I installed Opera 3.62 for BeOS, which I downloaded from Opera's website. I was dismayed to see that I only had a 30-day evaluation copy, not the real thing. It appears that to register my copy, I have to pay Opera $39. This is an exorbitant price for an obsolete version of Opera running on a no-longer-supported OS.

Do I have this wrong, or do I really have to shell out $39 to get Opera?

Well, whenever I needed to get on the internet at our local library, it seemed that all of the computers that were "ordained" (if you will) for that purpose were being used. However, there were the children's computers, and they had all of the computer networked together using Ethernet on Windows 2000, so all computers had internet access, but they locked the permissions to Internet Explorer, so I downloaded the latest build of Opera and installed it and copied on the computer at home and burned all of the files to a CD, so I could just pop in the CD and run Opera off of it and get Internet access where I wasn't supposed to be able to, and, Opera couldn't tell when to expire, because it wasn't on data it could write on to! If I were you I would do the same. I've never used the BeOS, but it should work.

I'd just e-mail Opera and ask them

Well, it does seem as BeOS users should get a break, considering...in my case, after the exchange from real money to canadian...it'd cost me nearly 65 bucks..
and being on a terribly low fixed income, that's just out of the question for me....
Pity, really, It's the best for anyone not blessed with a P4 or so (bezilla is intolerably sluggish on my trusty P1)...
Furthermore, it's the only one that can consistently do proper website log-ins(even computing.net, which doesn't work with at least three quarters of the browsers out there, regardless of operating system....try posting using Net Positive, youll see what i mean...)
If you try to limit the days you use opera to those days you really need a versatile, reliable , loginable (is that a word?:) browser, it can last a while, as they time it in 30 days of actal usage, as opposed to a month from first run....
It would be nice if Beos folks got a break , tho, not because it's obsolete (it isn't, terribly, it's newer than I.E 5, which is still used an awful lot)..Nor is BeOS entirely unsupported...support may perhaps only be defined as selling new versions (Zeta) and/or supported by the community at large,but corporations rarely manage support as strong as the beos community does....plus, it's (beos) still being developed..privately
However, opera's not gonna make a killing selling beos versions, that's for sure...i suspect making them freely available would be an astute promotional move on their part..
How about it, guys...if any of you at opera are reading there posts?

I think Opera did a lot for Be Inc and BeOS users. BeOS users seem to forget that. Sadly, they couldn't make a go on just BeOS. They have to pay bills and feed their families too. For $65 you might also consider a newer computer which you can run Firebird or any of the newer browsers. This all falls back to the whole marketing scheme that Be Inc tried. They didn't have a solid business case trying to sell to the home market. Only by having a bread and butter commercial market could they hope to offer any home market. QNX sells a lot of it's so called RTOS to companies and just seems to give it's OS away for home use.
Having been poor most of my 46 years I can say now that nothing is over priced. I just don't get paid enough. That is the opposite of the they are charging too much. It costs a lot to do business in any country. Canada and other socialized countries have a huge amount of taxes to provide you with your services. Guess you could quit paying taxes and save enough to pay for Opera? (not a real good idea to actually do that unless you like prison) Sorry, Opera deserves to try to make a buck.

Well,perhaps Cornstalk thinks it's overpriced, but that was never my contention, rather, that the reality at this time, given the status of BeOS now, is that they're simply not going to sell many copies anymore....and that it would, in fact be a (possibly) good PR move to release it free..
Of course ,I too can relate to "nothing is overpriced , but i just dont get paid enough" :)...
Certainly nothing drives this home more than my having to (recently) turn down buying a used iMac for 120 bucks...ouch..
In fact, when my situation changes, opera is definitely one of the first (only?)
bits of shareware i'll buy ( i prefer thrift shops for software, over shareware...)
It's not going to be obsolete anytime soon either...
Overpriced...no, i dont think so, and never would have suggested it was...
Overpriced..is when, say, a certain computer manufacturer sells a software component, required to play multimedia files, for around 100$, and then makes it obsolete the next year,requiring a new install, a new key, and another hundred bucks :)........

I agree that the whole computer game seems to be one of broken to begin with but next year you have to buy another broken item to replace your entire first purchase. I spoke with a lady at work today who might buy her first computer next.

I don't want to bad mouth Opera but I didn't think much of the browser. I still use Netpositive for 99% of what I view. After Opera had the windows version that some call spyware I was rather upset. For that reason I wouldn't plan to purchase any product that not only reported on my actions but soaked up bandwidth.

I think most people would find that the newer versions at bebits for browsers are very good. I admit that they are not "Made for Beos" but in time maybe a real made for beos browser on opensource. We will still have to keep buying hardware until they opensource that.

Thanks, guys. Well, it just looks like I'm going to have to shell out the $39. Opera 3.62 is not too hot, but in my view, it's a lot better than NetPositive, which is something of a Tinker Toy.

Jefro, I am running BeOS because its the ONLY o.s. that runs decently on my old Sony PCG-812 (233 Mhz, 64 Meg, 4 Gig). That seems to rule out resource-hungry Mozilla. I do have a much more powerful system, but on that, I run Linux. The fastest machine in our house is my wife's new Toshiba laptop, but my wife will consider only Windows for it, since that's all she knows how to use!

I fell in love with Opera on BeOS. The current version for windows and linux absolutely spank the cat! Maybe if you buy a liscense for you linux box they will give you a reg. for your be version.

Anyway, I think you can just uninstall and reinstall the be version when the 30 period (which i believe is 30 days of use time, not 30 calendar days) expires.

Which reminds me... why am I doing this in windows.... I'm rebooting to Be.