In a Tech Radar review, the author wrote the following:

"Some find it troubling that in 2016, Opera was sold to a Chinese consortium. The country’s tech companies have been in the news in the past for controversial privacy policy and data sharing issues. That said, Opera does claim to allow you to disable certain data collection processes in settings... If privacy is your priority or you have sensitive data that you need to keep safe, Opera probably isn’t the best choice. Otherwise, there are a number of tools and settings that will keep you reasonably protected while browsing with Opera.

Two questions: 1) What are these tools and settings to keep us safe while browsing? 2) How would one go about disabling this data collection?

@hkmquis As I've been told several times before, it boils down to a matter of trust. Do you trust Opera OR do you trust 1Password? If they are advising against Opera then you've going to have to make a decision. For my part, I love the Opera of old and cannot bring myself to fully trust the Opera under Chinese ownership. Call me paranoid, but that is where my level of trust comes into play. You have to make your own decision as Leo will undoubtedly advise you.

@leocg Thanks. Well, that's very unfortunate. I guess I'll bookmark Ecosia and use it just as I would a popular bookmark. I don't understand why pre-defined engines should be limited but I guess it is what it is. Thanks for the information, Leo.

@magicmiles Entirely agree. Opera, are you listening?

@dunjineer It's very unfortunate that you have left before others could possibly help you find a way to resolve this. I entirely agree with you regarding Facebook which is a blight on our civilization. Both my wife and I removed our accounts a few years back and we're so glad we did. None of my immediate family retains a FB account at this point so the fact that Opera is now trying to foist it on you is ridiculous. I don't know whether you are still around but hopefully Leo or someone else (Burnout? treego? Blackbird?) will be able to find a solution. And please, don't go to Firefox. Try Vivaldi if you're determined to leave Opera.

@passenger-chi It isn't worth anything in terms of the OP issue. He needs to define what "isn't working" means before a resolution can be found. Simply saying that you don't have a problem means nothing.

@giacomorutili I'm not sure if this is what you mean but this is what I've done. Go into the settings and then go to Advanced, Shortcuts and Configure shortcuts. Scroll down to Sidebar and make your own shortcut. I made mine s. Now when I click on s the sidebar toggles on or off.

@treego Ah! I knew treego would enter the fray. Thanks for having the solution. Hopefully dunjineer is still around.

@vkull You can disagree all you like but that doesn’t change the fact that flash is an outmoded technology. At least you are aware of the security risks using it entails. Find other games. It’s over, my friend.

@passenger-chi It isn't worth anything in terms of the OP issue. He needs to define what "isn't working" means before a resolution can be found. Simply saying that you don't have a problem means nothing.

@magicmiles Entirely agree. Opera, are you listening?

@mrasaad Yes, I know this. But that was not my point. Were Opera to provide this we would remain here at Opera. Isn't that the whole point... to keep your users here? You can sell to them here. You can build brand loyalty here. You can develop a sense of community here. Why did the original Opera company provide this? Why does Vivaldi continue to offer it? Even after Opera dropped its Presto engine and went over to the dark side, so to speak, it continued to offer the user blogs and in so doing many remained. But once it indicated that this feature would be dropped, most of the bloggers who remained downloaded the information they still had and departed for Vivaldi and for other browsers. There was now a crack in the brand loyalty which went as far as many of Opera's developers who did not leave with the first wave but remained. I know I'm beating a dead horse now so we can probably just drop the conversation and kill the thread.

@treego Ah! I knew treego would enter the fray. Thanks for having the solution. Hopefully dunjineer is still around.

@dunjineer It's very unfortunate that you have left before others could possibly help you find a way to resolve this. I entirely agree with you regarding Facebook which is a blight on our civilization. Both my wife and I removed our accounts a few years back and we're so glad we did. None of my immediate family retains a FB account at this point so the fact that Opera is now trying to foist it on you is ridiculous. I don't know whether you are still around but hopefully Leo or someone else (Burnout? treego? Blackbird?) will be able to find a solution. And please, don't go to Firefox. Try Vivaldi if you're determined to leave Opera.

@leocg Thanks. Well, that's very unfortunate. I guess I'll bookmark Ecosia and use it just as I would a popular bookmark. I don't understand why pre-defined engines should be limited but I guess it is what it is. Thanks for the information, Leo.

How do I make Ecosia my default search engine? I've tried adding it under Manage Search engines but it does not seem to want to move up to the suggested engines.

@giacomorutili I'm not sure if this is what you mean but this is what I've done. Go into the settings and then go to Advanced, Shortcuts and Configure shortcuts. Scroll down to Sidebar and make your own shortcut. I made mine s. Now when I click on s the sidebar toggles on or off.

@jerasquin I can't see how this can be done. Since you cannot prove that you are the person in the old account (i.e. having no codes, as you put it and having lost the authenticator app), there doesn't appear to be a way to legitimately delete the account. I say this because I'm essentially in the same situation having a former account that is impossible for me to access for similar reasons to your own. So, I simply created a new account and left the former behind. I don't see it as a problem.