Any way to manage cached page checks in new Opera as in 12? Advice for capped-bandwidth user to min

[pkfilseth]

pkfilseth last edited by

My apologies for a low-knowledge-level question ... I was an Opera 12 user for a long time, but not a power user or a "techie" by any stretch, and am trying to hit the ground running with the latest version of Opera on a new system set up over the weekend after my old computer died.

I have a satellite ISP with strict bandwidth caps, and I seem to remember that one of the things I had to do to a year or two ago to manage bandwidth usage with Opera 12 was specify that it not constantly refresh pages in the speed dial -- I can't remember if this was done just by specifying how often Opera checked if cached pages had been updated on the server (Settings>Preferences>History) or if setting "redraw" times also had something to do with managing bandwidth hits (Settings>Preferences>Browsing>Loading).

Anyway, I don't see an obvious place to set either of these things in the new Opera. So the question is ... do they exist somewhere where I can't see them?

Is there anything else I should be doing to manage bandwidth usage by this new version of Opera? I'm running in "Offroad mode" ... have enabled plug-ins only on demand ... may do some image management when I have time ... and have disabled auto updates.

But I have been an extensive user of Speed Dial in Opera 12, and I'm concerned that without the ability to prevent Opera from constantly checking speed-dialed sites to refresh pages, if I behave the same way with this new version, I might inadvertently run up data usage. Am I worrying unnecessarily? Are there disadvantages to running in Offroad Mode in a desktop environment?

Thanks for any and all advice ...

[sgunhouse]

sgunhouse Moderator Volunteer last edited by

I only have one page in my speed dial that tries to constantly refresh - and that's because it always fails. My other speed dial thumbnails are up to 9 months old and have never updated since they were created.

[j7nj7n]

j7nj7n last edited by

Is there anything else I should be doing to manage bandwidth usage by this new version of Opera?

Clearing "Preload Discover contents" setting will prevent Opium 19+ from downloading the news articles on every startup.

A quick look at Off-Road reveals that it does not remove most advertising. You should use an advertisement filter, configured to also remove web junk, such as stat counters, behavioral trackers, and social buttons, apart from the actual graphic advertising. Just stating the obvious. Unlike old Opera 12, Opium doesn't include a Content Filter. An external solution like AdBlock Plus, Proxomitron or Privoxy, in place of Off-Road, is almost essential to use the modern web fast.

You could use one of these proxies, or a Packet Sniffer (advanced tool) to detect when the browser autonomously downloads data from the Internet, and track the amount of traffic. I don't believe Opium does anything sinister, aside from the Discover service. Such inspection will reveal how much excess there is on most webpages.