Leaving Opera. Business model is worrying.

[A Former User]

A Former User last edited by

To be fair, I never had any issues with the "Golden Brick" takeover. I always try to look at the product and not let sway my opinion by other feelings.

But after Opera launched their "Ads platform" this year with stakes from numerous ad companies, I am no longer comfortable with using Opera as my browser.

Not because of ads. Generally, I can understand the need to make money in order to invest it into development and company as a whole and we all know how the attempt to pay for Opera in the past ended. So ads are naturally the most common ways to make some money.

I would welcome Opera being upfront about it, but what Opera does doesn't sit well with me.

Opera presents itself as privacy respecting browser, blocking tackers, blocking ads, free VPN. Yet they heavily invested in their own ad platform. Their investor letter sees users as their products to sell to. It's clear from their investor letter that Opera browsers (desktop, mobile) are looked at as ad-serving platforms and nothing else.

You may ask, how's that different from, for example, Google?

Well, what Opera does is immoral and anti-competitive. They block ads from other platforms and allow their own.

They are fine with users blocking ads and trackers if it doesn't affect their own ad platform and their own trackers. That's not privacy. That's business model waiting to get sued.

It's hypocritical, two-faced and disgusting.

After all these years, I am leaving Opera.

I want to thank to all hard working developers. I am pretty sure many of them aren't happy with the future of Opera either.

Bye

[mentallymental]

mentallymental @Guest last edited by

Google had a similar stance too. They promote adblockers that block ads from others except their own. They just make the point that their ads are non-intrusive.

Opera user since 2008