Updating without user consent and without even informing the user afterwards is completely unacceptable and unheard of, so I don't think it works like that.

In fact I'm sure that a few versions ago I could go to the About Opera page, see the current version, be told if a new version was available, and click an "Update Opera" button if I wanted to update to that version.

So there is really no normal / "conformist" way to disable automatic updates, or at least to get Opera to ask for user consent ? It can only be done by hacking into some files / folders ?

@lando242 "If you don't like it, don't use it." Instead, I use whatever I consider convenient for me to use, and I don't need it to be perfect otherwise I wouldn't be using anything at all, and I don't need to pretend it has no defects, and Opera doesn't need its users to refrain from discussing problems and only discuss its strong points. If you don't like posts about Opera problems, just ignore them, instead of crying about someone saying something not positive about Opera. Or even better, provide some constructive help to the original poster to solve the problem.

@blackbird71 You have cut my quote conveniently. I said that Opera is the only software product I ever heard of that offers no control whatsoever on the update process, which was meant to indicate that this behavior is very unusual, not that it's unique. I confirm that so far I never heard of any other product with such behavior, and this appears to be the case for you too, since you could just vaguely mention "one or two free antivirus, unless I'm mistaken" (even if you come up with a list now, it'd be only because you had to look for such products), and since the Windows 10 doc I linked actually does not appear to apply only to Enterprise but to all editions and it explains f.ex. that

...updates will be automatically downloaded and installed whenever they’re available. (Unless you’re on a metered connection, in which case the updates won’t download until you opt to get them.).

Of course you can call that "not real" control if you want, but that's definitely some level of control, very different from the zero level offered by Opera, and that level of control would be definitely enough for the Opera users who want more control on the updates in order to avoid updating while on an expensive connection or a connection with limited amount of traffic before expensive rates kick in. So it's simply not true that Windows 10 non-Enterprise offers the same level of control on updates as Opera.

BTW this started to look like a pointless religion war so I'm out of it.

Maybe theres is something wrong in the Windows register? Before I had here in Win10 the older Opera 12.x as default browser, maybe something has left from it in register that blocks new Opera?

Glad that you solved your problem. However if in future you reinstall Opera again, after uninstalling it you could try to clean your registry using f.ex. cCleaner or another cleaning tool, so at least you can rule out the registry as the cause of the problem.

Yes, I heard of Windows 10, maybe you meant that I never heard that it offers no control whatsoever on the update process.
But regardless of your choice of tone, is that what you wanted to imply ?

If yes, it would mean that f.ex. this Microsoft documentation titled Choose how updates are installed only applies to enterprise versions and Microsoft didn't specify that; that would be surprising, but you seem to know a lot about Windows 10 so it's probably so. But even if that turns out to be true, it wouldn't change much, unless you can mention at least a couple of mainstream software products that behave like Opera.

I wonder if - after deciding to force autoupdate on users by removing any option to choose when to update - Opera will also address all these hacks meant to disable autoupdate, in order to neutralize them (hacks that are usually done in order to be able to continue using Opera instead of having to switch to other browsers, ironic huh ?).

Opera is the only software product I ever heard of that offers no control whatsoever on the update process and forces the users to resort to hacks against the product.

@dcouzin, more hacks are described here.

@haleba Thanks a lot for the environment variable info. It's the simplest workaround of all and the only one that is not a hack, since from the name OPERA_AUTOUPDATE_DISABLED I infer that disabling automatic updates is exactly its purpose. This environment variable should be advertised much more in my opinion.

This makes it even more awful that Opera doesn't contain a related option. Whatever.

I find it funny that, every time theres a new Opera releases, we get a half dozen people complaining about the auto update updating their Opera and another half dozen people complaining that the auto update isn't updating their Opera...

I find it normal instead. The first group is the people who would keep the autoupdate option set to "notify me that an update is available", the second group is the people who would keep the autoupdate option set to "update automatically". It's not surprising that some people prefer it in one way and other people prefer it in the other way.

BTW, for the record, I did not complain that my Opera autoupdated but that they removed the option for the user to decide when to update. I always update to the latest version (unless there are known issues with a certain version), I just want to be free to do it when I decide to.

Yes, removing the update task through CCleaner will do, as will several other hacks.

Back to my point, I was not criticizing doing auto-update without asking. If the user leaves that setting on, good for him/her. I am criticizing not providing options to at least decide when to update (also not even informing the user that a new version is now in his/her computer, but this is just bad taste while the lack of an option has very practical ramifications).

In some cases, you can disable auto-update in the settings...

By saying that, you are saying that in all the other cases the user cannot even disable auto-update. I only encountered such behaviour in Opera so far (certainly not in Flash nor Skype). Can you mention which other products you are talking about that behave like Opera ?

leocg,

Don't tell Microsoft about that.

Even they do know that. Through a simple option and not through a hack, you can set Windows Update to inform you when there is an update and let you decide when to install it. And that goes for absolutely any Microsoft product I ever used so far, so I'm not sure what you are referring to. It's true that Microsoft seems to be going to that direction starting from Windows 10, but still with related options available in the product itself, and in a very mild way compared to the severity of a complete lack of options in the product and zero information that an update took place.

Forcing users to update and removing the possibility for them to decide when to update (f.ex. what about "not when I'm on a slow or expensive connection" or "not now that I'm in a hurry" or "not to that new version that my video driver is known to have an issue with" and so on ?) is a surprisingly fascist attitude, especially because this is done silently so most users won't even find out unless they routinely check the version. I thought this kind of mindset didn't belong in Opera. Even Windows 10 allows to prevent automatic download of updates on a connection basis, and it lets the user decide on which connections.

I have never had on any of my computers any single product that behaves like Opera in this regard. Actually I would be interested to know other products that do that.

davidr, thanks for the link; luckily I'm not a non-technical user so I can do that quite safely.

Updating without user consent and without even informing the user afterwards is completely unacceptable and unheard of, so I don't think it works like that.

In fact I'm sure that a few versions ago I could go to the About Opera page, see the current version, be told if a new version was available, and click an "Update Opera" button if I wanted to update to that version.

So there is really no normal / "conformist" way to disable automatic updates, or at least to get Opera to ask for user consent ? It can only be done by hacking into some files / folders ?

I don't know at which version this behavior started because Opera wasn't telling me that it was updating so I don't know how many times it has automatically installed a new version.

I realized the new behavior just because the Opera icon on the desktop suddenly looked different, otherwise I wouldn't have realized that not even now.

The version I have now is 33.0.1990.43 .