Question What's the consensus on Opera? Any users out there?

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Miravi

Miravi

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I'm in the market for a new browser to call home. I don't absolutely love Brave or Vivaldi, but of those two I'm more drawn to Vivaldi. Having now given the latest Opera a brief try, the user experience is quite enjoyable. My first impressions are that the interface is clean, aesthetically pleasing, and thoughtful. Even the logo is doing it for me. Gratuitous features are also unobtrusive enough. Importantly for me, the Android version seems to be a nice companion.

I remember a stint using Opera many years ago, before it was ever a Chromium browser. Its own engine still worked reasonably well. However, Firefox was my rock at the time. I hadn't given Opera much thought since.

Does anyone have any thoughts or concerns about Opera? Is it trustworthy?
 
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Miravi said:
Does anyone have any thoughts or concerns about Opera? Is it trustworthy?
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Same as @KnownStormChaser. Untrustworthy in my book, for no particular reason other than it's ownership. Not worth bothering with, but I wonder how many users are Chinese. Users are better off with Chrome, Firefox, or even Edge.

Vivaldi is really for power users, otherwise it's a configuration mess. Brave is for the crypto bros, and I won't use it. Too bad, I used to love it before they got deep into the crypto game.
 
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Your data is theoretically protected by Norway's strong privacy laws, which are aligned with GDPR. However, this legal protection is fundamentally undermined by a jurisdictional conflict created by Opera's ownership. The browser's parent company, Kunlun Tech, is based in China and must comply with Chinese national security laws, which can compel it to cooperate with state intelligence and demand user data.

Because the parent company ultimately controls its Norwegian subsidiary, it could be forced to use its corporate authority to make Opera hand over global user data, effectively bypassing the legal due process required in Norway. Therefore, while the data resides under strong local laws, the ownership structure creates a potential backdoor, and this risk that a foreign government could compel data access through the parent company is why security professionals advise against using the browser, regardless of where the user or the servers are located.
 
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oldschool said:
Vivaldi is really for power users, otherwise it's a configuration mess. Brave is for the crypto bros, and I won't use it. Too bad, I used to love it before they got deep into the crypto game.
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Vivaldi is good but often crashed on my system with 2 or 3 tabs active. On Android ( Android 15 ) it crashed sometimes. Also sync isn't good compared to Brave which performs very well on my system & Android ( currently using ) with very good privacy, security & sync.

Opera is really bad in terms of privacy & performance.
 
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I used Opera when first released, in the beginning it had a ad banner as I remember not based on your browsing & I paid a sum to have a banner free Opera! - I my opinion the Opera of today is nothing like the original Scandinavian one & as above I just don't trust it & I never will so I haven't used it for some time.
Vivaldi is just too busy for me with to many config options that I'm sure some will like.
 
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Vivaldi does have a lot going on. I like it in principle. I never felt I slipped right into liking Brave, but I might force myself to use it a little while just to say I gave it a fair shot.

It's a shame that a friendlier party didn't acquire Norway's beloved browser. Thanks for offering your insights, everyone.
 
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I have Vivaldi on Windows, Android, and iPad. It's a no-nonsense, customizable browser. You can simply right-click a feature to remove it, then go through the settings for a preferable look and feel. You may just set the "Homepage" to "about:blank" for a blank homepage/new tab page.
 
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rashmi said:
I have Vivaldi on Windows, Android, and iPad. It's a no-nonsense, customizable browser. You can simply right-click a feature to remove it, then go through the settings for a preferable look and feel. You may just set the "Homepage" to "about:blank" for a blank homepage/new tab page.
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Vivaldi just messing one feature to be the perfect browser, to apply dark webpage per website, such as the one in Yandex.
 
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Divergent said:
Your data is theoretically protected by Norway's strong privacy laws, which are aligned with GDPR. However, this legal protection is fundamentally undermined by a jurisdictional conflict created by Opera's ownership. The browser's parent company, Kunlun Tech, is based in China and must comply with Chinese national security laws, which can compel it to cooperate with state intelligence and demand user data.

Because the parent company ultimately controls its Norwegian subsidiary, it could be forced to use its corporate authority to make Opera hand over global user data, effectively bypassing the legal due process required in Norway. Therefore, while the data resides under strong local laws, the ownership structure creates a potential backdoor, and this risk that a foreign government could compel data access through the parent company is why security professionals advise against using the browser, regardless of where the user or the servers are located.
Click to expand...
As a rule of thumb, avoid using Chinese software when requring internet connection to function; I can use their products for offline programs such as office suite or disk manager, but not a browser or antivirus.
 
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Parkinsond said:
Vivaldi just messing one feature to be the perfect browser, to apply dark webpage per website, such as the one in Yandex.
Click to expand...

There is such a feature. Vivaldi's "force a dark theme on all websites" setting is amazing. For those without Vivaldi, it's just the "selective inversion of non-image elements" chrome flag, combined with this exclusion addon at Github.

Screenshot 2025-09-04 185639.jpg
 
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n8chavez said:
There is such a feature. Vivaldi's "force a dark theme on all websites" setting is amazing. For those without Vivaldi, it's just the "selective inversion of non-image elements" chrome flag, combined with this exclusion addon at Github.

View attachment 290765
Click to expand...
Does this extension work on Vivaldi? Because what @Parkinsond mean is that he want to disable the dark mode on selective websites.
 
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lokamoka820 said:
Does this extension work on Vivaldi? Because what @Parkinsond mean is that he want to disable the dark mode on selective websites.
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Vivaldi has the advantage of applying dark mode flag withouth using flags page; just a selection in settings.
You can also install dark reader extension, but I slows down browsing for me, and its color output is not my taste.
 
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n8chavez said:
There is such a feature. Vivaldi's "force a dark theme on all websites" setting is amazing. For those without Vivaldi, it's just the "selective inversion of non-image elements" chrome flag, combined with this exclusion addon at Github.

View attachment 290765
Click to expand...
Yes, I am using Vivalid and using this feature, but you can enable for all websites or disable for all; Yandex can enable per website selectively.
 

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