I was just going to ask this. Why the f* doesn't Opera have voice search any more?! Opera was way ahead of the game in 2007 when it had voice browsing, but I suppose back in the day people didn't use it.

It was explained when they totally removed the feature from Opera Presto, about 4 years ago. The library used by Opera to provide voice recognition stopped being developed by its authors and was no longer working.

why doesn't it include Google's voice searching too?

because Opera is not Chrome nor it's Google.

I guess the answer is that Google voice search goes through Google's servers, and Opera can't do that, which is a shame.

There are many things Opera can't do due to legal restrictions. Not saying that this is the case here.

But now Opera have given up and it's basically just a shell surrounding Google's Chromium platform, why doesn't it include Google's voice searching too? I guess the answer is that Google voice search goes through Google's servers, and Opera can't do that, which is a shame.

There's one possible solution: install the "Download Chrome Extension" extension which allows you to download extensions from the Chrome store, and use a third party extension like "Voice Actions for Chrome", if you can get it to work.