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PLEASE HELP: Opera Web Browser: Is It Safe?

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BeautifulWoman_1984

Contributor
Original poster
Sep 5, 2016
536
70
Hey guys,

I'm asking this question on MacRumors because I've come to trust this community with my serious questions.

I've had experience running Mozilla Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Edge, but not Opera.

Is Opera a trustworthy company? Does Opera take user privacy seriously?

Thank you so much for any help!
 
I've never seriously used Opera, but at the same time they've been around since fairly early in the "consumer internet" days-25 years now, or about the same time as when Netscape came out.

Of course it's a much different browser now than when I first tried it 15 years ago, but at the same time they wouldn't have stuck around that long if there wasn't something good about them. I know some devoted users-the userbase isn't as big as Chrome or Firefox, but it's there.
 
BeautifulWoman_1984 said:
Hey guys,

I'm asking this question on MacRumors because I've come to trust this community with my serious questions.

I've had experience running Mozilla Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Edge, but not Opera.

Is Opera a trustworthy company? Does Opera take user privacy seriously?

Thank you so much for any help!
Click to expand...

I'm kinda flumoxed about all these threads you create and pretty much all seem to have the same theme.

At some time you need to take responsibility for your own actions and not use MR as a crutch.

I say this because I fear you learn nothing by always asking and that will actually have an inverse result.

If you never learn to discover these answers for yourself then you'll always be at risk.

Sometimes you need to fall off the bike and graze your knees in order to learn.
 
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I primarily use Firefox with duckduck go search. Had used Opera sporadically in the past--was fine, but I found customizing the browser was kind of clunky. As far as security goes, they very well be very serious about security. However it has been owned by a company located in a gigantic Asian country (not India or Russia) since 2016. The fact that that country does not put much value in personal privacy makes Opera much less attractive than other browsers.

Not sure how that compares with Edge or Chrome or Safari for that matter.
 
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TiggrToo said:
I'm kinda flumoxed about all these threads you create and pretty much all seem to have the same theme.

At some time you need to take responsibility for your own actions and not use MR as a crutch.

I say this because I fear you learn nothing by always asking and that will actually have an inverse result.

If you never learn to discover these answers for yourself then you'll always be at risk.

Sometimes you need to fall off the bike and graze your knees in order to learn.
Click to expand...
It is fine to seek advice on this forum and/or use the forum as a crutch. Why would you ever post such a thing like this? Not gracious, helpful or understanding at all -- with all due respect.
 
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Madhatter32 said:
It is fine to seek advice on this forum and/or use the forum as a crutch. Why would you ever post such a thing like this? Not gracious, helpful or understanding at all -- with all due respect.
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Because this is not the first post by far from her like this. And the fact is that you never learn by always asking. As is evidenced by this latest post.

I believe she means well, but I fear she's not learning by always asking. At some point you have to stand on your own two feet and take the plunge.
 
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BeautifulWoman_1984 said:
I'm asking this question on MacRumors because I've come to trust this community with my serious questions.
I've had experience running Mozilla Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Edge, but not Opera.
Is Opera a trustworthy company? Does Opera take user privacy seriously?
Click to expand...

I have been using Opera for years as an alternative to Firefox and Safari - works great for me and my limited use of it

I think they take privacy more seriously than most - ie chrome ?

There is a free VPN setting to help block tracking - not sure how effective that really is - but is one of the features in the privacy settings

Like others have mentioned Opera has been around for quite a while and I have mostly heard only good things and it works well for me - FWIW
 
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Thank you for your replies!

Yes, I'm sorry to be so worried about this, but since I use my web browser to do so many personal and private things like banking, sending work related emails and so on I just wanted to make sure that Opera was a safe web browser.
 
I suppose the question is, why are you considering Opera in the first place? These days, Opera is basically just Google Chrome (Chromium) with a custom skin, not unlike Microsoft Edge.

Opera was bought some years back by a Chinese company. I frankly don't know a ton about them, they might be fine—but they are not the same stewards who maintained Opera in years past.

Firefox and Safari are probably the most trustworthy browsers from a privacy perspective—Safari because Apple's profit motives are not aligned with advertising, and Firefox because it's developed by a nonprofit dedicated to internet freedom.
 
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There no such thing as "safe" in an absolute way. So what are you thinking about when you ask if it's "safe"? Are you asking will it prevent advertisers from tracking you? Or asking will it prevent passwords from being stolen? Or asking will it prevent China from knowing I posted comments speaking out against their government?
 
The OP doesn't say what device Opera is to be used on, it is very different on the iOS and Mac platforms. I use a spread of browsers on all my devices and am happy to recommend Opera on the Mac. Just don't be fooled by the alleged 'free VPN' (not on iOS), it is not a VPN and will slow you down when it's actually working so just ignore it. Also, and as with any browser, set DuckDuckGo as the default search engine if you want some measure of privacy.
 
Spudlicious said:
The OP doesn't say what device Opera is to be used on, it is very different on the iOS and Mac platforms. I use a spread of browsers on all my devices and am happy to recommend Opera on the Mac. Just don't be fooled by the alleged 'free VPN' (not on iOS), it is not a VPN and will slow you down when it's actually working so just ignore it. Also, and as with any browser, set DuckDuckGo as the default search engine if you want some measure of privacy.
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Since this is the Mac Apps sub forum, I assumed it was the Mac version.
 
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