Opera Browser and Opera GX are bloated web browsers, and the company behind them has tried to cover up its controversies.
  • dan@upvote.au
    2·
    8 months ago

    Opera today is essentially totally different to the innovative browser from the 2000s. I miss the old Opera.

    Vivaldi is trying to become its replacement, but I don’t really want to contribute to the KHTML/Blink/Webkit monoculture.

    • petrescatraian@libranet.de
      1·
      8 months ago

      @BarrierWithAshes Just use Firefox. There’s plenty of stuff that can be achieved just through add-ons and switching various settings in about:config. Only thing that’s missing is an integrated free VPN, but I guess there are better alternatives anyway if you want more privacy online.

      @corbin

      • BarrierWithAshes@kbin.social
        2·
        8 months ago

        I use LibreWolf and various Chromium clones. It’s good enough for me for now. I refuse to support Mozilla in any way past that.

  • BaroqueInMind@lemmy.one
    1·
    8 months ago

    This is a great read. Never knew Opera transitioned to an enshittified abomination of crypto spyware and bloatware.

    • dan@upvote.au
      2·
      8 months ago

      It used to be great… A truly innovative browser that had so many features that even browsers today don’t have.

      I switched away from it when they switched to the Blink engine, probably around 2012 or so? It’s been all downhill since then.

      • renard_roux@beehaw.org
        3·
        8 months ago

        Same, used Opera religiously back in the day, so much more functional than the rest. Switched to Chrome (yes yes, I know) when it started going downhill.

        Chrome still doesn’t have the ability to set a shortcut for “switch to previous tab”, have to use a plugin for that 🙄

      • petrescatraian@libranet.de
        1·
        8 months ago

        @dan They did try to bring back some stuff in the later years, like an integrated RSS feed reader. But Firefox is just way better than anything else overall. Including the fact that it comes from an organization that puts privacy further up in the list of priorities.

        @BaroqueInMind

  • Celediel@slrpnk.net
    1·
    8 months ago

    I quit using Opera when it became just another Chromium fork, and never looked back. It seems like that was an excellent decision, lol.

  • IronKrill@lemmy.ca
    1·
    8 months ago

    TL;DR company shady

    The main 3 points seem to be: China-owned, predatory loan applications, and spreading themselves across too many concept/trend browser spinoffs. Honestly this is kinda old news and won’t stop anyone I know from using the thing. You can’t just say they’re “probably” harvesting your data for “nefarious” reasons and expect people to all jump to Firefox (as nice as that may be).

    • smeg@feddit.ukEnglish
      0·
      8 months ago

      I’d add a fourth main point: they have a documented history of creating browsers and then abandoning them, leaving any unaware users without security updates indefinitely