@esebm said in VPN does not hide my location:

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What I still don't understand is why my home town popped up yesterday and what I can do to prevent any kind of leakage.

If you've changed nothing at your end, it's possible that something temporarily malfunctioned in either your Opera installation or Opera's VPN server which caused the traffic to not route properly thru the VPN. If you were in a censored country, it might also be possible that there was some man-in-the-middle interception going on by the ISP or national firewall, but that certainly isn't likely to be the case at a location in the Lone Star State.

Just to be on the safe side, I'd bookmark one or several of the leakage-test sites and retest with the VPN from time to time to see if the problem recurs (and if so, with what periodicity).

@fluse This can happen if a website is using JavaScript which makes a callout to an external JavaScript file that has the wrong format. If the page makes multiple JavaScript calls, any one of them could be at fault. Another thing that can cause it is if the page has numerous scripting calls and the DNS request time for any one of them is timing out before returning the correct IP number to the browser.

It can also happen if the webpage has coded an auto-refresh period that is shorter than the basic page load time of the browser for that site.

Finally, it can occur on web pages using "infinite scroll" instead of advancing to a new page at the bottom of the current page. In this case, some pages show up as constantly loading, even though you can access the material. As well, pages that continually update portions of themselves automatically can appear to do this.

Have you tested the webpage behavior in another browser for comparison?

@esebm Part of the problem lies in the IP lookup-lists being used by sites, including the IP leakage test sites. As you may have seen at the ipleak site for all those DNS servers, there may be different locations listed in various places for a particular IP, including that of a VPN. These reverse IP look-ups are notorious for missing the mark. With my non-VPN IP (part of an IP block used for services by my ISP), the DNS servers have my location shown as everywhere from Minnesota to Kentucky, though I'm actually in Indiana.

I'm not sure what you mean for the whatismyipaddress site regarding ads in cyrillic, unless you're referring to the ads on that site itself. If so, they may be simply assuming you're using a VPN from Eastern Europe based on a misinterpretation of who-is information... I've seen a couple of posts in these forums indicating similar cyrillic-language behavior for users in different places of the world when visiting any number of websites, never with a clear explanation of why cyrillic pops up. I've tended to assume it has something to do with (mis?)interpretation about the who-is physical location or registration information published for the VPN's server and IP.

@esebm said in VPN does not hide my location:

OK, tried with optimal location, same result.
Tried with Europe, located in the Netherlands.
In both cases WebRTC shows enabled.

At the https://whoer.net/ site, the WebRTC indicator itself should show 'enabled' since most of Opera's WebRTC code remains functional even if the non-proxied UDP is disabled... that disabling only removes WebRTC user IP reporting functionality. If you enable Opera's WebRTC non-proxied UDP functionality in the WebRTC settings, you'll see your true IP listed beneath the whoer site's WebRTC indicator. When you disable Opera's non-proxied UDP, your IP should disappear from beneath the site's WebRTC indicator and should be replaced with a "N/A" entry.

@esebm Try using the VPN to visit https://ipleak.net/ and it may give some information about what is leaking your location. Give it a few moments to accumulate information, and it should show you data about what information is available to a website and from what.

@leocg said in VPN does not hide my location:

By default you need to allow a site to get your geolocation.

I'm not sure what you mean. I've operated Windows systems with geolocation disabled for years and not encountered any problems. If a site wants a visitor's location, they can always look up the listed location of the visiting data-packet's IP, which for a VPN will be that of the VPN exit portal. That may, of course, result in inappropriate regional content/ads or languages being served if the site script uses the IP location to tailor such things.

@esebm said in VPN does not hide my location:

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What can I do to NOT broadcast my geolocation?

To block WebRTC leakage (which can be used to discern your location) from Opera: click: O > Settings > Advanced > Privacy & security > scroll down a little ways to WebRTC > select "Disable non-proxied UDP"

To disable location tracking for a Windows user account: In Windows, click: Search > in searchbox, enter: Privacy Settings > click Location (in left panel) > set "Location Service" to Off

It might also be a good idea to clear Opera's cookies after doing these things in case there might be some location data stored by sites there.

Then check to see if the problem site is still figuring out your location (it shouldn't be able to, though it still might present generic ads).

@hwx There are a variety of ways a website can display a 'message' using its site-script, and those "messages" can be fashioned to say almost anything. Are the websites doing this "mainstream" and reputable? If not, I'm wondering if they're trying to get you to somehow install adware or malware...

@esebm said in VPN does not hide my location:

In other words, the VPN setting is just for the birds?

No, the VPN is used simply to hide IP addresses, both yours and the visited site, from the visited site and from 3rd parties that might be watching. If you broadcast your geolocation to the site by other means, don't blame the VPN. It's like putting on a raincoat... if it lacks a hood or you don't use it, don't blame the raincoat if your head gets wet.

@sebastiankunjappan said in Opera 3 login Error:

Pegasus Opera 3

You've got the wrong "Opera" at this website. You are referring to an Opera3 accounting/financial program (see http://www.pegasus.co.uk/content.asp?PagePath=Home/Software/Software Overview/Opera 3 ), rather than the entirely different Opera web browser program that is the subject of these forums.