After a cursory period researching ai technology, it didn't take me long to come to the conclusion that ai is invasive and dangerous so I feel Chromium platform browsers or any ai related software is simply dangerous.

As cookies should hopefully be outlawed soon enough, the move to integrate surveillance and analytics into the codebase and hardware are a threat to my personal information as well as users forced into a closed ecosystem, of which Opera One clearly is solely focused on.

As an internet standards component I decry the move to any software that depends on the ai system to be a security flaw plain and simply and already am looking into alternatives as any potential bonus to user interaction with the ai software might bring, is not returned in functionality or the high cost of system resource.

So good luck if you deprecate Opera, but I will not be using your ai software.

Yeah, I write alot...

But 4999 characters is the limit, so I will go on a bit...

The cookie business may even be a response to excessive ad-blocking by money and capitalism-outraged internet dwellers.

These cookie trackers are so invasive that the law does require clicking consent to enable what would otherwise be a simple setting such as signing into an account, but they go much further than that.

That is why sites pretend they are being transparent, when in truth they would prefer to not be requiring consent to track your activity.

Cookies are in fact on the way out as new laws are creaking into position and reluctance and blocking comes from fear of disrupting what is now such a large industry in the tech economy.

But they literally block content behind large obstructing windows, demanding your choices are made before continuing.

These cookie trackers are incredibly invasive to your privacy, but if Channel 4 can demand it of you and refuse serving content until you have consented to your browsing history being tracked, there needs to be an amount of allowance.

No business has a right, especially Channel 4, which enjoys government funding, to track your every online move.

So the next step for the Privacy Protection tool is negating window overlays that block content before you have consented to cookie tracking.

The arms race continues as company's attempt to isolate the content based on digital signatures and preferred users or regions behind code that is obscured, even to the browser and generated at the point of delivery using gated rendering systems that offer no source code to be read and indexed into search engines.

I go on a bit.

But ad's aren't innately evil.

I remembered why I needed to turn off this adblocker. It was for the Channel 4 online streaming service, free to UK residents. I recently logged in again and, although I have adblock turned off, although it's now under 'Privacy Protection' (a shield icon), with a number of options.

I leave Allow Acceptable Ads turned on. I don't feel ad's are obtrusive at this point in time. Sometimes a product interests me or the existence of the product itself, I find useful information in a broader interest in humananity.

Ads were becoming a problem around 2020 with excessive use of cpu time slowing down the system and a difficulty in accessing information from ads obscuring the content.

However, leaving Allow Acceptable Ads turned on still gives me smaller ads, that would otherwise just be a small blank space in the page when turned off. So why not let those ads show.

I don't feel capitalism is innately flawed as an economic system, but rather, it requires policing by the consumers themselves and this is done by not giving obtrusive vendors your attention and instead seek other sources that are more responsible.

The real problem at this point in time is excessive cookie collecting, which was never a requirement, by law or any other governing body, but purely a ruse to collect user's browsing history to be sold onto third parties for advertising and data analysis for marketers.

But the Privacy Protection tool worked in this case (a few days ago), where it didn't last year. Channel 4 wanted Ad Blocker turned off and Tracker Blocker enabled as well. Last year, Channel4,com did not accept that Tracker Blocker was turned off, but now it worked fine. The shield icon displays a cross, rather than a tick when ad or tracker blockers are turned off.

I was still annoyed at how difficult it was to actually turn off Privacy Protection using Operas still very broken setting menus, but it's no longer an issue.

I cleared out all my trackers, which had become an insane amount and had to log in again to YouTube and a couple of other websites, but was pleased to find after a while using the internet, the number of trackers had hardly increased.

For the record, I leave ads on these days and watch alot of them. They are not excessive on YT (much less than expensive paid streaming services). Yes sometimes the ads are like 10 minutes long but reaching over to click skip only means waiting for 5 seconds. Although very occasionally I am forced to watch longer ads without the ability to skip.

These forced ads are nearly always premium and for expensive new dramas being broadcast on streaming or BBC or ITV legacy broadcasters.

I don't hate capitalism and I said earlier in this thread that adverts serve a purpose beyond promoting products. They break up the programming, which on YT, can quickly become incredibly samey. Especially as ai spits out endless content in ever more specific and in-depth exploration of a particular topic you have watched and tends to only consider the last 1 or two videos you watched to compile your next set of video suggestions.

This can become very tiring as content is bookended up against the next video with such similar topics being covered.

So the ads give you a mental break from the stream of research, which YouTube is essentially a service for, really more than it is for traditional entertainment.

It can feel empowering to rage against money and capitalism and feel blocking all adverts is in some way negating this system.

But as you watch YT's mostly generated content at this point, showing no signs of indicating what is a real person and who isn't, with ever more programming in 'mistakes' to seem like real people, the adverts are now more honest than the content which pertains to be authentic, when it's really more or less a mirage or facsimile of reality, whereas ads are clearly marked "Ad" in the lower left corner.

So I watch the ads for a number of reasons. Products on sale indicate to me the state of the world in terms of what products are desirable, breaking the bubble that a very topic focused algorithm encourages.

I can see the progression of ai generated scripts and graphic technology as it generates strange ai jokes and personas, I assume, to further the agenda of whoever set the personas in motion. Yet to be ascertained.

As bots are unleashed for "influence campaigns" to pervert or encourage particular points of view or mindsets, the ads give me a break from stealth head shrinkage to a more overt and less insidious form or messaging.

So I consider the Privacy Protection filter fixed at this point.

Now if the settings menu indicated correctly which area you are in (on the left hand sidebar), by highlighting it, for instance, this would be a significant improvement to the settings pages.

Not to mention that in order for youtube to be profitable, it does need ad income and if I still value the platform I feel more comfortable contributing in a small way to it's operation.

In this way I alleviate guilt from not paying for any of the programming.

I'm not sure, but if ad's are blocked, yt knows and the content creator get's no payment for ads they would have, had you watched them.

Everyone here seems to be missing that this app is borderline broken.

If I want it to block ad's it does a stellar job.

But guess what. I want the ads.

So it should be an easy matter to simply turn off the adblocker, in the the event that I might want to do that? Right?

But it is borderline impossible and took me, a computer engineer (I could work an it helpdesk) took well over 4 hours of solid effort to get it to STOP blocking ads!

Mad, right?

Why would I want to Not block the ads?

Well there's a few reasons.

Firstly, I'm painted into a corner by the YouTube algorithm into ever more specific and similar types of programming and frankly I don't need to digest vast amounts of information in rapid fore succession one after the other for the duration I'm watching videos?

Why? Because I'm not on a research binge or an overstimulated teenager in some rarely afforded free time.

I'm an old fart sitting around all day and I like to take my time.

I sit around getting annoyed about software that doesn't work properly like Opera and anything to do with ai.

So I turned the adverts back on and I watch almost all of them.

Why?

Because it is basically news. Seeing as I don't watch or read any news sources at all ever, advertisement keep me connected with the real word outside of retro gaming.

I also need to keep up to date with modern gaming and which products are being released. Also the film and tv industry and what packages are available.

Opera made it very difficult for me to gain access to these adverts, which are paid for with large sums of money as a 'loss leader' business investment. This could range from an infomercial to a lavish christmas advert for a major supermarket.

So you see. The purpose of adverts, in my case, is to keep abrest of current events and market and trends and break up the monotonous programming that youtube favours.

I just posted talking about how difficult it was to DISABLE as believe it or not, I desired to have the ads.

They break up programming which is often very short or repetitive and inform me of certain things I might be interested in and otherwise not been aware.

Let me tell you, it's not easy.

I looked into the settings and followed some of the instructions from burnout426.

But it is concerning for me that the settings were so hard to use and took hours.

The browser is blocking adverts behind a convoluted and confusing settings system.

So the settings are in a bad place and not nearly enough cookies are being blocked.

This post is a bit messed up now due to restrictions on my editing and deleting privileges which I don't see how my post is now your property..

How come I can't delete or edit my posts after just 30 minutes?

@Hattyfatner it's a shame the reply that was previously here was deleted as it did help to some extent.

I looked into the setting and followed some of of the instruction carefully but for some bizzarre reason, the post is deleted.

But it is a major concern for the software that it was almost impossible to do and took literally hours and hours.

Add to that that I'm a software engineer and it beggars belief anyone else could ever manage it.

The browser is essentially blocking adverts behind a convoluted mess of a settings system of menus that are extremely confusing and opaque.

But I have spent hours and hours studying it to find how to enable advertising and find the hundreds of cookies that every website seems able to give you whether you clicked anything or not.

So well done Opera, you've almost completely destroyed the codebase.

What will your next trick be...?

After a cursory period researching ai technology, it didn't take me long to come to the conclusion that ai is invasive and dangerous so I feel Chromium platform browsers or any ai related software is simply dangerous.

As cookies should hopefully be outlawed soon enough, the move to integrate surveillance and analytics into the codebase and hardware are a threat to my personal information as well as users forced into a closed ecosystem, of which Opera One clearly is solely focused on.

As an internet standards component I decry the move to any software that depends on the ai system to be a security flaw plain and simply and already am looking into alternatives as any potential bonus to user interaction with the ai software might bring, is not returned in functionality or the high cost of system resource.

So good luck if you deprecate Opera, but I will not be using your ai software.

Gives puce background color by default and extra small serif font makes it very difficult to read and extremely gross to look at.

To change it to normal font and white background, you must insert hacked css that communicates to a remote server and instantly infected my browser.

On the plus side, the infection did appear to be removed by removing the extention.

@newandimprovedgirly this is a problem with the Brighspace service program code that is not authenticating your browser.

This appears to be an issue with the Opera browser not being registered by Microsoft Corporation who (I think) manage registration and the encrypted protocol.