I would check and see if your firewall can tone down its aggressiveness somewhere in the setting or consider trying a different firewall.

Indeed I could, but I want to have it that way. In my opinion a firewall which automatically decides which applications may access the internet and which not (so people who know nothing about computers don't need to worry about such things) isn't much of a firewall in terms of usefulness.

One of the given reasons is that if there are any issues with the new version, you can easily go back to the old one.

That will probably make sense. I mean usually I'd argue that there shouldn't be any need to downgrade so frequently that one would need a special feature for it. But I guess browser developers will sometimes need to release updates very quickly.
But still other browser architectures manage without such a naming.

Hello,

why does the installation folder include the current version? E.g. "C:\Users\XXX\AppData\Local\Programs\Opera\30.0.1835.88"?

This causes a constant issue with my firewall, as the program folder changes after each update and hence my Opera is auto-blocked by my firewall. I then need to re-grant Opera internet access privileges, as my firewall only allows known applications to access my network.

I don't know if other users experience this as similarly annoying, but I assume there may be the same issue other firewalls as well.

Is there any particular reason for this folder naming?

Best regards