This randomly popped up when I opened Opera today:

The problem is, I can't tell which features it's blocking, and there's not buttons or links to see which, or even which ports are being blocked or anything.

Is this the Opera updater being blocked? How do I find out what's going on? I consider it a security issue to get such an uninformative warning for "something" Opera is doing... if I can't tell, then I must leave it blocked, but it might be harmless and useful.

@leocg said in Which features is Windows 10 Defender Firewall blocking that Opera wants to do?:

@opedara The warning is not coming from Opera, so if it doesn't have enough information in your opinion, then you should write to Microsoft.

I know it's not coming from Opera. It's from Windows 10 Defender Firewall. My question wasn't about which program the warning is from.

My question is: Which Opera features is Windows 10 Defender Firewall blocking?

Obviously this means that opera.exe (shown in the screenshot) is trying to do something and the firewall is blocking and giving me the opportunity to unblock it. However, I don't know if I should unblock what Opera's trying to do, because I can't tell what it's trying to do; the firewall and Opera aren't telling me.

So, how do I find out what Opera is trying to do that Windows Defender Firewall is trying to block?

I'm not seeing the answer to the most important question here...

What is Opera trying to do through the port that Windows Firewall is blocking? This is a question that Opera people should be able to answer more than Microsoft people, because Microsoft didn't write Opera.

The firewall appears to be doing its job; blocking a port by default then prompting me to OK or Cancel Opera from using that port that it normally blocks.

In order for me to know if I should allow Opera through that port on Private Networks, I want to know what Opera is trying to do over that port when I get the prompt. I'm not seeing an answer to that yet.

@leocg How do we identify it? If it's useful and not a real security risk, I'd be OK enabling it.

If there's any concern at all, like I've read with hacks and vulnerabilities opened up through unnecessary or improper port use (ahem, Dell Support Assist), then I'd like to leave it permanently blocked.

@leocg The dialog asks to allow or cancel, and it keeps popping up randomly over time, which is why this thread exists. Clicking Cancel or X or whatever doesn't give a choice of rules. You're talking about something else or you're not understanding what users are seeing.

Are you saying that once the dialog is cancelled, we have to go to the firewall rules for Opera, and then do whatever there to stop the dialogs?

And then what if we're OK with the entries, even if they're all denied? Apparently having them set automatically after we click Cancel doesn't stop the dialog. So even if we like the entries, we have to do what...? Save them again manually? Change them, then change them back? This is kind of silly. Oh I forgot to mention again that Opera is the only app I'm having the issue with.

@leocg So you're saying the other browsers add entries to my firewall but Opera doesn't?

Which entries do you mean?

If Opera needs something through the firewall, and it doesn't add the entry to the firewall, but other browsers do, why doesn't Opera add its entries to the firewall?

Which entries does Opera want to use, anyway? What exactly does it want to do through these entries? Why does it operate perfectly fine without me needing to manually enable firewall entries? I'm still seeing nothing showing that it's not a security risk.

@leocg So, saying it's not a problem and how the web works is brushing away the point of the post... it's a problem if it keeps popping up and we can't tell what exactly it's asking us to stop blocking. Chrome updates just fine without triggering a firewall prompt; same with Firefox and Edge. What Opera's doing is not normal, and is concerning, as is anything that triggers the pop-up (I mean, we all fully understand the point of a firewall right, and why it pops up confirm/deny prompts), especially when we can't tell what exactly it's trying to do.

So, since apparently Opera's dev team hasn't shown up to tell us what's going on, how do we find out?

So far I just cancel the pop-up, because I don't have enough information to know whether to stop blocking something my operating system's firewall is automatically blocking, but it's annoying having to deal with it. The security risk is at this point not worth the convenience, until I get more information.

@geophoenix Who had useful information? mathewab786? Why was his post deleted?

This Really looks fishy now. I thought it did before, but now...

What's going on, Opera developers?

I feel like they're trying to spy on us or collect information through our firewall in a way that should remain blocked.

I'll continue blocking it until I see adequate information for what exactly they want and why it needs to be there. Since no other browser I use does this, I see no reason for Opera to need to do it too. This is creepy AF.

@leocg said in Which features is Windows 10 Defender Firewall blocking that Opera wants to do?:

@jhl As expected.

I'm hoping everyone realizes that this is not a good thing, completely unnecessary, and should never happen.

The user can't see what exactly it's trying to access, and shouldn't have to go through a long technical forum thread to try to understand it or resolve it.

No other apps I open do this. It's a security concern. Opera developers need to fix it. We shouldn't have concern randomly opening the app that it needs a firewall port opened for some unspecified reason.

I can't believe this thread is still going on

Neither can I believe that I still randomly get firewall prompts from Opera.

regarding you not having issues with other browsers, probably there are rules for them already

I never got prompts from them; they just work. I have zero security concern with them because they're not asking me to enable them on the firewall

This thread is dead. The moderators aren't understanding the concern, and it's just going in circles of denial and deflection.

Oh well. I'll just keep declining the firewall prompt... I use Opera for a specific reason, but maybe I need to reduce its number of users even though I enjoy using different browsers and not just supporting the big machines.

I can't believe this thread is still going on

Neither can I believe that I still randomly get firewall prompts from Opera.

regarding you not having issues with other browsers, probably there are rules for them already

I never got prompts from them; they just work. I have zero security concern with them because they're not asking me to enable them on the firewall

This thread is dead. The moderators aren't understanding the concern, and it's just going in circles of denial and deflection.

Oh well. I'll just keep declining the firewall prompt... I use Opera for a specific reason, but maybe I need to reduce its number of users even though I enjoy using different browsers and not just supporting the big machines.

@leocg The dialog asks to allow or cancel, and it keeps popping up randomly over time, which is why this thread exists. Clicking Cancel or X or whatever doesn't give a choice of rules. You're talking about something else or you're not understanding what users are seeing.

Are you saying that once the dialog is cancelled, we have to go to the firewall rules for Opera, and then do whatever there to stop the dialogs?

And then what if we're OK with the entries, even if they're all denied? Apparently having them set automatically after we click Cancel doesn't stop the dialog. So even if we like the entries, we have to do what...? Save them again manually? Change them, then change them back? This is kind of silly. Oh I forgot to mention again that Opera is the only app I'm having the issue with.

@leocg So you're saying the other browsers add entries to my firewall but Opera doesn't?

Which entries do you mean?

If Opera needs something through the firewall, and it doesn't add the entry to the firewall, but other browsers do, why doesn't Opera add its entries to the firewall?

Which entries does Opera want to use, anyway? What exactly does it want to do through these entries? Why does it operate perfectly fine without me needing to manually enable firewall entries? I'm still seeing nothing showing that it's not a security risk.

@geophoenix Who had useful information? mathewab786? Why was his post deleted?

This Really looks fishy now. I thought it did before, but now...

What's going on, Opera developers?

I feel like they're trying to spy on us or collect information through our firewall in a way that should remain blocked.

I'll continue blocking it until I see adequate information for what exactly they want and why it needs to be there. Since no other browser I use does this, I see no reason for Opera to need to do it too. This is creepy AF.

@leocg said in Which features is Windows 10 Defender Firewall blocking that Opera wants to do?:

@jhl As expected.

I'm hoping everyone realizes that this is not a good thing, completely unnecessary, and should never happen.

The user can't see what exactly it's trying to access, and shouldn't have to go through a long technical forum thread to try to understand it or resolve it.

No other apps I open do this. It's a security concern. Opera developers need to fix it. We shouldn't have concern randomly opening the app that it needs a firewall port opened for some unspecified reason.

You called the incoming connection unusual and I asked why, a normal question.

No, I didn't call the incoming connection unusual, so you misread my question.

My question was: "Is it possible that something on that website is trying to access the opera.exe in an unusual way?"

That's not me stating that something (or anything in particular) is unusual, that's me asking if something on that website is trying to access the opera.exe in an unusual way... it's not only a yes/no question but asking for any thoughts or speculation on something on that website that might be trying to access the opera.exe in an unusual way...

Anyway, I'm done with this conversation. It's mostly been vague or not very useful information, misreads, red herrings and rabbit holes... I've gotten more useful info from past or offsite threads like the one I mentioned about the mDNS on UDP port 5353. This forum is apparently not the place to discuss what the !@#$ Opera is doing trying to get through my firewall in an unusual way quite often, and twice over the last week on different websites, including Opera's default start page.

Really disappointed with this thread, no need to take it personal or take jabs in replies, I probably won't read them anyway until they contain concrete hard facts that can connect the dots, which will probably never be stated here because Opera's doing something fishy or stupidly unnecessary that's a security risk to us, and I'm glad my firewall is blocking it.

@leocg This thread isn't going anywhere but in circles, and I feel like you're dodging something or not telling us something.

The main question has not been explained adequately, only vaguely. I still don't have enough information to feel safe enabling Opera doing whatever it's trying to do through the firewall, because we don't know exactly what it's trying to do, or why it's so stupid about it. Opera should do better. We should expect better.

It pops up when either I open the app or go to a website in it, like YouTube, or Facebook, or you name it. It's completely random apparently.

Why unusual?

Wh... what do you mean "Why unusual?" That doesn't make sense within the context of my question. How am I even supposed to attempt to answer that? That's a really bizarre response.

I'm honestly wondering if there's a language barrier here. I'm done pleading for information. Some crafty hacker will just have to see what Opera's doing, we shouldn't be wasting time here with a moderator on this issue that asks weird questions and makes weird statements and provides inadequate answers.

I'm used to the way Chrome, Firefox, and Edge do Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab... the shortcuts just go to the next/previous tab.

In Opera, a tabs preview opens so that supposedly I can hold down Ctrl or Shift+Ctrl and hit the Tab key to cycle to the tab I want then let go.

I find this typically obnoxious though, as I usually just want to go forward or back a tab, and if I want to go to a certain further tab, I'll just click the tab.

I can understand the use of the overview, I just don't like it as the default behavior of Ctrl/Shift+Tab... it might be nice for it to have its own shortcut that I can activate when I want, and have Ctrl/Shift+Tab behave like other more-popular browsers that I'm used to.

I'm not seeing where in settings to change these things... so are these in settings, and if so, where?

If there are no rules, then you will be prompted to decide what to do.

There are rules... the rules you told me to delete... which I didn't delete, for the reasons I stated. I still get prompted, like tonight. The problem really wasn't me getting prompted or not getting prompted, the problem was me not knowing what Opera's blocked inbound request was trying to do... so I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say here.

It's fine that WebRTC is part of the web... but knowing that doesn't reduce my security concern here.

If there are rules, the firewall will follow them and you will not be prompted to allow the connection or not.

Right, that makes sense with not seeing the pop-up again for that inbound request... but the problem isn't the firewall or its rules... the problem is not knowing what Opera's trying to do with its inbound request that Windows Firewall blocks by default.

Firewalls don't exactly check the security of a connection, they check if there is a rule to allow or block that connection. If there aren't any rules, they will ask you what to do and that's why you see the dialog asking to allow or not the connection.

OK, so at this point Opera's the only app causing the pop-ups... so... I'm really curious why so many. I'm assuming that clicking Cancel sets a rule to continue blocking requests that match the rule, and with no prompt.

It may not be an Opera server.

So a non-Opera server is trying to make an inbound request to the opera.exe and the firewall prompts me to block or allow... yet I use 5 different browsers, and Opera's the only one this happens with.

PS: It happened again tonight, after clicking a Business Insider link from a Facebook post.

Is it possible that something on that website is trying to access the opera.exe in an unusual way? How would it even try? The problem is I can't tell what's actually trying to do what.

Because this only happens while using Opera, I have to side with the thought that the problem is somehow Opera...

@burnout426 I'm not gonna delete the firewall's inbound rules for Opera, because I have a concern about what Opera is trying to do that the firewall is blocking... I understand what you're trying to say with your suggestion (so I can test the link you provide), but the suggestion is counter to the issue I have a concern with. I hope you can understand that I'm not going create the security risk I'm trying to avoid. The whole point of the post was to find out what exactly Opera is trying to do when I get the firewall pop-ups.

I understand that it may be Opera updating its exe to a new folder, though I don't see how that causes a new inbound connection from Opera's servers, nor do I see any reason to unblock it, because I can't tell what that new inbound connection is trying to do.

I don't have WebRTC that I'm aware of, and going to your link seems to test just fine (though I didn't remove the blocked inbound Opera connections as you suggested, for the security reasons I stated above). I don't use WebRTC that I'm aware of, and regardless I don't know why Opera would be trying to access WebRTC when I open it up or create a new inbound connection that the firewall considers a security risk or why I need it anyway. Why would Opera be trying to send me a new inbound connection through WebRTC when I open it? That sounds like a really strange thing to do.

I understand how the firewall pop-up dialog works; I don't need it explained (in fact I already explained in my original post, as well as saying that I already did the things you're saying I should do now).

I don't have any other choice in the firewall pop-up than to click Cancel if I don't want the connection to be unblocked... normally in dialogs, "Cancel" doesn't change anything, but sometimes that doesn't stop the same pop-ups from happening over and over. Considering I've only ever clicked Cancel on the firewall pop-up (in regards to Opera), I can't explain why I've gotten them multiple times. They look identical. They don't identify anything I can distinguish as specific. Maybe this is from each new file name? I don't know, but I still haven't been able to determine what the inbound connection is trying to do through that new file.

I suppose if still nobody can state exactly what the Opera server's inbound connection is trying to do when the firewall prompt appears, then how do we find out? Do we need Wireshark tracking? I mean, maybe it's completely innocuous, but I've been able to figure out why other programs do it... not Opera. It still seems to be a mystery, and for me with this program it's a security risk.