I'm not intending to rub salt into the wound, but this illustrates the ever-present dangers of relying on Sync as a substitute for genuine backups. There simply are too many accidental ways for messing up or deleting sync data, not to mention the possibility of the sync server losing the data in some server/portal crash or 'incident'. The safest backup approach has always been, and remains, to make occasional genuine data backups of critical personal-data browser files (like preferences, bookmarks, sessions, etc) - preferably onto external media. While such backups may at times not be exactly current, with a little effort they can be maintained reasonably close to a current state... and having them available, even if a bit out-of-date, can be a literal life saver when (not if) an "oops" or hardware crash occurs.

@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...

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.

@jeremycards In a typical Win 10 system, you can find it at folder: C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc. Note that the file has no extension term, but is simply "hosts". You can open it and edit it in Notepad... just make sure to again save it without a file extension. Suggestion: before you edit it, save a copy of the original as hosts.bak, just in case something gets messed up... if it does get messed up, you can then always get back to the original.

@browzer1 said in How to change your browser ID within Opera:

@rif ... Does this not change the Opera "statistics" on web browsing? Is it a good thing or a bad thing?

Yes, it does affect the usage stats. If a user can access a site by changing the browser ID, it's a good thing for him in gaining access to the site... but it's not a good thing for Opera's market share stats. The ideal would be for websites to respect and operate properly with Opera's genuine user-agent string or respond to user complaints if they don't. But all too often, that's not how the online world seems to operate...

@leocg said in Opera-Werbeblocker:

@archimede What would be that?

Opera-Werbeblocker is Opera's adblocker.

@nephtys59 Log4j2 is a logging package for Java that responds to "calls" made to its library (but which, in the case of the vulnerability, can be made to introduce all manner of unauthorized commands into the host system). Hence, the primary log4j2 vulnerability (CVE-2021-44228, CVE-2021-45046) rests with systems running Java applications or that interface in certain ways with systems running such Java applications. As a result, the ultimate solution to this primarily rests with operators of such systems updating their log4j2 libraries to log4j2.16 or later (an initial log4j2.15 "fix" was found to still have some weaknesses). Given that in the real world, Java applications can exist in myriad places and be deeply embedded into all manner of systems and servers, it's likely that the vulnerability may unfortunately remain with us for a long time to come.

The question you raised is to what extent a web browser can be impacted by the log4j2 issue. If the browser itself doesn't contain Java calls (not to be confused with the unrelated JavaScript language) or coding modules, then the browser isn't directly affected by the vulnerability. If the browser does contain Java linkages, then it can in theory be affected by the vulnerability even if a vulnerable log4j2 package resides on a server with which the browser is communicating. Whether Opera (or any other browser) contains any Java linkages is for its developers to state.

That said, even without Java linkages existing in a browser, any server (including web site servers or whatever they themselves may link to) that contains a vulnerable log4j2 package version is susceptible to being hacked in almost any conceivable manner. That, in turn, means the potential for website hacking (even for otherwise "safe" or reputable sites) goes up greatly in the Internet world... and that presents increased risks for all web browsing regardless of the browser. Keeping a browser up to its latest version is a primary defense against a hacked website causing grief to the user's system by exploitation of a browser flaw. But there is little defense against a hacked website itself abusing a user's data if it involves the user logging in and/or supplying personal/financial information to the 'trusted' site. That's where a lot of the current concern about this issue really rests.

Much depends on how the Google end-of-support decision evolves in the chromium code itself. There are always different ways of doing things, and if code exists in chromium that specifically supports certain Win7/8.1 unique peculiarities, one can expect such code will rather quickly be removed in order to clean up the remaining code. That can have major impact on downstream browsers using chromium code (like Opera and others). Likewise, if vulnerabilities continue being discovered in chromium code, remedies may be introduced that don't take unique needs of Win7/8.1 into account and all such updates will thereafter not be suitable for those OS's.

Whether a downstream browser that depends on chromium code (like Opera) will add its own work-arounds to support using future chromium code for Win7/8.1 depends greatly on the complexity of such tasks, but it's very unlikely that much energy/resources will be expended in such ways... the Win7/8.1 'market' has simply become too small to justify much effort.

At the end of the day, this is the trajectory for how an out-of-support OS finally "dies" - it's support by application software becomes too costly to bother with, and so the number of available application programs that are being updated withers away over time.

@sporty78 said in 'Get The Latest Security Update:

As an addendum, if' an Opera Developer reads my thread, there are 'many' users who continue to use Win 7 because it serves their needs.

As a result, browser-related updates should continue to be offered.

Essentially, I am not going to 'upgrade' to Win 10 just so that I can continue to use a browser. In fact, 'other' browsers still work like a dream with Win 7.

The reality is that Opera (like many browsers today) is based on the Chromium Consortium's code core. The Consortium developers decided (and announced last year) that chromium code support for Windows 7 would end in 2023. They would no longer test their code for Windows 7 and would remove Win7-specific code whenever encountered when otherwise modifying their code. That has now happened.

As a result, browsers based on chromium code either had to also end their Windows 7 support or else spend a lot of their own resources continually patching and extensively testing each new revision of the chromium code (issued every week or two) with workarounds to attempt to continue providing Windows 7 support. This latter approach, Opera (and various other chromium-based browsers) have elected not to do, largely for economic reasons.

If you're willing to run the risks of or feel economically forced into using a no-longer-supported OS, then one of the consequences is facing the decreasing availability of the various apps that offer compatibility with that obsolete OS. Pleasant or not, it's just the way things work in the modern world of computers.

Though I don't personally have headaches, I do have friends who suffer from them chronically at times (particularly migraines), and many of them find relief from drinking a cup or two of coffee. Apparently the caffeine triggers some kind of chemical release in the brain to help headaches, as well as constricting blood vessels to help migraine sufferers sometimes get relief (especially when combined with aspirin).

What I have found personally, however, it that black coffee makes an effective cleaning agent for hand removing certain kinds of films and residues off metal objects. It's particularly effective at getting that yellowish varnish-like nicotine/smoking residue off old office equipment like filing cabinets and steel desks. And, no, I don't smoke... but I have used coffee to clean up a lot of equipment coming out of offices where heavy smoking occurred for years.

@AlexanderKamp said in i cant get the websites that are open in opera:

Now it look like all is fine with the disabled Sevice can it be that opera have a bug to write this service on i have no VMs running and dont not know why the service was on after the opera update...

Windows' hypervisor-V is now an on-by-default part of Windows11 and is designed to isolate and run multiple Windows processes and services as if they were in 'sandboxes' or within a virtual machine. That inherently alters how (or even if) they can be accessed by other software running on the system. While this offers isolation and security protection to those processes, it also can impact how software applications interact with them - either individually or collectively. That includes adding possible complications in how other software apps on the system interact with each other, since they may share access to the same Windows services and processes. This is why it can be so complex and frustrating to troubleshoot hypervisor-related problems - and Windows11 has more than its share of difficult hypervisor-related complaints, as even a quick search of websites will quickly show.

In your case, it seems that ALL your web browsers began having hypervisor problems after an Opera update. What is unclear (and possibly unknowable) is whether a Windows update affecting the hypervisor or its controlled processes also may have occurred around the same time. What seems most likely is that something related to generic web browser interfacing with certain Windows' hypervisor-controlled processes is now triggering errors and system crashes. This may be because of changes/updates made to the hypervisor itself, to the controlled processes, to the interfacing protocols, or to the browser installation(s)... and such changes could have been introduced by intentional updating or by unintentional corruption of files or data within files during either an Opera or windows update.

Because of the complexity of identifying exactly where the specific cause rests, it can be quite difficult to resolve hypervisor-related error causes. Some users with the problem simply turn off the hypervisor and accept the modest risk of exposing the related processes to security intrusions from elsewhere on the system. Other users attempt removal and reinstallation of the hyper-V software itself. Still others try uninstalling all related application software before reinstalling each of them (though this probably would also require use of decent registry cleaning software to remove 100% of the related apps' entries from the registry before reinstalling). Other people (out of frustration) have "cleanly" reinstalled Windows on their systems before reinstalling all their application software. Finally, some have been willing to dig deeply into hypervisor operation and the nature of the controlled processes to track down precisely where the triggering code may lie, but this requires a rather thorough understanding of computer programs and operations to achieve. In any case, regarding what to do and the likely success of each approach, your mileage may vary.

At this point, it's my opinion that the problem on your system lies outside of Opera specifically (though the Opera update may, in some weird way, have introduced changes or corruption that surfaced the problem). Given that Opera has apparently not been flooded with reports and complaints of hypervisor-error problems with its software, it seems unique to your system.

@AlexanderKamp said in i cant get the websites that are open in opera:

with the mozilla firefox i found a website were i can watch video all the time so that my hardware schould not be korupted or bugs in software appear but on youtube it is the same or in other sites where i can watch videos then i have only 1 hour about to get the mosttime hypervisor or watchdog error

Once again, if you are having hypervisor errors and blue screens with multiple browser types (browsers with different internal "engines" like Firefox and Opera), the cause is not the browsers themselves but instead something in your operating system, hardware, BIOS/UEFI, drivers, or Windows hypervisor code/files.

A hypervisor virtualizes or "sandboxes" critical system processes to increase security on the system (similar to a virtual machine). If something goes wrong with programs properly communicating with or accessing Windows' virtualized processes, the system will often trigger a hypervisor error and even a blue screen, depending on the nature of the problem.

As something to try, you might turn the hypervisor temporarily off in Windows and see if it clears the problem. Go to Control Panel > Programs > Turn Windows Features On or Off, uncheck Hyper-V, and restart the system. Because this will cause Windows to run its processes outside of any virtualization, it may more directly verify a significant hypervisor problem exists on your system. Note that running without the hypervisor reduces the inherent security robustness of how Windows runs on the system, so keep that in mind.

@AlexanderKamp What version of Windows are you using? Also, have you checked your various system drivers to make sure they're each up-to-date (especially graphics drivers)?

@AlexanderKamp If you are having hypervisor errors and blue screens, the cause rests within your system and Windows installation/settings, not within your browser(s). Typically, the problem may be caused by anything from hardware incompatibilities, outdated drivers, file corruption within Windows, or improperly configured BIOS/UEFI settings. A better explanation (in English) of things can be found at https://www.comparitech.com/net-admin/hypervisor-errors/.

@domie-cat said in [Windows 7]Opera slower and slower:

... It is possible that my problems are due to the fact my computer is very old with many unecessary files that slow it

How much RAM does the computer have installed? If it's low (eg: 4 gB), the system may be running out of RAM and be forced to swap in-use files in and out of Windows' allocated virtual RAM on the hard drive - which can definitely slow down everything, especially for a browser dealing with modern websites.

Also, if you are running other applications and their processes while Opera is running, that can also eat up RAM and slow down a marginal system... make sure you don't have much else running while browsing.

Finally, check the free space on your hard drive... if the drive's nearly full, it can slow down the hard drive significantly as it has to jump all over the place to try to chain together enough unused space to access or write files while browsing. In that case, clear out un-needed files, etc from the drive to significantly increase free space.

@neoprana "Continue" in what way? That error message can occur for multiple reasons, all having to do with the security certificate associated with the website using https protocols. The "best" path forward depends on what is the actual reason behind the error, and those reasons can include anything from an improperly-constructed (or forged) cert, a bad browser extension, a problematic antivirus, a corrupted OS cert store, all the way to a genuine browser hiccup.

Since the stored certificate specifies the encryption mechanisms/keys needed to establish secure https communications with a given site, a valid and functioning cert will be needed by the system to visit the website in https - and the error message indicates there's a major problem with that cert. Otherwise, you need to use the unsecured http protocol to visit the site, assuming that connection exists.

@OperaUser42 said in My Opera VPN pro is not working:

@blackbird71 Another good reason why I won't use Win10/11 I don't want Microsoft involved in apps and extensions.

??? My comment (made several YEARS ago) and this entire thread have nothing to do with Windows10/11 per se... they involve Opera VPN Pro.

@toohoo It hasn't had development work or updates done on it for years. However, it can still be downloaded from here: https://get.opera.com/ftp/pub/opera/mail/1.0/ , depending on your OS.

@rmarinrojas If Opera is not set to autostart on your system whenever you power the system up, and if you've set the default browser to another non-Opera browser, and if a system restart immediately brings up Opera at the gambling website, you probably have adware present on the system which is triggering from one of the Windows startup folders - either at the system level or at the user account level.

As a simple first try at a fix, after restarting your computer, press Windows' Start button, and go to Settings. Then in the "Find a setting" box in the middle of the page that appears,, type: Startup. From the popup menu that then appears, click on Startup Apps. You should see a listing of apps or programs that the system and the user account activate at system startup. Scan the list for anything that you don't recognize as belonging there - especially something that may refer to Opera or the gambling website. If there is something alien there, use Windows' "Add or Remove Programs" function, locate the alien name again on that list, and uninstall it.

Then use Explorer to go to the folder at C:\users\<your username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\StartMenu\Programs\Startup and look at the filenames listed there... again, look for something that you don't recognize as belonging there. If there's something alien there, delete it.

Otherwise, you may want to want to download and try some reputable adware removal tools like AdwCleaner. For persistent adware problems, you may need to download and employ multiple cleanup programs as discussed at the Bleeping Computer website: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-removal/how-to-remove-adware-on-a-pc

@rmarinrojas To be crystal clear, when you say you "changed" the browser to Chrome and Edge, do you mean you changed the system's default browser setting to each of those, not merely opened each after a restart? If so, do you also mean that after changing the default browser setting to one of those two and restarting the system, it nevertheless still auto-opened Opera to the gambling site?

Finally, do you have Opera intentionally installed or set to turn on and appear automatically when your system is powered up, regardless of the system's default browser setting?