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<title>Opera — Spyware Watchdog</title>
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<h1>Opera</h1>
<p>A web browser made by Opera Software, using the Blink engine. Has some interesting features like mouse gestures, a built-in ad blocker and VPN. It is the sixth most popular browser. But how does it look like in terms of privacy?</p>
<p>Version tested: 87.0.4390.36</p>
<h2>Spyware Level: <span class=red>EXTREMELY HIGH</span></h2>
<p>Opera makes about 83 unsolicited requests on its first run:</p>
<img class="screenshot" src="../images/opera_spyware.png"/>
<p>By default, it spies on all your browsing. Works closely with advertisers and trackers. It is integrated with Facebook/Meta, one of the biggest privacy violators in the world. Has Google as the default search engine. Closed source.</p>
<h3>Geolocation</h3>
<p>Opera makes geolocation requests:</p>
<img class="screenshot" src="../images/opera_geolocation_spyware.png">
<h3>Malware / Phishing protection</h3>
<p>Anytime you visit a website, Opera will make a request like this to check if it is malicious. So it is literally spying on your whole browsing history:</p>
<img class="screenshot" src="../images/opera_sitecheck_spyware2.png">
<p>This can be turned off in the settings ("Privacy &amp; Security" &rarr; "Privacy" &rarr; "Protect me from malicious sites").</p>
<h3>Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp integration</h3>
<p>Opera has a Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram button on the sidebar, and Facebook/Meta (which owns WhatsApp and Instagram) and is one of the most anti-privacy organizations out there.</p>
<h3>Opera's "Partners"</h3>
<p>Opera has a list of "partners" — those are the websites that are in the Speed Dial by default.</p>
<img class="screenshot" src="../images/opera_partner_spyware.png"/>
<p>If you click on one of them from there, they will know you visited from Opera's Speed Dial. Those requests also include <b>unique user IDs</b>.</p>
<h3>Opera is closed source</h3>
<p>And it will stay that way. <a href="https://archive.is/YMRla">From their FAQ</a> (the message used to be there in 2017, they must have <b>deleted it somewhere in 2018</b>):</p>
<p><i>Opera has not officialy open sourced its browser</i>. However, leaks of the old Presto web engine Opera used to use have appeared on the internet.</p>
<p>Even with that however, there could still other spyware might be hiding in there.</p>
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<h3>Credits</h3>
<p class="center">This article was originally written by <a href="https://digdeeper.neocities.org/">digdeeper.neocities.org</a>, but has been edited from it's original form.</p>
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<b>This article was created on 11/25/2017</b>
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<b>This article was last edited on 5/29/2022</b>
<p>If you want to edit this article, or contribute your own article(s), visit us at the git repo on <a href="https://codeberg.org/shadow/SpywareWatchdog">Codeberg</a>. All contributions must be licensed under the CC0 license to be accepted.</p>
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