Do they use/sell your personal data? And do they have good privacy?
I’ve been thinking of trying out Opera
I have to smile to myself each time someone refers to China in relation to the Opera browser, while overlooking the privacy concerns of the big companies from the USA (Google, Meta and Amazon) who are sucking up your data already. And let not talk about the NSA and Five Eyes Alliance, shall we?
Besides, “the Chinese bought Opera” is old and terribly out-of-date news. Opera completed a share buyback recently, and so people will need to find some other way to spread fear and doubt, about the Opera browsers.
I use Opera all the time, and you can search and read their privacy policy and decide for yourself if you want to use it.
Use vivaldi if you want something similar to old opera, use brave if you want good privacy with no effort, use firefox if you want to make a browser your own.
The Chinese bought Opera a few years ago. There is others browsers betters than Opera with a good privacy policies. (Brave, Firefox, Vivaldi).
Has anyone stopped to ask how all browsers make money? Do any browsers charge you a fee? They provide a service to you for free and in exchange they use data collected about you to target ads and who ever else is willing to pay. A company that discloses they use your data seams to be more honest that and company that hides it from you.
it is really sad, this should be pinned here in this sub of illuminated users, simply to avoid that more people get scammed by Opera and the Chinese like it happened to myself, I am typing about this thanks to a kind friend who lets me use his phone for a few minutes so that I can relate this sad reality: I live in complete poverty since Opera robbed everything I had, stay far from this browser, even thinking of using can be dangerous.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE NO DON’T DO THAT IT’S CHINESE AND HAS RELATIONSHIPS WITH FISHY CHINESE COMPANIES, FIRST PLEASE USE VIVALDI!!! I BEG YOU!!
“While some find the company’s 2016 acquisition a security concern, it’s no mystery that most browsers and VPN products store personal data and can do with it what they please (under most circumstances). If privacy is your priority or you have sensitive data that you need to keep safe, Opera probably isn’t the best choice. Otherwise, though, there are a number of tools and settings that will keep you reasonably protected while browsing with Opera.”
The review is quite positive in many areas, but if you’re worried about privacy, caveats like these should definitely push you elsewhere.
Yesterday virtually out of the blue I decided to once again tryout the latest stable version of the opera browser on my windows 11 pro 64-bit edition desktop computer. At first I actually thought I might even like using it, but seemingly the more I tried to I pretty quickly decided I didn’t care for it very much at all and have since uninstalled it. One thing I quickly noticed was how the majority of web pages didn’t render nearly as clear as other chromium based windows browsers did, even with (as I remember) a setting titled ‘Mica’ enabled.
International Data Transfers
As noted above, in different contexts we may share or make available data (including personal data) with other members of the Opera Group, and sometimes with third parties, such as our marketing and monetization partners.(…)
Based on data such as IP address, hashed user ID, and your general location, some of our Applications serve targeted ads. These ads are provided by our monetization partners. You can always adjust your personalized ad choices in the application’s “Settings” menu or through your operating system’s settings.
Their privacy policy is not the cleanest to my eyes.
They may have bought back their shares but still, they did accept to sold to a Chinese consortium in the first place. And it’s not “old and terribly out-of-date news”. It was still true a month ago.
Anyway, Opera is a good browser, I like its interface and I find it quite snappy on my Mac. If you don’t care, go with it.
I use Brave, but I might give Firefox another look. Vivaldi, well it’s packed with features, like, way too much IMO (seriously… a clock ? ), don’t go with it if you like minimalism.
That’s interesting news I wasn’t aware of. It happened in October 2022 so it’s very fresh actually. I really liked Opera back in it’s Presto engine days and was a huge fan of it despite it having a lot of issues with websites. But I was fine with it because it was so unique. Then I returned to it around version 50 and I finally liked the Chromium redesign. Then I dumped it when I migrated to iPhone because iOS version was terrible without bookmarks syncing. I can’t use browser where I can’t have same bookmarks on all my devices. And funny thing is, Opera Mini had bookmarks sync and Opera Browser later dropped it. Opera Mini was discontinued on iOS entirely. Now that I’m back on Android, I can give it a try again.
And knowing it’s under Norwegian control again entirely, I have a easier time recommending it. Not that I was hugely against it during Chinese influence, but still. It’s good to see it’s back under full Opera control.
So your logic is “US companies collect your data, *therefore* it’s okay that China does bad things”. I reject that silly whataboutism as ignorant.
China is a state actor actively stealing intellectual property, and has demonstrated that they are a national security risk, having penetrated systems and stolen state secrets. Their entire military is reverse-engineered from their espionage. Like literally *everyone* in IT, we have sent far too many logs to the FBI for me to not roll my eyes at you.
People in so many countries dislike America so I don’t fully understand why Americans only seem to be afraid of China, Russia and North Korea. Canada, Australia, etc. are pissed at us/think we’re a laughing stock (for understandable reasons, by the way).
I believe it is a fair question given the military security concerns, social credit scoring, and overseas public security offices under the guise of “contact points”.
I share your opinion regarding companies like Google etc, but these companies have not yet attained the status to enforce the above (yet). Thanks for the link however questioning and educating ourselves should not be smirked at
“the Chinese bought Opera” is still a valid concern:
The purchase of more than 20% of stocks gives Opera Limited more control over its own future, if the deal goes through. Privacy advocates criticized Opera Limited for making the initial deal in 2016, fearing that it give Chinese companies too much control over the Opera web browser and data.
We reached out to Opera to find out more about the current shareholder structure, especially in regards to other members of the Chinese consortium, which purchased shares in the company before the IPO in 2018. It is unclear if Opera Limited has the intention to buy back shares from other members of the consortium as well.
As with most browsers, what’s more important is what you do within the browser that matters more.
This is important. Thinking that the browser you choose is all you need to worry about for protecting your privacy, is not understanding how hard it can be to protect yourself online.
I use Firefox, and love it!
I know it’s been a few years since I posted this but I want to say that I’ve come to the conclusion that Opera isn’t for me. I have the same experience with you. I tried it because I thought I’d like its features (both GX and One). However, with time I slowly lost care of it.
Right now I’m using Zen browser and it fits my current needs pretty well, although since it’s based off Firefox, YouTube likes to kill itself every 5 seconds. I would like to know how to fix this but I’m afraid that using Chromium browsers would be the fix…
Anyway- I don’t like Opera GX. I really don’t know if the performance controls do anything other than say it’s doing something useful. The sight of seeing people use it makes me laugh a little to myself because I feel like it’s a silly browser. Opera One is much better with its UI, however with proof of Opera being shady getting thrown in the spotlight, I don’t feel comfortable even trying it out anymore.
I haven’t opened an Opera browser in ages and I don’t plan on doing so again. Look into their policies and see if it’s for you. But for me personally, I’ll even be down to use other “non-privacy” browsers like Chrome and Vivaldi. It’s just so much more comfortable to use and well known. Ehh it’s Google I know, but at this point I wouldn’t be surprised if multiple companies have formed a spreadsheet of what my history looks like.
tl;dr I don’t like Opera anymore. Personally sticking to something like Firefox from now on
Maybe I was just using hyperbole, but if someone told me today that Elon Musk does not own Twitter I think it would be fair to say that they are terribly out-of-date? A month is a long time on the internet.
I never tell anyone that Opera is a good privacy browser, I just find the China rhetoric tiresome and like to push back, because we should all understand that companies in the USA are the ones to really be concerned about.
No. You missed my point.
As someone living in a Five Eyes Alliance country (who is not a Chinese national), which government has the laws and means to most directly affect my life and privacy?
It’s a simple question, is it China or the USA?