I've been using Opera for about 2 hours.

After installing a few extensions, the next order of business was to see what's going on with the Speed Dial.

Monkeyfish8 wrote:

Go the website using the speed-dial link, click the heart and choose a new picture.

Thank you for sharing the procedure, Monkeyfish8. It wasn't intuitive at all!

Specifically, when you open the speed dial link and click on the heart, you get a half dozen or so pictures you can choose from. After playing with two weather websites, I found one acceptable (usable) picture for each website from the choices I was given. I hope my luck holds out with additional websites, because the choice of pictures that are offered is pretty limited.

With this speed dial, half the time I find myself typing into the Google search field instead of the URL bar. You think the Google field is big enough? Are you sure the placement smack-dab, big-in-the-middle really translates into profits for Google? I mean, it's not like I need their overgrown search field there or else I'll forget they exist.

"If you don't want to use it, you don't have to."

But, if you don't want to use it, it's pretty big, and smack-dab in the middle, which isn't too ergonomic or pleasant for something that you don't even want.

I went into "Manage Search Engines," I added an "Other Search Engine," and I'm still waiting to see where my added choice is going to show up in the GUI. (Sure would have been nice if it had changed that Google field.)

Ugh; this typing field doesn't have a vertical scroll bar, and my mouse-wheel doesn't scroll to the top of what I've written. (Using the arrow-key workaround.) Maybe I'm typing too much.

Thanks for tolerating,
-n-

@jbrandon

Moto G5 Plus, Android.

I tried turning on News.

The first time I browsed it, within 5 minutes, I turned it off. There was too much "cheap clickbate."

I think it reflected poorly on Opera.

I'm reading other comments about News' poor configurability, such as not being able to affect sources. I would like, therefore, to thank you for allowing it to be turned off, at least.

@salmiak That wasn't too painful. Thanks for the cure. Back in business.

I can't help wonder why VPN Pro worked a few times, and then errored... and I couldn't use it on this Win10 machine for a year...

Occasionally, there should be non-complaining fan-mail on the forums.

The other's VPNs charge too much. But for $24 per year, I'm happy to have Opera VPN, even if I only activate it occasionally. Besides, I appreciate the opportunity to pay Opera for a service -- any service, since I've been comfortable using the browser for years.

My Swiss bank account will be auto-charged in a few days when my 2nd year of Opera VPN begins, and I'm delighted.

Even the non-Pro version is a gift.

My VPN Pro is on an antique Chromebook, a new Android tablet, and a Windows laptop. I'm about to replace the Chromebook (with a newfangled Asus CM30), and I hope moving the VPN from the old laptop to the new laptop will be a fairly easy procedure. Thanks.

Opera on Pixel 8.

There's no update link. I suggest that to improve the warm and fuzzy feeling, the field that displays the Opera version should mention "You don't have to do anything; Opera automatically updates. Don't worry about it. Nothing can go wrong."

Assuming that's what's going on.

Some of us are used to a virtual button to check for the update status. Opera displays the current version number, but that doesn't tell me if my Opera is updated. Without including a statement as suggested, the user has no way of knowing if the displayed version number is the latest update, or what.

On a tangent, Aria is wonderful.

@konstan-m
Agreed. 130 dB dynamic range is wonderful, but it's not appropriate in noisy environments like the car. Or in case of hearing problems, when it might help for the volume level to be more steady.

Audio volume level compression would raise all the soft sounds so they're almost as loud as the loud sounds. Good for Clasical music in the car. Pop music is already compressed out of the factory, to make it easy to listen to anywhere.

McIntosh had equipment in the 70s that included audio level compression, and it cost thousands of dollars. And they broke the audio spectrum into 3 bands, so as the bass, mids, and tebles got louder and softer, they would all be held steady, independently. If the volume of the entire frequency range is compressed as a single band, a bass beat might cause the mids and trebles to pump.

Should be easy to add a little DSP, multi band, digital signal processing in the Equalizer app to do the same thing, easily. Make those octacores work for a living.

Now that you mention it, I have found Opera-For-Android-Tablets' native ad-blocker to be disappointingly lackluster. But, no add-ons allowed, so improvements in the Opera experience are complicated if not impossible.

@Rasan wrote:

ad-blocking DNS

That's a good idea. If I can't make it work, then I'll have to switch my tablet's browser to Firefox, my other favorite alternative browser. They allow add-ons for Android, and have a million of them. If I miss Synch-ing, then I'll have to move a few of my devices to Firefox, not only this tablet.

Still, frustrated by Opera not allowing extensions on tablets. Most recent annoyance: I did a "private" Internet search, where Opera doesn't allow websites to access my stored cookies. For the private-search returns, half the webpage was filled with requests for cookie permissions and options, which is tedious, unnecessary, and annoying. If Opera for Android would accept add-ons, I would have installed a No-Thank-You-For-Cookie-Permission-Requests add-on. Instead, my only option is to be dissatisfied with Opera.

Ok, easiest is to go to Settings, then search within Settings for "DNS." The next question is how much will a subscription cost for an ad-blocking DNS service, since Opera For Androids' doesn't work so good. Minor point -- I'll be surprised if an add-blocking DNS can block cookie-permission requests...

@domovnik wrote:

Add a Compressor/Limiter

Amen. There are environments where 100 dB dynamic range is undesirable. E.g., in the car where you can't hear the soft passages; or at night where loud passages may wake up the baby...

Also, apparently, when your hearing isn't so good anymore -- for instance, post Led Zeppelin -- reduced dynamic range can be helpful, since the Pain Threshold becomes an issue.

On a tangent, a lesson I'd like to pass on to y'all: Just because your ears don't hurt doesn't mean the volume isn't up too loud.

@gxkelvin017 Just because your ears don't hurt doesn't mean the music's not too loud.

@koczek37 135 MB, at the moment. Android 8.1.

@ziya89

When I start Opera, it opens a couple of dozen processes (all named "Opera"). Plus an Opera Update process. Depending on how much maintenance and updating Opera requires, a lot of CPU threads might be worked pretty hard for a few minutes.

Recommend go to the website of the manufacturer that made your CPU. Find out what the maximum allowable Temperature is. Temperature rising might not be a problem if it's not going above the max allowed temperature.

Laptops and desktops are designed to provide sufficient cooling even if all the cores are working a sustained 100%. If your CPU is going over the max allowed temperature, then the heat-sink compound on the CPU might need refreshing. Or if it's a laptop, its air-ducts might need cleaning out.

Hopefully, your laptop has a hatch over the air duct and CPU that you can open, and remove any dust bunnies. It doesn't have to be a perfectly clean job, just a periodic one. Can of compressed air is optional. Worse case is if the laptop has no hatch, but instead needs to be disassembled to access the air duct and CPU. In that case, maybe youtube has a video showing how to [partially] disassemble Your particular laptop so you can access the air duct and CPU. And then you gotta decide if it's something you can do or if the laptop will need professional help.

My laptop is old, they hadn't invented hatches yet, so it requires partial disassembling to clean out the duct, which I've never had done. Instead, I turn off the laptop, fold it up, and puff hard a few times into the exhaust vent. That usually results in a big puff of dust jettisoning out of the air intake. To be concise, I'm blowing into the duct with a puff of air that's going opposite of the air's normal direction, which pushes accumulated dust away from the fan and hopefully out the air intake vent. I puff so hard I can hear the fan spinning for a moment. Sometimes I see a puff of dust come out of the air intake, sometimes I don't, but regardless, the CPU's operating temperature drops from the high 60s to the mid 50s, anyway. At high loads, the highest temperature gets into the low 70s before puffing, but stays in the 60s after puffing. The specified high-temperature is 100 degrees C, but it's an old laptop, so I'm not going to wait for the temperature to get close to maximum before refreshing the air duct. When I start seeing 70s, it's high time to blow out the laptop. Besides stressing the CPU, high temperatures would also stress the fan because it has to run faster.

There's probably still some cat hair in there that won't come out just from blowing. But the improvement is probably 99% of what it would be if the laptop were taken apart.

I blow out the laptop in the shower, or outdoors (upwind), because you don't need to let go a puff of accumulated dust in your living area. Recommend: Before you PUFF into the air exhaust vent, point the air intake vent away from you; lol.

For desktops, I take the computer outside and blow out all the dust I can find, especially around the CPU, using a can of compressed air. It doesn't have to be a perfectly clean job, but only periodic. Be gentle so the jet of air doesn't dislodge delicate components.

It's good that you keep an eye on your CPU temperature. I use CoreTemp to keep the temperature displayed continuously in the Windows' toolbar. You can display the temperature of every core (which can take a lot of real estate, with CPUs having so many cores these days). I find it sufficient to set CoreTemp to display the temperature of only the one core with the highest temperature.

Just installed the equalizer. Thanks mucho. There was an instruction to close and reopen the tab that I want the equalizer to be active on. I did that, but the EQ was still inactive, and I got scared. I had to restart Opera, and then the EQ was active. Full disclosure: Windows 7. Perhaps the instruction needs to be updated. Having an equalizer is so fantastic, restarting the browser was no problem.

When I wave the mouse over an EQ slider, the mouse cursor changes to a big sloppy hand. A smaller, more precise mouse cursor would be more appropriate for the small slider controls. Maybe the extension could provide its own mouse cursor, perhaps a nice pointy arrow.

After playing with the EQ for a few seconds, I wanted to return the settings to Flat, but it wasn't a choice anywhere, and I got scared. It took me a while to find out that it's called Default. So, no problem.

I thought it would be helpful if there were a numerical readout for each slider, in dB's. It wouldn't have to be accurate, just something to make the sliders a little more quantifiable. Then I realized there are tick-marks every 5 dB's. That works 100% for me, don't need numerical readout anymore, so no problem.

In summary, I give the audio equalizer 5-stars-out-of-5.

Now I need better speakers, newer ears, and more World citizens demanding more progressive rock. And remember that just because your ears don't hurt doesn't mean the music's not too loud.