First offered as a standalone service, Opera VPN is now a proxy in the form of an extension that doesn’t work with other browsers. Android users can also connect their cryptocurrency reserves with the browser, allowing them to make virtually anonymous mobile payments. Opera takes advantage of the Google connection to mine a vast database of known attack sites, helping to guard against phishing. When you visit sites, the security badge icon lets you know straight away whether it uses HTTPS and other forms of certification. If you want to add extra protection for passwords, good add-ons like Bitwarden integrate seamlessly with the browser. This erases history, cache data, and cookies for good. As you’d expect from a Chrome clone, users can hide their local activity via a form of Incognito mode. On the contrary, the browser has some great security features: What about security, though? If Opera fails here, we can write it off for good. This might alarm some people, as China isn’t exactly known as a bastion of digital security.īut is this the case? We’ll find out after we check out the privacy features that Opera’s latest versions bring to the table. More importantly, from a privacy standpoint, the company behind the browser was purchased by a Chinese group in 2016. Into the 2010s, the browser changed dramatically, incorporating aspects of Google’s Chromium platform and generally starting to resemble the search engine’s offering more closely. All the while, the core browser remained free to use but has long been ad-supported as a result. In 1996, the first Opera browser for Windows appeared, and versions multiplied around the turn of the millennium (even extending to Nintendo DS editions). Actually, it’s one of the oldest browsers of all, born way back in 1994 in Norway. First off, not everyone will be acquainted with what Opera is and where it stands in relation to more popular alternatives like Chrome.

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