&quot;We&quot; (I have since left Opera Software) really screwed it up with the desktop browser around 2004. Management (i.e. the then-CEO Jon) was too worried about recurring revenue to pull that obnoxious ad banner in the free version until it was too late. At the time the desktop Opera had superior performance compared to Mozilla&#x2F;Firefox.. but wasn&#x27;t free&#x2F;ad-less. It was really depressing to watch. (But at the same time, I didn&#x27;t have to make payroll for 170 people each month, so who am I to judge those decisions without having detailed insights into the financials? I guess I am expressing my frustration of the lack of a silicon valley-style funding.)<p>To his credit, Jon a year later championed that Opera Mini needed to be free&#x2F;without &quot;in your face ads&quot; in the critical first couple of years. This allowed it to reach 250+ million monthly actives (it still has that!). And we did came up with <i>really</i> lucrative monetization models later on that worked without sacrificing the user experience.