There's clearly a communications problem going on here.

The first post made by @livingpharaoh was actually in a different Opera sub-forum (Opera for Computers): https://forums.opera.com/post/164596 . In that post, he specifically stated he'd just installed Opera 58, was looking for "Themes" options, and got entangled while searching in Opera's website by a referral to "Tools" for the Themes option. He then asked if that website description was out of date. @Leo responded "yes, it is". Unfortunately, that accurate moderator reply didn't address the OPs' underlying concern of where might Themes be found in Opera 58 (actually, such as it exists, under Settings > Wallpapers and/or Appearance). However, the reply did answer the OP's specific question.

The OP then posted here in the "Forums" sub-forum with a sarcastic-toned complaint towards Opera's support, regarding what he deemed the insufficiency of the reply to his original post in the Opera-for-computers forum. Subsequently (and unfortunately), it seems everyone thereafter has been essentially talking past each other here.

Several observations occur to me:

1. The Opera websites indeed can too easily lead a user (especially one new to chromium-based Opera) down some confusing rabbit holes related to Olde Opera terminology and documentation which don't apply to New Opera. This is not the first instance of this in user posts I've seen.
2. Sometimes the most relevant, underlying nature of a problem post gets missed by a reply. I too am guilty of this at times, occasionally because of misleading language/wording/interpretation and other times by a particular mindset I may bring to my first reading of the problem post.
3. Sometimes, after a single problem post that doesn't get a (to them) 'suitable' reply, posters lose patience (and their tempers) and generate a 'snarky' post. What results thereafter is often a flame war that pulls in other attackers/defenders and alienates all involved.

I believe what's needed is patience on the part of each of us, original posters and responders alike, along with a willingness to calmly ask for and respond with more information and/or clarity when requested.

@rehmanjamshoro said in Spam advertisement:

OK sir who is responsible it. told me

This scam has been going on for several weeks. See: http://www.scam-detector.com/online-auctions-and-tech-scams/iphone-8-and-iphone-x-tester-scam

Scams like this can be difficult to trace beyond the original website you visit, since they are often the result of malicious ads running remotely on that website. Many sites don't sufficiently check out to whom they rent ad space on their sites, and sometimes ads on a site are sub-rented out to still other end advertisers by a middle man company. Such ads generate pop-ups independent of the site itself, and can be very difficult to trace back to the authors.

@coffeelover said in Can Opera be fully Trusted:

...
So... each of us has to make up our minds regarding the security of this Opera browser. ...

This. However, it applies to any browser; and it should be pondered continually and not just at browser adoption, if browser 'security' is a conscious factor in one's browser usage (though it's not, frankly, for many users). Part of the basic issue is that a browser user must necessarily entrust part of his personal data and his browsing preferences/habits to the care and competence of software designers and parent corporations which the user has never met nor really knows little about, regardless of the user's level of inquiry. Moreover, the kinds of 'insecurities' that may be knowingly ignored by one user may be considered 'catastrophic' by another, depending on how he defines "security". Truly, YMMV.

Obviously, you mentioned some past indications of questionable behavior on the part of subsidiaries of one partner in Opera's new parent ownership consortium. Whether or how those kinds of behavior might somehow ripple down or transfer into the actual design and 'security' of an Opera browser version is difficult to determine with any certainty. There is some measure of protection under Norwegian privacy laws, under which the Opera organization continues to operate. There is a greater measure of protection present in the inherent integrity and competency of Opera's software designers, since at the end of all factors, it's the designers who actually commit code to end product.

The real proof-of-the-pudding lies in the code itself. However, few modern browsers are fully open-source in every code fragment they contain... otherwise the makers risk giving away the store to competitors in how they solve technical problems and provide key features. So every browser containing closed-code presents a level of uncertainty regarding what is truly going on internally. It's part of the air which ordinary users must breathe in today's software world. In such cases, a security conscious user must remain ever alert for relevant fresh reports of insecurities within a given browser or its design operations.

Personally, I'm not unduly troubled by the revelations you list, since I believe those occurred historically in products created by entities distantly apart from the current Opera design group. In reality, the opacity of future corporate-owner influences on browser design within Opera is not much different from that characterizing Microsoft or Mozilla or most other browser makers - publicly or privately held. There are a few browser makers which seem more open in what they do (though it would be rude to discuss them in an Opera-sponsored forum), but there are no guarantees even then.

@leocg said in Why Use Opera?:

... So different situations, different needs.

This!!!

For many years I used Olde Opera precisely because it fit nearly all my browsing needs, just as my needs had evolved around the many features of that browser. When Opera elected to follow the Blink pathway, I was a rather ardent Opera defender for a time in Opera's old forums amidst the truly massive outcry against that change. My key point then was for users to be patient and give Opera's developers time to integrate various key features (whose losses were being loudly decried) into the new browser. As time went by, some of the key 'dropped' features needed for my work flow were indeed restored to the evolving design (bookmarking, in particular). But others were not, and even the bookmarks feature itself lacked certain sub-features that were very significant to me (eg: the ability to set bookmarks bar titles to text only, since I need 50-70 bookmarks on a given single-line toolbar and abbreviate their titles severely). During that time, I often found myself increasingly agreeing with @ayespy's postings in the old Opera forums trying to persuade the developers and posters of the need for what we viewed as better control, features, and customization capability in New Opera, but to diminishing avail. Opera's focus had shifted.

What was actually occurring was both a change in the way the Opera browser was targeted and a change in (or more accurately, my recognition of) the importance of various detail requirements of my work flow using browsers. Opera was now developing a browser for 'the marketplace', whereas I had evolved solid work patterns dependent on my having detailed control/customization of browser settings, functions, and features. Thus, for a long time, I persisted in using Olde Opera (12.18) for much of my work-related browsing and both New Opera and Firefox for my casual browsing. Fortunately, as Olde Opera became unacceptably obsolete in terms of website compatibility, Vivaldi came upon the scene. It allowed me the detailed customization and features in areas that my work flow had come to demand. It's design mantra was that it was "a browser for our friends", meaning those users who require detail browser functionality and control. Hence, it's a browser that is actually a configurable tool.

Today, I have different needs than most of the users now targeted by Opera. So I use Vivaldi for my primary browsing and New Opera for some casual browsing. And I experiment a bit with Otter. They're all good browsers given the roles they're intended to play... but they're each aimed at different user needs and priorities. Frankly, I'm glad they all exist. And they're free...

@acidinmyfridge said in IS VPN with problem now?:

... i'm using Vivaldi too. ... Wondering if they're gonna implement VPN as well. ...

If they do, it will be a good while from now. They have their hands full just developing the features they've been promising, plus they don't have the server farm/portals to support a VPN (or the cash flow to rent it).

To some users, any record of the names or content of visited sites left in the browser may prove an "embarassment" when/if other users share the system. In a few locales, certain leftover names or content records in a browser may have fatal potential. Not knowing the poster's reasons for wanting the browser records completely cleaned upon demand, it's hard to be critical. I do share the opinion that a browser function or settings label should accurately reflect reality, and an option to 'clean browser history' should indeed clear all the forms of browing records since each of them constitutes part of its true browsing history. Only clearing some of the data under such a label forms a misleading impression of security; this is even more true if there are not co-located alternate controls for records-removal that might act to reinforce a user understanding of the incompleteness of the original function.

@coffeelover said in Can Opera be fully Trusted:

... Today I see that China has been using tiny microchips to gain access to US companies. This is yet another reason why I personally do not trust software or hardware that comes from China. Read about it by going to the link below. ... For those like me who no longer trust Opera, the evidence seems enough. For others like Blackbird who believe the evidence is not compelling, there is little point in continuing the discussion. It really boils down to what one is willing to place his/her trust in and for me... ...

https://www.theblaze.com/news/2018/10/04/china-used-tiny-microchips-to-gain-access-to-us-companies-banks-government-contractors-report

Writing as someone who has spent much of his career dealing with highly classified materials, I feel there's a vast difference between an adversarial government covertly placing spy-chips into a market-leading company's industrial/commercial/military server hardware by bribing/coercing factory personnel within that adversarial nation in hopes of penetrating corporate/government networks so as to acquire strategic information versus that same adversary somehow getting some lines of snooping code covertly inserted into a second-tier Internet web browser that's designed by code experts outside the adversarial country and aimed at individual non-commercial users. Of course anything is always possible, but 'possible' doesn't make it likely - and it certainly doesn't necessarily make it even worthwhile. Covertness always carries the risks of unexpected disclosure, whose costs and fallout can be considerable when measured against probable reward for the effort. Consequently, the potential payoff must always be worth the risks incurred - and, frankly, the market exposure of Opera into truly strategic arenas doesn't really qualify as worth it.

But, as I think we agree, it all comes down to personal opinions and preferences. For me and the equipment upon which I use browsers, Opera is currently OK in a security sense. For equipment that really matters in a real-world security sense, I personally believe there should be complete isolation from the public Internet - a genuine airgap, if you will. Hence, the only practical browser risks for ordinary users is from non-nation-state hackers and vandals.

@rakejake said in OperaVPN is not working:

The whole dilemma can be resolved if Opera can confirm this.

If you are able to visit https://www.comparitech.com/blog/vpn-privacy/internet-censorship-map/ , you can gain a view of the scope of censorship worldwide as of January 2020 (particularly if within that page, you set the "Show -- entries" to 100 in the nation-table part way down the site's page). Bangladesh ranks quite high for employing national censorship in that table (among the top 25 nations in the world), on a par with well-known censoring nations like Cuba, Egypt, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia but behind China, North Korea, Iran and a scattering of others.

Frankly, there is very little that Opera (or anyone else) can do about national censorship... nations are sovereign and do what they want. Why a nation blocks one site but not another has all to do with their interpretation of what they wish to block from their citizens, the technical mechanisms used in blocking, and the persistence of the personnel in the blocking agencies. If Opera's websites are reachable by ordinary browsing from most other nations in the world but not from within Bangladesh (which is the case), it stands as proof that the Opera sites are being blocked (intentionally or otherwise) within Bangladesh. There is nothing Opera can do about that. That some other VPN services might be able to penetrate the censorship speaks more to the lack of thoroughness of their blocking mechanism by Bangladesh and the ability of those VPNs to jump ahead of the censors by frequently changing their IPs or using other technical means. Bypassing national blocking is a continual (and expensive) electronic war between blockers and VPN providers, and probably goes well beyond the limited purposes Opera has in supplying a VPN option in their browser.

I don't work for Opera, but I don't see how (in practicality) Opera can conclusively determine on its own which nations are locally blocking its websites (including its VPN) since it doesn't reside physically in many of those nations and because the dynamics of who is blocking what change literally daily among nations. Moreover, nations that do block are usually very evasive about which specific sites they block for what reasons.

If a corporate System Engineer blocks processes from executable programs on the company-owned computer or network because of 'security problems', you may want to rethink trying to bypass his efforts. If his action reflects corporate IT security policy or efforts, bypassing or otherwise interfering with such blocking could be termed as a "career-ending move" in most organizations.

@yanta said in Microsoft switches to Chromium:

This quasi-monoculture might threaten security and diversity.

The whole culture/system is cost-driven. Websites (of which there are now enormous numbers) operate by writing website code which interfaces with web browsers and their underlying rendering engines. Since there are different ways of doing the same things, there may be different forms of browser code that render the same website code into a screen display, but show it somewhat differently - which causes what's seen on-screen by the user to be different from what was intended by the site-code writer. Likewise, for certain other forms of embedded functionality (embedded video, pop-up buttons, page swapping, etc).

Consequently, to ensure their site-code looks and operates the same on different browser/engine designs, the site would have to test each browser design for compliance... continually retesting, since both website code and browser/engine code are changed constantly. That costs money, so many sites simply test against a few browsers and publicly declare the other ones "unsupported". The few browsers tested are simply the ones with most market share, hence the smaller market-share browsers are frequently ignored or rejected. Some sites go so far as to put in a few lines of site code that actively test (or "sniff") for the brand of visiting browser and actively block it from access. Their reasoning seems to be that it's cheaper to simply reject a small-marketshare browser than deal with the cost of support complaints over potential compatibility problems. Other websites don't even publish a list of supported browsers, but instead simply code for the big one or two browsers and ignore everything else.

Frankly, this channelization looks to only worsen in the current "free" universe of browsers and websites. Cost recovery is very difficult when the end product is being 'given away' and other income sources (ads, favored placements, paid-product tie-ins, etc) must underwrite the income. Diversity is indeed being threatened, as it always is in a monoculture - and that means innovation is being quenched. Insofar as innovation is being threatened, that implies security innovation is also being reduced, at least in the grand scheme of things.

@dentrexx said in opera is so slow in egypt:

I... So what should we do?

There are only two paths of which I'm aware: either a user must obtain relaxation of their national censorship or find a mechanism around it. In most cases, the censorship is political/morality-based and can be extremely difficult for an individual user to bring about changes. Finding a mechanism to bypass the censorship requires creativity, technical knowledge, and carries personal risk in many cases (where getting caught bypassing censorship carries a variety of personal sanctions).

Technically, there are VPNs that appear to more readily bypass censorship in some locales, but that often has to do with allowing visiting businessmen to employ corporate VPN tunneling for business privacy purposes. In some places, satellite phones can be employed (if permitted in that nation or if operating one undetected). And there have been certain organizations that have made 'secret' websites available for vetted members that redirect visits to that website onto the open web, but this has usually been a covert arrangement and not easily joined into.

As noted earlier, anything a user can employ in terms of marketplace VPN software can also be obtained and installed by the censor and analyzed for its connection IPs and techniques... in which case, a determined censor can block it as well. Since there are a fair number of VPNs out there in the marketplace, determined users can sometimes find a VPN that bypasses a given censorship wall, at least for a time... there are no guarantees, but this is the most likely approach for most ordinary users to try.

Unfortunately, as with any repressive practice in the world, those living under it are largely locked into it until such time as the local political/morality atmosphere is made to change.

In other words, "safe" by itself can't be used to abstractly describe any browser (or other software, for that matter)... that is, "safe" in what way and against what threats/concerns and under what conditions? So much depends on what one includes under "safe" as well as how a browser is used on the web and what settings or accessories are applied to it. To better answer your concern, you need to first post what areas of 'safety' you are concerned about and how stringently you personally apply "safe hex" usage to both your computer and browser usage. Any given car, hammer, gun or web browser are all "safe" just passively sitting there... but how they're designed and used may result in "unsafe" situations for each.

@benmactavish When you reinstall Windows, its crytographic service generates a new random key unique for the machine and removes all traces of any old key. The new key is combined with another fresh, unique Windows-generated key for each newly-created user account to prevent cross-account and cross-machine access to sensitive "compartmented" information. Opera also uses those combined keys for auto-encrypting their password store. Hence any reinstall of Windows or any recreating of a user account will cause new access keys to be generated and used for Opera's password store in that account and the old keys discarded, making automatic access to the "old" password file impossible. Lacking auto-access, one would be left with trying to manually crack the original encrytion of the old password file without having the original key, a virtually impossible task.

OVer the years, I've found it critically important to keep all my significant passwords saved/backed-up in an independent location, off the computer and in a form that I know I can readily access. Some folks use the cloud via password software (for convenience), some use paper (for added security).

@sing9942 said in Cleaned computer, now lost all speed dials and bookmarks:

It's a little too late to suggest that, ya think?

Though it's too late now to fix your lost data, there are some points of information you should understand going forward. Everything software-related on your computer each lives in different files on your hardrive. When you 'run' a program, Windows copies some of that program's files into quick-access RAM memory and saves copies of those memory-based files back to the hardrive periodically as you make changes during the running of the program. For the computer to be able to run a program, it has to be able to find those program-related files on the drive, so it creates an index of where the files are on the drive. When you or someone else "cleans up" a computer, they're actually removing files of various kinds from the drive and/or removing index entries to where those files are located. Every file on the drive lives at a different address, so if a cleanup is done improperly or inaccurately, either the wrong files may be deleted or the index values may be incorrectly altered.

Things like bookmarks and settings are data elements that live in files on a drive. If the cleanup operator fails to understand which files are critical for a given program, they may wipe out something important that wrecks at least part of the program. Not all programs put their files into the same kinds of structures or sequences. Opera doesn't store its files in the same places as Chrome, nor does it necessarily name them the same way. So a cleaner has to accurately know what he's doing. In your case, the cleaner most probably didn't.

A cookie is simply a tiny file created by a visited website on your computer to store site-related details (logins, what page you visit, etc) and can often be deleted safely - assuming one knows where that particular browser has filed its cookies. A cache is simply a file or collection of similar files that contain various kinds of information that is often reused or referenced in some way. Bookmarks (aka 'favorites') are files that simply list contact instructions to websites you may want to revisit. But again, unless one knows exactly what they're doing, "cleaning" a computer risks removing the wrong kinds of files from the wrong places.

Various companies make money from "cleaning" a client's computer by remotely deleting what the cleaner deems to be 'unimportant' files, but even one error made in deciding what is important or where it's located risks breaking a program or its settings. Unfortunately, such cleaner companies are often staffed by folks of uneven competency who may simply not know what they're doing where some programs are concerned. You would be far better off in the future by dumping the use of such "cleaning" services. The best approach is to take the time to learn how to create genuine backups of file or drive data so that you can restore things when bad things happen (for whatever reason) to good data.

@unkemptrat said in Recent flash update, now i can't get persistent enabled flash:

... But I ask you this: On the 1st day of no support (Jan 1, 2021) what happens to the functionality of flash? It works today just fine. Why shouldn't it still work Jan 1st? The only "bad" thing that I can think of is Adobe removes it from their download site. ...

If one refers to Adobe's Flash Player EOL Information Page ( 'https://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/end-of-life.html' )...
Section 4 states: "Adobe will be removing Flash Player download pages from its site and Flash-based content will be blocked from running in Adobe Flash Player after the EOL Date."
Section 7 states: "Users will be prompted by Adobe to uninstall Flash Player on their machines later this year and Flash-based content will be blocked from running in Adobe Flash Player after the EOL Date."

A number of Flash users have speculated in forums that the phrase "will be blocked from running" may mean Adobe will place (or already has placed) some kind of kill switch code in their player updates and/or SDKs. Only when the EOL occurs will we know for sure, but it's rather apparent that Adobe intends to do whatever they can to block its use after 2020 - perhaps over corporate concerns over any kind of lingering potential malware liability if users persist in employing Flash after the support cutoff.

@unkemptrat Developers always face a choice: either gradually make an obsoleting feature less and less user-convenient to push websites (and users) off it while accepting chronic complaining or suddenly kill it and have the user universe in a surprised uproar that fills support forums with confusion and rancor. For a once-widely-used feature, there's really few, if any, good alternatives.

@naheed Certainly, Opera's built-in VPN is worth a try in order to bypass blocking. However, the limited number of portal options it provides to a user makes it an easier target itself for blocking than some of the "heavy-duty" VPNs out there.

It must always be kept in mind that a blocking nation can just as easily obtain a piece of free software (like a browser) as an ordinary user and thus analyze how it works. Consequently, the blocker can quickly determine the array of VPN access portal IPs built into the software and block them. If a VPN has a rich array of access portals that can be software-varied and is independent from the browser, it becomes more difficult for blockers to identify and block the potential VPN access portals.

National censorship and blocking has become a form of 'electronic warfare' with measures and countermeasures being used by both 'sides' (the users and the blockers). However, because the connection to the Internet at large is usually limited to just a few "pipes" in many nations, a monitoring and blocking advantage remains with the blockers. Usually, a national blocking agency has much greater resources than a user (or any given VPN) in trying to circumvent blocking techniques... but sometimes, the determination or competency of the blockers is uneven, and users can find ways around it.

There have been some past reports that Egypt (as well as several other nations) is blocking Opera, either Opera's specific IPs or a larger block of IPs that includes Opera's. Depending on how the blocking is configured, it may also be slowing down the initial page load (particularly if that also includes the browser's opening handshaking with Opera's servers). Egypt's history of blocking Opera has been uneven - sometimes it's heavily blocked it, other times not so much... perhaps depending on the regional political/instability climate of the day. When it is 'seriously' blocking, everything Opera-related gets shut down in the IP realm: website, sync, and vpn. Unfortunately, it's tough to bypass determined national blocking without using a robust, system-level VPN that may have to be changed often (whenever the authorities add the VPN's access portal IPs to their block-list) or by using a satellite phone/data connection.

@tag said in "Profile Error Occurred" - Message On Opera Startup:

...
Further, "Foxiebro" was specifically identified in the dll. It wasn't something "standard" that was blocked of Opera. It was a very specific file with a very specific malware attached. Foxiebro has been around a while. ...

Your description states that Defender trapped a dll file with the Foxiebro exploit 'attached' and 'identified' within. Do you know (or did Defender list) the name of that dll file?

@ulissescouto said in VPN is activated but I can't see videos from Germany:

... and what's the purpose of this Opera's VPN?

A VPN replaces the user's IP address with the VPN's exit portal IP address in the data going to the target site. Websites that restrict vistor access to users within their own nations can easily reverse-lookup a visiting IP, and if the VPN doesn't have an exit portal listed within that nation, the site can refuse access to the VPN's IP as well as the user's own IP. Hence, the more exit portals a VPN possesses and that are user selectable to match a given nation, the better the chance of getting a VPN exit IP with a national match.

However, there are various other elements a website can use in the packet handshaking besides the IP to try to determine and crosscheck a visitor's true location (WebRTC, user's OS or browser language setting, user's OS or browser geolocation data, etc). Depending on the determination and analysis depth a site is willing to employ, simply using a VPN with a national portal in the site's nation may not necessarily guarantee access from outside that nation... a user may also have to lock down their system/browser settings extremely tight.

Opera's VPN is more intended for privacy protection (against ISP or simplistic national snooping), rather than bypassing rigorous national DRM limitations.