwed if your ISP (Internet Service Provider) charges you for uploading.
   Most ISP nowadays gives a free upload to every account but not all of them do. If you have a certain quota for uploading, then it’s best not to use Opera Unite extensively, especially if the services are open to public.
6. You can live without Opera Unite by registering to third party websites.
   Need a file sharing service? Register at MediaFire. Need a web server to host your website files? Register at a free or paid web hosting and you even get your own domain name. But the idea of course, is to make it easy for home users to access and serve these services without the need of a registration or having to remember so many website URLs for different purposes.
7. You still need Opera to “host” these services.
   Like it or not, you still need to use the Opera browser and register for an Opera account to be able to host/serve Opera Unite services. The browser has to be turned on at all times if you want people to access the services. If you are a fan of Firefox (or other browsers), you’ll probably end up having 2 browsers opened at all times. If Opera can create a mini application that sits on the system tray for Opera Unite, it will be a plus. But of course by having Opera Unite on the browser, you are “persuaded” to browse using Opera, which is what they want.

Are you using Opera Unite at the moment? What cool services are you looking forward to be developed?