With sadness and regret, I'm done with Opera. And I suggest you do as well

VPN
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After years of using Opera browser products across all my devices, I’m finally calling it quits with all of them. To be honest, it’s a miracle I stayed on-board for this long. I was first attracted to Opera after searching for a browser that could turn my browsing into a more efficient, completely customizable experience.

I first joined on at perhaps the browser’s peak, at Opera 11. Then came Opera 12; my expectations of what a browser could be has never been the same. Admittedly, at the expense of shaky website support, it had everything else I could ever want. And in my mind, it only get better from there. Boy was I wrong.

When the Presto engine was dropped, I didn’t know what to make of it. Opera 12 was changing. And drastically at that. Many features were moved, and later dropped. What came after, Chromium, Blink based Opera was a shadow of its former self.

But honestly, I was hopeful. And for a time, it almost seemed like I wouldn’t regret staying on. Sure, I’d heard about Vivaldi, but it was really bare bones when they started. And later on, some impressive features found their way back into Opera, honestly surprising me. I digged their new aesthetic.

However, their toxic and intrusive business practices have only become more apparent over time. I noticed the occasional Speed Dial ad. Ok, I just got rid of it. Only now, it just won’t stop. Every time I open the browser there’s something else there. And now, on my phone there was a huge Disney+ ad. And it keeps reappearing. It just. Won’t. Go. Away. Their VPN doesn’t instill confidence in regards to privacy.

So I’m not dealing with all the little inconveniences anymore. On top of that, I’ve been informed of their current controversy regarding the issuing of predatory loans. Is the forced ad revenue from the intrusive ads not enough? Not only am I forced to just talk about frustrating software, but about legitimately disgusting predatory business practices? What the hell? This is not what I signed up for 9 or 10 years ago.

So there we go. I’m done with Opera. And honestly, I suggest you all be as well. We all deserve better than this. They’ve pretty much tarnished their name and reputation.

It wasn’t an easy decision. It’s been so convenient being able to sync my preferences over all my devices. It’s going to take me months for my browsing to be a silver of the same as finding solutions for all my devices will take some time. There’s even an instance where I have 100 tabs open that I will have to manually move everything to another browser. It’s going to be a pain in the ass, but it will be worth it to finally shed Opera away.

After so many years, I can’t deny that it’s disappointing and saddening. That ‘O’ had pretty much become part of my digital identity. Usually, Opera was the first program, the first app, I installed on my devices. It just won’t be the same anymore.

Sorry for the long rant, but I really needed to get my anger out of my system. Hopefully, this might convince you to stop wasting your time with Opera, as I have. For anyone who bothered to read at least a little, thank you.

Looks like it’s finally time for me to reevaluate Vivaldi…

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The disney ad is definitely a tipping point. With all ads/promotions disabled in the mobile browser it was still forced on us.

They must have been well aware this would not go down well and did it anyway. That is a very desperate last ditch money grab at the expense of loyal users. They no longer care and are just doing anything to scrape a few bucks from their dwindling user base.

I put up with a lot of this from Opera over the years and accepted it because it was simply their business model and easily disabled. But this pushed it too far.

After 15+ years of using the browser I am jumping ship. Firefox on mobile is looking very promising with it’s support for ublock ad blocking.

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Even tho I no longer use Opera, it’s important to note that Opera is just trying to solve problems all browser makers (apart from Google) are trying to solve - making money.

Firefox laid off 70 employees this year - all developers and QA engineers because they made less money than they anticipated. More than 80% of Mozilla’s income comes from Google and to be completely honest, I don’t see their situation changing.

All their new services that are supposed to make money are low-margin experiments. Their VPN is rebranded Mullvad VPN, so they are most likely making small percentual commission. Their newly announced partnership with subscription based “ad-free” service Scroll is something we’ve seen before with Flattr. I, again, don’t see this experiment working out.

Now, we have Vivaldi you mentioned. Vivaldi is losing money and was losing money since they started. Founder and CEO Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner said that Vivaldi needs at least 1 million users to break even. This was in 2016 and since then, he’s been quiet. We don’t know how many users Vivaldi has and if the company is profitable. Jon is clearly not doing it for money, he’s a millionaire and quite charitable person, but for how long is he willing to fund his non-profitable company?

Brave Browser is shady as fuck and they are heavily involved in ad business, even with their recent announcements about partnering with “networks connecting brands with customers” and newly released ads in speed-dial. It’s optional, but for how long?

Now, when it comes to Opera predatory loan apps. I was disappointed as well. But then - few weeks later - there was new article on TechCrunch that shed more light on the situation.

The “investment research” company that published the “paper” about Opera is called Hindenburg Research. They are not your ordinary “research” company - they invest, they trade, they buy and they sell stock.

They did something they did before - they were short-selling Opera stock because they owned some of it. They recommended Opera stock to be sold at 70% discount price and the stock right after their article fell by 18%.

Hindenburg Research had financial motivation to slander Opera. Even tho Google initially banned Opera loaning apps after Hindenburg Research paper was public, Google reverted their position days later.

Even tho I find this loaning business weird and much alien to me, Hindenburg Research isn’t a company to trust.

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I’ve never seen an ad in my speed dial, in pc browser or in the android app, the adblocker works fine and VPN too, Opera has been my browser since 2006~ when I started using Opera Mini for java

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Browsers are in a weird position right now:

Opera, Mozilla, and Brave initially don’t seem very evil, but the facade starts to crack when doing more research.

Chrome and Edge don’t even try to hide their intentions, and do I really need to say anything about UC?

Vivaldi and Pale Moon seem like the only innocent ones, yet they’re hemorrhaging money.

Overall, I don’t trust Opera with my info or data, but I trust them to get the job done for the bare essentials… Worst comes to worst, I’ll jump to Firefox (or maybe Brave), but I’m just kind of confused.

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Interesting opinion piece. Curious to know what browser(s) you’ll be using moving forward. I’ve switched to Firefox on the desktop and Duck Duck Go on mobile devices. There’s no integration between the 2 but it meets most of my needs.

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people on this and other threads talking about ads, i only get them on fresh installs before disabling speed dial, and never get them again

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I got the Disney+ mobile popup thing as well. Interestingly it went away after I finally just clicked “try now” instead of “no thanks”. Then I simply closed the page. Haven’t seen it since

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I’ve been using Vivaldi for a long time now.

I only came to this subreddit because Opera which I had installed but never use decided to add itself to the task bar and launch a new window to inform me about the upgrade. Upon removing I noticed it was constantly, stealthily updating itself (last time on 04-02-20, so just a few days ago).
I have never checked any option that would allow it to do so. I do not appreciate this. Now I find out they’re pushing ads. Their VPN was extremely questionable to begin with (how are you paying for it. If not with money then with your data).

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I don’t think I will

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Well, good luck.

I don’t see you mentioning specific downsides. If you’re seeing ads, maybe you got some extension. I haven’t seen any ads for months.

Google also likes to make things a bit more crappy for other browsers, putting them at disadvantage.

Opera has removed the annoying google ad to install Chrome.

Recently I developed a plugin which prevents google from using tracking links on all browsers besides Chrome, which gives them the excuse of having Chrome “faster”, when in fact it’s no better.

I tried to work with Firefox, but it’s just too bloated, just like chrome.

Opera is also built on Chromeum, but they actually made an effort to change the ugly UI to clean UI, and adjusted functionality quite a bit.

The Opera VPN is actually just a proxy to hide your location. If you want a proper VPN, just buy one.

Anyway, I didn’t get to your stage, I must be using it in a different manner. I’m totally happy with it, rather than handing my whole life to google.

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I got into Opera post-chromium when I was younger, but switched to Vivaldi some time in college. It’s the natural fit for Opera deserters tbh. I still like Opera though — it and FF are my backups.

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I switched to Vivaldi last year and didn’t regret it a single second.

In terms of features it has almost everything opera has

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hey dude. no need to transfer 100 tabs. Install sessionbuddy. Save session in Json/html file.

install sessionbuddy on new browser. import this file. done.

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Thank you for giving me that final push. Vivaldi is great btw

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regret what? its a serch engine that anoys the living shit outta ppl, I’d be saying, good riddens…

and the next time Microshit puts it on my asystem without my permision they will be talking with friends noted to steel files from the FBI when they try to control the populace with crap you never wanted in the first place…

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Good luck to us both on our searches for new browsers! What are you using on your desktop?

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well with greed taking iver commonen sense these days I’ll smarter then the entiretly of microsoft and say… leave peopl alone until they ask for it, or you force it on them, and make them hate you and never use any of your stuff again… hence theyre actually earning less by spam advertising is hope of money’s indead of doing research… I believe it will eventually convert me to linux, given I’d rather catch up 30 in that then put up with frustration… microsoft -install opera "cuz you NEEED IT… Me, go f youself because I DONY HAW HAW, I spend roughly $1500 a year on your stuff, r you saying you dont want my money? and just wait for the stupifity to drain off theyre face

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I understand the need for tech companies that have a web browser as their main product to take on creative marketing strategies to remain profitable, but should that come as a detriment to user engagement and experience? No, quite frankly. I had been dealing with placed Speed Dial ads for quite a long time understanding this. But recently, these minor inconveniences (and major ones in the case of Opera mobile) had tested my patience more than I can bare, or what anyone should for that matter.

In regards to the loans and Hindenburg Research, thanks for informing me more about the issue. Although in my opinion, I find either party in the situation quite difficult to completely trust.

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If it works for you, then I suppose it works for you. I wish I had your experience.