@leocg said in Instant search — change search engine:

@vince42 Above your speed dials there is a search box, unless you have hidden it in settings.
That's the search engine used by instant search.

Yes, disabled that right from the beginning. Why would I need (and waste space for) two search boxes?

And the main question remains unanswered: why would one want different search engine in different search boxes? Especially when there is no way to customize them?

Call me crazy, but I think most users would be quite happy, if they would choose one default search engine and the setting would be applied throughout the application.

Why does the Instant Search feature just apply the global search engine setting? I am using DuckDuckGo (region-independent) and expect the instant search to use this search engine as well? Why so complicated?!

@leocg Thanks for the clarification: In that case, the functionality is broken: I have DuckDuckGo as default search engine, which is used in the speed dial page - and the Instant Search is not using it, but Goggle.

@leocg said in Instant search — change search engine:

@vince42 I don't remember Opera using DDG in start page search anywhere. Do you get it with a clean installation?

After installing Opera, I set DDG as default engine and when I enter something in the address bar it delivers results from DDG. I do not know which start page you are referring to - that might be the reason.

To keep a long story short: why would I would like different search engines in my browser? It should suffice to say: this is my start page - use it everywhere, right?

@firipu said in Opera Touch - Flow with more devices:

Cannot agree more. I use about 3 desktop/laptops daily because of work. It sucks so hard I can't flow to all 3 of them.

It would be best, if Opera had created a sophisticated system, where you could manage your bookmarks, speed dials and flows together.

Unfortunately they decided to make bookmarks unavailable in Opera Touch, split speed dials per device without any management option and decided to make flow a new thing limited to two devices. I hope they will wake up and finally give us one unified sophisticated solution.

Years ago Opera was well known for bringing cool new features and improved the browsing experience with each verison - nowadays I am quite afraid of every new version, as they neglect power features and tend to fix things that ain't broken.

Well, hope dies last ... ^^

@leocg said in Instant search — change search engine:

@vince42 Already answered, Instant Search uses start page search engine.

Do you mean the default search engine that is active, when the speed dial page is open? I do not have a "start page" in Opera, my start page (when making a new window) is the speed dial page. How do I open the "start page"?

I also started a thread on ads in the newsfeed. It is simply terrible, especially as Opera is advertised with its ad-blocker as feature.

I really love all the Opera products and am a constant user since the early 90s - but this is really a no go. It finally made me disable the newsfeed in order to no longer be bothered by those humongeous ads.

If you need money, you could offer a paid version, but please revert this "through the back door funding". I prefer to have control over what I allow and disallow, what I see and what not - and being offended by ads in the newsfeed and the reading mode is all except that.

Sorry for being so straight, but I am really disappointed and recently had to recommend other browsers to my friends and colleagues, which I quite disliked.

Opera has always been spearheading everything: speed, W3C conformity, usability, new concepts - but nowadays, when I look at the profile management, some productivity shortcuts and recently the ad flood, it really made me sad and kinda upset. You are better than this.

Sorry, but removing bookmarks is really a no go. Who does make that kind of decisions? It is okay to have shiny new features, but why are you taking away core features? Not to mention the missing speed dial ...

Actually, I think, I will not undergo the effort to find out what goes wrong, when there is only a command line switch to toggle the behaviour. I rather stick to Firefox for development then. Hopefully it gets integrated in the future again.

@jbrandon I am really glad that I made my point clear and I highly appreciate your understanding and the effort you take in answering. I feel heard and understood - thank you for that!

I also hope that more users will add to this thread or somehow contribute to the "opinion building" about monetarizing your business model.

Good luck for all of us!

@53-north said in Automatic new Speed Dial entries:

@vince42 free ain't never going to be free of ads, on the t'internet.
A subscription service would get you peace.

Free can also be reduced in features compared to non-free / pro.

A paid version, free of all security flaws, clutter, spam and weirdness, would definitely be a great thing as stated above.

I always had full confidence in Opera - until they started making weird things like this. I am still an Opera user - but I am slowly pushed towards the edge.

My point is not, that those speed dial entries are easily spottable and removable, I have two major concerns: privacy and unwanted ads.

Privacy: Adding entries to my personal Speed Dial is a technical way which is prone to be abused in case of a hack, for example. The only person, who should have access to my personal data is me - nobody and nothing else. If you know

Unwanted Ads: Ads are for some of us simply annoying at best. Let's use a picture: You create an e-mail account with a provider, who is proudly telling you that he will not let any spam through. Nice. Once you have your account, he is sending you "promoted e-mails" every few days. You would probably consider them as spam. Why should it be acceptable, that my browser is behaving the same? And moreover my browser is also cluttering the news feed with "promoted ads"?

The least thing I would expect is a switch to turn all "promoted" bs on and that defaults to "off" upon installation - in all versions (desktop, mobile).

@leocg said in Automatic new Speed Dial entries:

Opera used to be a paid software. I don't know why they changed it to a free program but I guess it could be to reach more people, because few people really are willing to pay for a software.

Many vendors therefore offer a free version with ads or restricted functionality and a "pro version" without all the clutter.

I don't know why everybody thinks, that ads do not harm - they do.

And the unauthorized change of my Speed Dial entries is a direct intrusion into my privacy. period.

Please bring this issue to the attention of whoever it might concern. After being a user for decades I am really about to quit Opera for the above-mentioned behaviour.

@leocg said in Automatic new Speed Dial entries:

Well, promoted speed dial have been there a long time before ad-blocker has been introduced.

"promoted speed dial" is an euphemism for spam.

The next aspect is, that my bookmarks - which I always considered to be private and safe - are obviously modifiable by some means, which in return means, that somebody could hack the mechanism. This does not sound trustworthy.

Aside from "promoted speed dial" you also offer a free spam service called "ads in the news feed", when activated. I deactivated the news feed a long while ago, as it is simply annoying.

Is the enforcement placement of ads really the only way that Opera earns money?

If you are so desperate, why don't you offer a free and a really ad-free paid version? At least your product description in the Google Play Store does not mention that the browser "promotes" something - shouldn't you be clear in the description about this annoying behaviour?

I would love to have nicknames for bookmarks back.

In the good old days I could just hit Shift+F2 and enter the nickname. When the entered text were unique, I did not even have to press enter. It used to be such a time saver!

But "don't fix what ain't broken" is out of fashion in many areas - let's hope, that we will get this feature back in the future.

It should be possible though, as the Speed Dial entries would otherwise be nothing but spam, right?

I am using Opera in order to have ads blocked - it is counterproductive, when Opera blocks ads and instead delivers its own ads disguised as "Speed Dial Suggestions", which I cannot block. Or am I missing a point here aside from the "business model bla bla"?

Opera does automatically add new entries to my Speed Dial.

While I found a switch on Windows to disable this behaviour, I were not able to find a similar option on my Opera for Android.

How can I avoid becoming spammed by my beloved ad-blocking Opera?

I guess you are right. I worship privacy and dislike advertising - and I believe in self-determination as in GDPR, where privacy by design and privacy by default are highly recommended.

Perfect, thank you.

Just one more question: shouldn't this option be off by default?

Speed Dial automatically gets new entries.

It seems that some advertising partners of Opera pay for having them added automatically. I personally find this very annoying and I do not wish that "somebody" adds new entries to my Speed Dial.

Is there any way to suppress this behaviour?

This happens to the desktop and the mobile version.