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Comment by rcMgD2BwE72F | Hacker News Reader

I met with top execs at Opera while working for one of the top-3 European IPS (was right-hand man of the global partnership director). They showed us, in details, how their core business model is all about capturing personal data and resell it to various buyers. That's why they promote so many services like VPN and AI, as deeply integrated as possible into their browser. I'll never touch an Opera product again.

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They're also in the business of selling predatory loans[1] in places like Africa and India.

[1] https://hindenburgresearch.com/opera-phantom-of-the-turnarou...

Very interesting and concerning if true, if not entirely unexpected. I really miss the old Opera.

> while working for one of the top-3 European IPS

What's IPS in this context, or is that a typo for ISPs?

Isn't Vivaldi basically the old Opera?

Not exactly, Vivaldi was founded by former Opera employees but is built on a chromium base.

Opera had its own browser engine (Presto) and had a native UI (or if it wasn’t, it felt like it because it was really snappy).

Vivaldi is more like Chrome (performance wise) but with loads of features.

Unfortunately, since 2013 Opera is also built on Chromium. They dropped Presto a long time ago.

Opera had its own browser engine (Presto) and had a native UI (or if it wasn’t, it felt like it because it was really snappy).

I think for some period they used Qt on some platforms.

But early Opera was really a fast and innovative browser. Opera was one of the first (if not the first) browser with tabs and popup blocking. Opera Software even owned Fastmail for a few years (until an employee buyout).

It's sad that they have gone down the drain.

I never heard about them owning Fastmail previously, interesting.

“Thank you, EU”…

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