Best posts made by opedara

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'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?

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

@opedara There can be many things since in the modern web your computer/browser also works as a server.
What were you doing when that dialog appeared?

It works as a server? For what? I don't think I want Opera acting as a server from my laptop...

The pop-up happened when I opened Opera. I stated that in my original post.