Operamail future?
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sgunhouse Moderator Volunteer last edited by
@admiralty No idea, sorry. Like you, unsure which Opera you'd need to deal with.
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alphaville last edited by
The message I've received from Fastmail is unequivocal, there is no chance whatever that Operamail addresses will be returning to use. The fact that not all Operamail account holders have received an email informing them of the withdrawal of the address is not because Fastmail is testing the water. Instead they are informing account holders in batches so that they don't have to deal with responses all at once.
As with another poster, I suspect there's a political agenda involved here as nothing else would seem to explain the unwillingness of the Chinese company that owns the Opera browser and domain to hand administration of Operamail addresses to another party. The email address itself has long since lost any association with the Opera browser so there's no way that Operamail can be accused of tainting the "brand".
Operamail was a good email address to have while it lasted, but a change is as good as a rest and I've decided to run with it.
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admiralty last edited by
@alphaville Noted, but i'm not quite willing to throw in the towel just yet. I had a similar battle with compuserve before I moved to operamail. While I eventually lost that, I did get pointed to a work round which allowed me to retain my ancient (numeric) compuserve mailbox for a further year or two
In the case of operamail I figure it is just as likely to be an unthinking screw up, as to be part of a machiavellian plot.
i'll keep this forum informed if I make any progress. I remain open to any suggestions as to who to contact. -
boonstra last edited by boonstra
@admiralty -> Yeah, ditto here, when I made a mailadres in august 1998, there was no limitation. Also for the "hotmail" there was no expiry date. Conditions were the same.
Moving from Opera, to Outblaze, to Opera again, and to Fastmail, it's possible there was a "small print" in the conditions, about ending usage... But I doubt it.
This would be similar to owning a website, this cannot be withdrawn just because somebody else wants it. How did your fight for the xxx@SC-com go ? Legal advise ?
@sgunhouse -> Possible users will be informed in batches, to prevent overload of complains, but I think there will be a max of 1000 operamail-owners nowadays ?
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arobbo last edited by arobbo
I emailed Fastmail service regarding these matters, providing links to both this thread and the similar points made in comments on the Vivaldi (mail) blog. They were nice in pointing out the difference between "email service/provider" like Fastmail, and "email client", as Vivaldi would provide. Dashed hopes there for my idealism.
Unfortunately as to my request for number of operamail.com account holders, a flat refusal: "...we take our customer's privacy and security very seriously. As such I cannot answer give you this information."
Obviously I am not interested in individual account information, but apparently even a ballpark figure might be "commercial-in-confidence". Who knew?
I didn't even ask if Fastmail could offer a redirection service to honour their operamail.com stakeholders. I kept my original "fastmail.fm" account when then pushed for everyone to change to "fastmail.com" several years ago. I know of others who also preferred and kept the unique "fm" address (?). I wonder whether a corresponding redirection could have been introduced (e.g, old operamail.com = new 0p3r4m41l.com (in leet))? Just spitballing, obviously I have no expertise in the matter. -
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admiralty last edited by
@sgunhouse Thanks for the clarification, and thanks to @arobbo for your input. In general I am all in favour of fastmail's strict approach to privacy, but in our case it works against us, firstly since we can't get a handle on how many we are, and secondly because they might have offered a means of getting in contact with those responsible. Thus far, I have had no joy in trying to get in contact with either Opera Software ASA, who, I believe, own the operamail domain, or Golden Brick Capital Private Equity, who I believe, effectively own Opera Software. I'll give it a week or two more
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alphaville last edited by
also check this link in another Opera forum:
@horseshrink said in Operamail future?:
@rif Opera is now owned by a Chinese investment consortium. FastMail is Australian. I wonder if evolving trade tensions between the two countries is a factor.
https://www.engadget.com/2016-07-18-opera-browser-sold-to-a-chinese-consortium-for-600-million.html
See also this thread in the Opera for Linux forum. Might be user error or might be something else...
https://forums.opera.com/topic/47572/chinese-takeover-of-my-opera-on-ubuntu-18?_=1617717118702
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slikinc last edited by
@alphaville Definitely batches, received my email from Fastmail today. I have my own demain name but still happy using @opermail.com
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ealatorre last edited by
I have been using Opera since 1997, my email account was first created when Operamail was still managed by Opera. Fastmail has just advise that I will need to change the domain on my email address as they will no longer support or administer the operamail.com domain.
I do not want to change it, will Opera offer email services in the future? Even it comes with a cost I would rather keep it as it is
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leocg Moderator Volunteer last edited by
@ealatorre Opera stopped offering an email service about a decade ago and there are no indications that they will start providing it again. Opera seems to be now focused in making browsers.
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alphaville last edited by
I don't think there's the slightest chance of an @operamail.com address being available beyond the middle of next year. I'm happy to move away as despite the effort involved there are advantages. Moving away gives users the chance to renew or delete user accounts, logins, passwords and all the rest. The move away should reduce spam emails to a trickle once spam arrives at a defunct address. The vast majority of the spam email I receive is a consequence of hacks to Adobe and the like in the early 2010s. I'm looking forward to all this idiot crap slamming into a dead-end come June 21.
Even though I have 500+ operamail related addresses to move over to another address I'm finding that the process of updating logins has been worth the effort. There are plenty of usernames I don't need any more. And it's interesting to see how many companies take GDPR seriously, You know they do when you find they've deleted your user account information after a year or so without a log-in. And which other "service providers" can't even deal with a change in email address! I'll be taking my leave of these.
There's no way I'm going to feel aggrieved for the loss of a particular email address. It's inconvenient but so is much of life. I'd be more worried about the demolition of an ancient building but at the end of the day an email address is simply an electronic tag of slight consequence.
If I'm correct in suspecting that this is one of many overtures in future cyber hostilities to come then that only increases the incentive to move on from all things Opera related including the browser. I assume the new owners don't give two hoots for the preoccupations of Western users and that their attention is and will be entirely focused on the home market. Opera was good while it lasted, now is the time to move on.
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A Former User last edited by A Former User
@alphaville Entirely agree with your assessment. I've arrived at the same conclusion, albeit for different reasons. I'm curious where you might now hang your hat: Vivaldi? Brave? Firefox?
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horseshrink last edited by
@alphaville Oof. Didn't like that read, so I just uninstalled Opera from my machine. Had originally installed it years ago as a nod to Norway and out of curiosity. It was never a primary browser for me, but I kept various installation versions going. No need to keep it on my machine anymore.
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horseshrink last edited by
@burnout426 I've also been pleased with Fastmail and will continue to use it with my new primary email addresses.
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alphaville last edited by
@wayner46
I haven't made my mind up on a choice of browser to replace Opera, I currently use Firefox and Edge (because nobody else admits to using Edge and I prefer to go where everyone else isn't). But I'm thinking that in the longer term that Vivaldi will become my default browser now that I've tried it. It took about half an hour to settle into the Vivaldi way of doing things.
The one thing I don't like about Vivaldi is the look and layout of the bookmarks pages / folders. Opera seemed to organise these much better. But no doubt I need to spend more time rearranging the look and feel of things, I'm sure there's plenty of configuration options available under the hood.
What I'm trying to say is that, now that a lot of us live half our life on the internet, the systematic organisation and categorisation of bookmarks is becoming the most important feature of a browser, at least for me. So any browser that can deliver improved access to and maintenance of a bookmark collection will win the day.
I haven't tried Brave so I can't comment. I've had a brief look, admire the concept and need to investigate further.
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A Former User last edited by
@alphaville Vivaldi has much to commend itself to users who love to customize to the fullest. I've tried it in the past and just did not like the feel of it compared to Opera. I like the cleaner look and feel of Opera but I cannot bring myself to fully trust it, given its ownership. Opera has been my browser since 2000 along with Firefox and while I still check in to see how things are going, that's about as far as I take it. Today I have Firefox, Edge and Brave on my computer with Brave becoming more dominant as each day passes. To me, Brave is Chrome without the Google bloat.
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boonstra last edited by
It appears Fastmail is dodging legal questions by stating all requests for information should be handed to Opera.com. That's a dead end for sure, certainly when the chinese own Opera.
Anyway, Fastmail has an obligation to give full insight in this doubtful action of unilaterally stopping a service. They have responsibilities, because I have paid them for a service, also paid Opera for the service in the past.
Compare it with your phone-number, suddenly the provider says "we take your number, please take another one..." And if you protest, the provider says, ask the government. Yeah, right.
I am using my operamail account now for almost 23 years, from august 1998, and am not letting go without a fight. Specially when there are Chinese businessman involved.
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A Former User last edited by
@boonstra said in Operamail future?:
I am using my operamail account now for almost 23 years, from august 1998, and am not letting go without a fight. Specially when there are Chinese businessman involved.
I'm not certain I understand your position. What is the point in trying to force the hand(s) of Opera's Chinese owners? Do you honestly believe any of them would listen, let alone care about an individual's complaints regarding a former supported product? It's an exercise in wasted energy. While you are able you should migrate your important email and contacts to a current, reliable mail service before it is too late.
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admiralty last edited by
@wayner46 I agree that any attempt to force the owners of the operamail address to do anything. My hope, which gets less every day, is to find someone at Opera Software who is prepared to explain what they are doing and why. As someone who has lived by believing in the f**k up theory of life as much more prevalent than the currently fashionable conspiracy theory of everything, I still suspect that the decision was an ill thought out technical or business one (e.g. "lets save money by closing down unnecessary domain names")
Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, and none of us have managed to find such a someone. It is true that Fastmail could be more helpful, but they are not under any obligation, and it may be that they are happy to get shot of dealing with Opera. Clearly from the sell-out, buy back etc there is a history there.
Not given up hope yet, but busy choosing a good personal domain, and preparing for when I, personally, throw in the towel
