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    • A Former User
      A Former User last edited by

      Leo, on a personal note, do you use any other browsers or is Opera your sole browser? I know you've been extremely active in helping with Opera support for many years now. Were you an Opera user back in its Presto days?

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      • blackbird71
        blackbird71 last edited by

        Blackbird, ... Leo demonstrates his trust by using Opera for financial transactions. Do you? I'm just curious mind you.

        My own situation is not very typical for normal users. Because I routinely handle sensitive data online involving other persons and entities, I almost always use Firefox specifically for financial transactions, and have done so for years. However, a large part of the reason for that is because full, immediate, glitch-free website compatibility at almost any site is virtually guaranteed for Firefox; a lesser reason for it is because I personally feel that I can clear Firefox of any and all browser-stored data/history fragments more securely and easily after a session than with many other modern browsers.

        In the rather few personal transactions I've done outside of Firefox, I have used both Opera and Vivaldi with no real qualms about their security. Alternatively, most of my routine, non-sensitive online activity is done using only Vivaldi and Opera, with almost none of that kind of activity being done on Firefox.

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        • A Former User
          A Former User last edited by

          Thanks for the feedback.

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          • leocg
            leocg Moderator Volunteer last edited by

            do you use any other browsers or is Opera your sole browser?

            I have other browsers installed but I pretty much just use Opera. Eventually I use the other browsers to check a page or if a page doesn't work fine in Opera.

            Were you an Opera user back in its Presto days?

            Well, I've been using Opera since version 3.5x so I guess the answer is yes. 🙂

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            • A Former User
              A Former User last edited by

              microwave links

              lynx

              Well, I've been using Opera since version 3.5x...

              caveman Opera

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              • blackbird71
                blackbird71 last edited by

                microwave links

                Hmm. That looks more like a vampire lynx

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                • A Former User
                  A Former User last edited by

                  I don't know how this thread was hijacked into this silliness but I wonder if we could pull it back onto the topic of Opera's ownership and the ramifications.

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                  • g0rg0us
                    g0rg0us last edited by

                    I don't know how this thread was hijacked into this silliness

                    Well, this is a speciality of @joshl ...

                    Not sure why someone respectable like @blackbird71 responded to it though.

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                    • leocg
                      leocg Moderator Volunteer last edited by

                      I don't know how this thread was hijacked into this silliness

                      It's the Lounge, a little bit of off-topic is allowed.

                      Well, this is a speciality of @joshl ...
                      Not sure why someone respectable like @blackbird71 responded to it though.

                      So you joined just for it? Not a good start for sure.

                      Well, let's go back to our normal programming.

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                      • A Former User
                        A Former User last edited by

                        You didn't hover on the image, did you?

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                        • blackbird71
                          blackbird71 last edited by

                          You didn't hover on the image, did you?

                          No, I didn't hover on it - I wanted to avoid those fangs as much as possible. 😉 The 'microwave links' term I noted earlier referred to the data links used by certain telecoms for relaying some of their traffic, most typically in areas where cables or fiber are too costly to lay (high-rise urban, rural swamps, mountains, etc). You've perhaps seen the large towers with heavy-duty antennae on them. The moment data traffic goes off into the 'ether' by radio/micro-wave, it becomes essentially a directed broadcast - anyone relatively near the path line-of-sight can intercept it, the only challenge then being to break the signal encryption (if any). Moreover, that interception potential exists between every tower along the full relay path, often comprising hundreds of miles - assuming, of course, that the snooper hasn't placed interception gear directly into one of the tower's relay equipment itself.

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                          • Deleted User
                            Deleted User last edited by

                            HI all i'm new here i was going to install opera i asked the people at opera they assured me its safe to use, whats your all take on it before i install this program for a secondary browser?? thanks for any feedback you can provide.

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                            • leocg
                              leocg Moderator Volunteer last edited by

                              HI all i'm new here i was going to install opera i asked the people at opera they assured me its safe to use, whats your all take on it before i install this program for a secondary browser?? thanks for any feedback you can provide.

                              If you read this topic you may find what you are looking for.

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                              • Deleted User
                                Deleted User last edited by

                                HI all i'm new here i was going to install opera i asked the people at opera they assured me its safe to use, whats your all take on it before i install this program for a secondary browser?? thanks for any feedback you can provide.

                                If you read this topic you may find what you are looking for.

                                Hi leo i did i see you use it and i talked to Opera Dev on the developer blog i feel its safe enough to use and went a head and installed it as my secondary browser, i like the idea of having a proxy vpn to do private searches and such. thanks for the reply back and god bless, and happy new year.

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                                • A Former User
                                  A Former User last edited by

                                  Now this is exactly where I "might" draw the line: using the VPN.

                                  http://www.myce.com/news/operas-free-vpn-criticized-security-experts-79204/

                                  He concludes: "Concluding, Opera’s VPN service is a HTTPS proxy of which hardly anything is known. It should therefore not be trusted and used if you are really concerned about your privacy."

                                  Another article here:

                                  https://www.perfect-privacy.com/blog/2016/06/03/opera-vpn-not-real-vpn/

                                  An excerpt: " What Opera praises as VPN is nothing more than a web proxy server. And due to Opera’s business model it should be assumed that traffic and usage data is being collected and sold to advertising partners.

                                  In March 2015, Opera bought SurfEasy in order to offer a VPN solution to its customers. However, as several security researchers have shown, this is not the case at all: Instead, the users are simply using a web broxy to browse the internet."

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                                  • A Former User
                                    A Former User last edited by

                                    And here is a little more on the above:

                                    Security researchers also note that there is a potential privacy issue: When setting up the proxy, the browser requests a “device_id” which contains a unique user ID. This device_id is sent to the proxy for every browsing request and will remain permantly tied to the browser.

                                    This becomes worrisome when you look at Opera’s business model. According to their privacy statement Opera reserves the right to pass on data to third parties for advertising and marketing purposes. Addtionally, SurfEasy logs Usage and Bandwifth data.

                                    In summary: Not only is Opera’s “Free VPN” no VPN at all but you also potentially compromise your privacy when using it. As the saying goes: If you are not paying for the product, chances are that YOU are the product.

                                    Users who want to be sure that they are browsing anonymously and that all their traffic is being strongly encrypted should better use a paid service like Perfect Privacy which business model does not rely on third party advertising.

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                                    • leocg
                                      leocg Moderator Volunteer last edited by

                                      He concludes: "Concluding, Opera’s VPN service is a HTTPS proxy

                                      An excerpt: " What Opera praises as VPN is nothing more than a web proxy server

                                      Well, nothing that haven't been discussed before and nothing that wasn't known.

                                      Security researchers also note that there is a potential privacy issue: When setting up the proxy, the browser requests a “deviceid” which contains a unique user ID. This deviceid is sent to the proxy for every browsing request and will remain permantly tied to the browser.

                                      https://www.opera.com/pt-br/privacy and https://www.opera.com/pt-br/privacy/computers

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                                      • A Former User
                                        A Former User last edited by

                                        True, Leo, but it probably helps to give that information straight up to people who think they are getting total privacy from the Opera VPN that this simply isn't the case.

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                                        • leocg
                                          leocg Moderator Volunteer last edited by

                                          There is no such thing as (total) privacy. 🙂

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                                          • Deleted User
                                            Deleted User last edited by

                                            hey thanks for the heads up on this i all ready new nothing is completely ever truly private in this world, not even bought and paid for vpn services, if they think you are doing something illegal better believe they will hand it over to the police in your jurisdiction. i simply use it as a service to search stuff that i don't want to use bing or Google to see. other then that its just a secondary browser i'm trying out to see if i like.

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