i am on the current version of opera (76.0.4017.190) after a new installation of my computer. There is one thing that bothers me after the installation, namely that all URLs that i enter in the adressbar (regardless of starting with "http(s)://", and or "www." or without any prefix) always opens google (or any other default search engine you can chose from in the options menu) instead of the actual website i want to reach out to. In other versions this has happend as well but only if you added the prefix "g" (for google) or "y" (for yahoo) for example.
My question is simple. How am i able to let opera open the actual website of the URL instead of always opening the search engine first?
Also, i am experiencing some insane loading "lags" from time to time where opera just keeps trying to open my search request (turning cycle for loading) and nothing happens for 10-15 seconds (all extensions disabled). Can someone explain to me why it took so long for opera to open those requests? It seems random to me, as it does not happen all the time, which seems weird.

Any help is kindly appreciated!