Friday, May 11, 2007

Firefox vs Opera flame war expands to a higher (and expensive) level

What happens when some people in the forum tries to prove that one browser is better than other? Yeah - a flame war. But what happens when a simple flame war is not enough? The war expands to a higher level - forum AD system. Expensive conversation continues there.

This story happened in Lithuanian webmaster forum uzdarbis.lt. Ordinary discussion about web browsers developed into ordinary flame war. But one of Opera fans was not happy about visibility of his posts and decided to buy ad space in the same forum. He ordered many text ads supporting Opera. Few examples here:

"Forget firefox with new Opera Browser :-) For free". Ad link goes to opera download page.



"Don't click. Unless you want to make your life easier with Opera"



These two doesn't need translation






And so on. There were just too many ads about Opera. Firefox fans were not happy about it. They responded in buying ads bashing Opera like "Opera? Fat ladies singing? Get Firefox.", however I can't find that ad now (there are just too many ads in the rotator at the moment). Few more examples:

"Scientists proved: Firefox is good for you. Opera was created by green aliens as a tool to rule the world."


"Opera experience - as bad as eating snot. Use Firefox."


"Real men use Firefox". Simple as that.



Flame war goes on, flooding the ad system. Seems like some Opera/Firefox fans like their browsers and hate other browsers so much that they don't mind spending money just to show their dedication. What's next?