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    Which features is Windows 10 Defender Firewall blocking that Opera wants to do?

    Opera for Windows
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    • burnout426
      burnout426 Volunteer @donq last edited by

      @donq 🙂 Just behind a cable modem router.

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      • leocg
        leocg Moderator Volunteer @burnout426 last edited by

        @burnout426 Here Ebay triggered the firewall dialog on Vivaldi but not on Chrome Canary.
        And later I went to Ebay again, after have cleaned the rule on the firewall, and that time it didn't trigger the incoming connection pop-up.

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        • donq
          donq last edited by donq

          Well, after some googling it looks like not incoming connection from outside world, but mDNS service (UDP 5353), allowing to discover some kind of devices (like network printers and chromecast) in your local network. I have not found any other explanation yet. Why ebay does trigger it - no idea.

          In Chrome this can be switced off by disabling setting "Show notifications when new printers are detected on the network".
          Opera seems not to include any mDNS (also called Avahi, ZeroConf, Bonjour) related settings or flags.

          Edit: This behavior can be related to some kind of notifications. I have (desktop) notications disabled here and no firewall prompts; in other place I did enable notifications (to see MS Teams activity) and I recall that I have seen there some firewall prompts afterwards. I correlated them with switching between various VPN networks, but actually they could be have triggered by (first) notifications (after Opera update) also.

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          • jHl
            jHl last edited by

            Hi,
            I found this discussion while searching for an answer to the same "problem". On my pc, this warning Only pops up while clicking on my LinkedIn bookmark. However, it doesn't pop up every time I go to LinkedIn, perhaps a couple of times per month. Have not yet tried any of the suggestions mentioned here.

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              jHl 1 Reply Last reply
            • jHl
              jHl @jHl last edited by

              @jhl I can confirm, that for my pc, this warning only pops up after an Opera update.

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                leocg 1 Reply Last reply
              • leocg
                leocg Moderator Volunteer @jHl last edited by

                @jhl As expected.

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                  opedara 1 Reply Last reply
                • burnout426
                  burnout426 Volunteer last edited by

                  The warning comes up for me when first using the Discord web page app to video chat (if there aren't any entries in the firewall rules for that Opera already). In this specific case, I'm sure it's for WebRTC.

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                  • opedara
                    opedara @leocg last edited by

                    @leocg said in Which features is Windows 10 Defender Firewall blocking that Opera wants to do?:

                    @jhl As expected.

                    I'm hoping everyone realizes that this is not a good thing, completely unnecessary, and should never happen.

                    The user can't see what exactly it's trying to access, and shouldn't have to go through a long technical forum thread to try to understand it or resolve it.

                    No other apps I open do this. It's a security concern. Opera developers need to fix it. We shouldn't have concern randomly opening the app that it needs a firewall port opened for some unspecified reason.

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                    • mathewab786
                      mathewab786 last edited by This post is deleted!
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                      • geophoenix
                        geophoenix @leocg last edited by

                        @leocg Perhaps by virtue of being Moderator here you might consider providing actual & actionable information in regards to this and other questions rather than deflecting blame/responsibility? I just had the same defender pop up warning just hours after opera updated.

                        So again, Exactly what opera functions are triggering this warning? If you're unable to provide useful information, the smartest action any of us can take is to discontinue using opera.

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                        • geophoenix
                          geophoenix @Guest last edited by

                          OMG, finally actual useful information. Thank you!

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                            opedara 1 Reply Last reply
                          • opedara
                            opedara @geophoenix last edited by leocg

                            @geophoenix Who had useful information? mathewab786? Why was his post deleted?

                            This Really looks fishy now. I thought it did before, but now...

                            What's going on, Opera developers?

                            I feel like they're trying to spy on us or collect information through our firewall in a way that should remain blocked.

                            I'll continue blocking it until I see adequate information for what exactly they want and why it needs to be there. Since no other browser I use does this, I see no reason for Opera to need to do it too. This is creepy AF.

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                              leocg 1 Reply Last reply
                            • leocg
                              leocg Moderator Volunteer @opedara last edited by

                              @opedara Remove the entries related to the other browsers from the Windows Firewall rules and you will see the same dialog showing up for them sooner or later.

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                                opedara 1 Reply Last reply
                              • opedara
                                opedara @leocg last edited by

                                @leocg So you're saying the other browsers add entries to my firewall but Opera doesn't?

                                Which entries do you mean?

                                If Opera needs something through the firewall, and it doesn't add the entry to the firewall, but other browsers do, why doesn't Opera add its entries to the firewall?

                                Which entries does Opera want to use, anyway? What exactly does it want to do through these entries? Why does it operate perfectly fine without me needing to manually enable firewall entries? I'm still seeing nothing showing that it's not a security risk.

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                                  leocg 1 Reply Last reply
                                • leocg
                                  leocg Moderator Volunteer @opedara last edited by

                                  @opedara Firewall rules for Opera will be there after you have chosen allow or deny in the dialog asking permission for incoming connections through Opera

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                                    opedara 1 Reply Last reply
                                  • opedara
                                    opedara @leocg last edited by

                                    @leocg The dialog asks to allow or cancel, and it keeps popping up randomly over time, which is why this thread exists. Clicking Cancel or X or whatever doesn't give a choice of rules. You're talking about something else or you're not understanding what users are seeing.

                                    Are you saying that once the dialog is cancelled, we have to go to the firewall rules for Opera, and then do whatever there to stop the dialogs?

                                    And then what if we're OK with the entries, even if they're all denied? Apparently having them set automatically after we click Cancel doesn't stop the dialog. So even if we like the entries, we have to do what...? Save them again manually? Change them, then change them back? This is kind of silly. Oh I forgot to mention again that Opera is the only app I'm having the issue with.

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                                      leocg 1 Reply Last reply
                                    • leocg
                                      leocg Moderator Volunteer @opedara last edited by

                                      @opedara OK, maybe canceling the dialog just do it and don't add a rule blocking the connection.
                                      Anyway, that would be a Windows Firewall issue.

                                      And regarding you not having issues with other browsers, probably there are rules for them already.

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                                      • opedara
                                        opedara last edited by

                                        I can't believe this thread is still going on 😆

                                        Neither can I believe that I still randomly get firewall prompts from Opera.

                                        regarding you not having issues with other browsers, probably there are rules for them already

                                        I never got prompts from them; they just work. I have zero security concern with them because they're not asking me to enable them on the firewall 😆

                                        This thread is dead. The moderators aren't understanding the concern, and it's just going in circles of denial and deflection.

                                        Oh well. I'll just keep declining the firewall prompt... I use Opera for a specific reason, but maybe I need to reduce its number of users even though I enjoy using different browsers and not just supporting the big machines.

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                                          leocg donq 2 Replies Last reply
                                        • leocg
                                          leocg Moderator Volunteer @opedara last edited by leocg

                                          @opedara As far as I know, you shouldn't be getting those prompts from Windows Firewall since now Opera uses the same opera.exe for all builds.

                                          At most you should see only the first one, like you would see with any other browser.

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                                          • donq
                                            donq @opedara last edited by donq

                                            @opedara said in Which features is Windows 10 Defender Firewall blocking that Opera wants to do?:

                                            I never got prompts from them; they just work. I have zero security concern with them because they're not asking me to enable them on the firewall 😆

                                            False sense of security. Digging into firewall I can see that on computers, where Chrome is installed, there is specific firewall rule to allow Chrome mDNS traffic in; this rule is probably created by Chrome installer and you just don't know about it. Similar rule exists for Edge. I have no PC with firefox installed and cannot say anything about it.

                                            Most likely Opera installer does not create such firewall rule, thereby letting user to decide about it. This may seem a bit more inconvenient, but is actually more secure approach.

                                            This thread is dead. The moderators aren't understanding the concern, and it's just going in circles of denial and deflection.

                                            It could also be possible that users do not understand logic behind firewall prompts 🙂

                                            Anyway, like leocg said - latest Opera versions execute from same location and thereby you likely need only one-time click to firewall promt.

                                            Oh well. I'll just keep declining the firewall prompt...

                                            You could also disable Chrome and Edge firewall rules then, makes behavior similar 🙂

                                            Reply Quote 1
                                              careware 1 Reply Last reply
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