Would you use Opera GX?

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rinaldo00

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Given what I am about to tell you I bet that the answer would be a resounding NO!

I have used Opera for years and I heard about Opera GX and thought I would try it. I also decide to search what the differences between Opera and Opera GX and I found this:

The Inherent Security Risks of Opera and Opera GX: Unraveling the China Connection​

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/inherent-security-risks-opera-gx-unraveling-china-griffin-d-hamell#:~:text=Opera Software, the company behind,] The New York Times).

Rather worrisome.
 
I tried it once, it sucked anyways. I'd rather just use edge at this point, Firefox is slower than christmas and Chrome is more of a data scraper than browser at this point.
 
I see no reason to use a proprietary browser of any sort - why would I want to support that when there are better alternatives? Not to mention that Opera and many others are basically all using Chromium under the hood anyway. Firefox is the preferred browser for many reasons (including being some of the only major ones to stand against de-facto Chromium/Blink being the only thing that matters as opposed to web standards, is free/libre, extensible, and noob to guru usable etc), but failing that I'd choose one of the open source Chromium based browsers if need be.
 
RanceJustice said:
I see no reason to use a proprietary browser of any sort - why would I want to support that when there are better alternatives? Not to mention that Opera and many others are basically all using Chromium under the hood anyway. Firefox is the preferred browser for many reasons (including being some of the only major ones to stand against de-facto Chromium/Blink being the only thing that matters as opposed to web standards, is free/libre, extensible, and noob to guru usable etc), but failing that I'd choose one of the open source Chromium based browsers if need be.
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The problem with Firefox is its SLOW, and it crashes constantly. I have it installed but I barely use it because it crashes 20 times an hour, everything makes it crash. I have 3-4 tabs open max, and one single adblock extension. Not exactly a power user and that thing is crash city.
 
RanceJustice said:
I see no reason to use a proprietary browser of any sort - why would I want to support that when there are better alternatives?
Click to expand...
Opera GX is supposed to be a "gaming browser."
GX Control: What gives Opera GX some of its gamer-focused functionality is GX Control, which allows you to limit the performance of the browser itself. This includes placing limits on the browser’s bandwidth, RAM, and CPU usage. So if you need to run the browser while you are running a game, you can have the browser run without compromising your gaming performance. GX Control also identifies if any particular tab is consuming too much of your compute resources and lets you selectively kill it.

Which is a very interesting feature. It looks great and has a TON of themes and customization options. It can even control your PC RGB as you browse ;)
 
1_rick said:
I don't use FF much these days but I used to use it as my main. If it's crashing constantly, there's probably something else wrong with your computer.
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I have it on a number of computer and my phone, I use it to carry my bookmarks since I can log in to it easily from any device. It crashes just the same on everything.
 
Opera always seemed like a boutique browser that never brought anything noteworthy to the table.

LigTasm said:
I have it on a number of computer and my phone, I use it to carry my bookmarks since I can log in to it easily from any device. It crashes just the same on everything.
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I use Firefox as my main browser, on my Windows PCs and Android phones. It's not noticeably slower than Chrome or Edge and I can't even remember the last time it crashed. Do you have an example of a page that loads slow for you? I can't find a single page that doesn't load essentially instantly. If you're arguing about milliseconds, I'd rather stick with the better browser. Though I agree, Edge is better than Chrome if you absolutely have to use a Chromium browser.
 
GotNoRice said:
Opera always seemed like a boutique browser that never brought anything noteworthy to the table.



I use Firefox as my main browser, on my Windows PCs and Android phones. It's not noticeably slower than Chrome or Edge and I can't even remember the last time it crashed. Do you have an example of a page that loads slow for you? I can't find a single page that doesn't load essentially instantly. If you're arguing about milliseconds, I'd rather stick with the better browser. Though I agree, Edge is better than Chrome if you absolutely have to use a Chromium browser.
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Everything in it is slow, but most of my problems come from youtube. It will refuse to load, or you click a video and it just closes the whole browser out. I don't use any funky extensions, just the way it was installed. I'm not someone that needs to pursue those things when I have other options, so I just don't use it unless I need to remember a password.
 
LigTasm said:
most of my problems come from youtube.
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Well it doesn't surprise me that the same company that pushes out Chrome (Google, who also owns Youtube), would make a site that likely favors their own browser. With that said, Youtube still works fine for me on Firefox. I do notice that the "blocked items" counter on the uBlock Origin addon skyrockets when I load the page. I'm not sure why you would be hostile to effective addons when they are preventing tons of junk from loading. That likely explains the disparity in our experiences.

LigTasm said:
I don't use any funky extensions
Click to expand...
 
GotNoRice said:
Well it doesn't surprise me that the same company that pushes out Chrome (Google, who also owns Youtube), would make a site that likely favors their own browser. With that said, Youtube still works fine for me on Firefox. I do notice that the "blocked items" counter on the uBlock Origin addon skyrockets when I load the page. I'm not sure why you would be hostile to effective addons when they are preventing tons of junk from loading. That likely explains the disparity in our experiences.
Click to expand...

I have options. I'm not really behind a slow browser that has been caught a dozen times selling user data while claiming to be "secure" either. Opera GX was alright, but very intrusive. It took a long time to get rid of all the noises, popups, pop-outs, etc. It wants to link to every account you have and is generally annoying. It does look cool, I'll give it that. I suppose for a streamer that has 300 tabs open at a given time it might work well, but thats not me.
 
GotNoRice said:
Opera always seemed like a boutique browser that never brought anything noteworthy to the table.
Click to expand...
Opera was the first to offer a ton of different features, they were the first to do a lot with tabs that other browsers copied, mouse gestures, shitloads of customization, and a ton of UI/UX stuff sometimes years before other browsers. But this was 10+ years ago before they switched to chromium and sold the company to China. When they switched to chromium they ditched a ton of the features that set it apart from other browsers and it really wasn't anything special.

Since then a couple of the big people from Opera started Vivaldi which is the spiritual successor and has all sorts of awesome UI/UX features that other browsers do not or end up copying like tab stacking.


Oh, and Opera GX's big feature that lets you limit the memory, that was something the original Opera had over 15 years ago.
 
LigTasm said:
The problem with Firefox is its SLOW, and it crashes constantly. I have it installed but I barely use it because it crashes 20 times an hour, everything makes it crash. I have 3-4 tabs open max, and one single adblock extension. Not exactly a power user and that thing is crash city.
Click to expand...

That is ... Not a typical experience.

I daily Firefox, as from a privacy perspective it is the best of all shitty choices these days (you still have to dig into the settings and disable a lot of crap for it to be acceptable though)

Not quite sure what is going on with yours, but on my system Firefox is about 99% the performance of Chrome or Edge. It's not quite as responsive, but on a day to day basis the difference is barely noticeable.

I don't recall having even a single Firefox crash in the last 4 years since I switched back to it from Chrome.

I'd suspect something is wrong with the system you have it running on.
 
sharknice said:
Opera was the first to offer a ton of different features, they were the first to do a lot with tabs that other browsers copied, mouse gestures, shitloads of customization, and a ton of UI/UX stuff sometimes years before other browsers. But this was 10+ years ago before they switched to chromium and sold the company to China. When they switched to chromium they ditched a ton of the features that set it apart from other browsers and it really wasn't anything special.

Since then a couple of the big people from Opera started Vivaldi which is the spiritual successor and has all sorts of awesome UI/UX features that other browsers do not or end up copying like tab stacking.


Oh, and Opera GX's big feature that lets you limit the memory, that was something the original Opera had over 15 years ago.
Click to expand...

I tried Opera 15 years ago, back when they were running on their own engine, Presto, instead of Blink like everyone else except Firefox these days.

I had heard great things and was excited to try it, but I found it to be s teaming pile of shit. The Presto engine broke like 80% of all webpages I tried loading on it. It was damn near unusable.

I ahvent tried it since they switched to Blink, but I'd imagine the experience would now be similar to that of Chrome, Edge or Safari, (but apparently with an added bonus of Chinese espionage)
 
I only used Opera on my old 3G candybar phone edit: cause it was the only browser available to side load
 
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LigTasm said:
I have options. I'm not really behind a slow browser that has been caught a dozen times selling user data while claiming to be "secure" either.
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The addons aren't intended to speed up the browser, they are intended to block user tracking, targeted advertising, and obnoxious ads in general. Speeding up the browser is just a side effect. I use the same addons on Edge.
 
GotNoRice said:
Well it doesn't surprise me that the same company that pushes out Chrome (Google, who also owns Youtube), would make a site that likely favors their own browser.
Click to expand...
It absolutely does. Before MIcrosoft threw in the towel on their own browser, it ran like crap in Youtube as well, because Google made a change to the page HTML that used a feature that ran great on Chrome and horrible on Edge and Firefox.
 
I've been using FF for years, and I'm on Youtube, multiable forums and torrent sites all day with anywhere from 10-15 tabs opened.

And I don't remember ever having a crash with FF on W7, 8.1 or 10 using Adblocker Ultimate. I can say as of the beginning of this year though, that it's been consuming more memory per tab than it use to.

As for Opera GX... I gave it a shot about 2 years ago to get some free game, and I really didn't care for it, the same can be said about Edge.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I use YouTube on Firefox without any issues what so ever.
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This was quite some time ago--it's entirely possible the Firefox guys optimized whatever it was that didn't work, but at the time I was using FF and i remember it would take a lot longer for pages to render than they would in Chrome.
 
LigTasm said:
The problem with Firefox is its SLOW, and it crashes constantly. I have it installed but I barely use it because it crashes 20 times an hour, everything makes it crash. I have 3-4 tabs open max, and one single adblock extension. Not exactly a power user and that thing is crash city.
Click to expand...
I'm unsure what differs about your system, but like many others that isn't my experience. I'm using it right now with 14 tabs open, a significant amount of addons, and its very responsive even on my somewhat older system. I'm not sure what else is going on, but as you describe that's not a "normal" user experience.
rinaldo00 said:
Opera GX is supposed to be a "gaming browser."
GX Control: What gives Opera GX some of its gamer-focused functionality is GX Control, which allows you to limit the performance of the browser itself. This includes placing limits on the browser’s bandwidth, RAM, and CPU usage. So if you need to run the browser while you are running a game, you can have the browser run without compromising your gaming performance. GX Control also identifies if any particular tab is consuming too much of your compute resources and lets you selectively kill it.

Which is a very interesting feature. It looks great and has a TON of themes and customization options. It can even control your PC RGB as you browse ;)
Click to expand...
I mean that's an interesting concept, but especially given the wide control it has over your system (ie if its interacting with your RGB devices ) I'd be even more concerned about a proprietary program, much less a web browser having that kind of reach. As far as some of the resource controls (bandwidth, per-tab performance etc), I know that Firefox (and presumably some of the Chromium powered browsers) can do some of the same things (even more granular with certain addons/extensions) . I'd think all of that may be a nice value added feature in a libre/FOSS browser, but I can't imagine that the benefits to be so unique to be worth switching when there are other options for resource control and switching that don't require moving to a proprietary browser and giving it wide ranging access to your system which could prove a security issue.

1_rick said:
This was quite some time ago--it's entirely possible the Firefox guys optimized whatever it was that didn't work, but at the time I was using FF and i remember it would take a lot longer for pages to render than they would in Chrome.
Click to expand...
I use YT on Firefox as well and most of the time it works well, but I grant that recently big media sites notably YouTube and Twitch have been trying out all matter of shady things now an then. Things taking longer to load on non-Chrome/ium browsers, more and more difficult captcha (and sometimes claiming your browser is not supported by the captcha even when it works fine at other captcha attempts - this can happen especially when using a VPN etc) , things breaking when blocking certain ads or trackers etc. On some sites, things just aren't checked with a non-Chrome/ium browser it seems, or some change is made in how Chrome/ium implements a feature and everyone who doesn't do it that way is left in the cold. All of this is even more evidence that all the other browsers using Chrome/ium and/or Blink has been harmful for the Web given that even big companies like Google are not always being respectful stewards of open web standards, when they have de-facto control of how the vast majority access the Web using their tech. While Mozilla is far from perfect, they're at this point the last large FOSS browser project remaining as a bulwark against Chrome/ium's being essentially the only thing supported, with all others relegated to either platform specific setups like Safari or edge case hobbyist browsers like lynx (I was going to say Midori, which was a small independent browser built on GTK and WebKit, but apparently it has been gutted by new maintainers and is now an Electron powered application meaning it essentially bundles Chromium!)
 
I use mostly my old laptop witth mint and FF. But on phone i gave up on FF and ended up on Opera. I am over sensitive to light so that is most important and what i cold get to work. It is some years ago so might have changed.But phones have always been about stealing data so i think it is futile given all the apps we install and Google. Now with a Motorola it is pointless. We just end up in an illusion of privacy.
 
Future Fun said:
But on phone i gave up on FF and ended up on Opera.
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I use Samsung's browser on Android. AFAIK it's still Chrome but it allows adblockers and actually has more than the three customization options you get with Chrome.
 
1_rick said:
I use Samsung's browser on Android. AFAIK it's still Chrome but it allows adblockers and actually has more than the three customization options you get with Chrome.
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Thanks for the tip! I'll have to check that out... I've just been using standard chrome on my phone and many sites are unbearably ad-riddled on there.
 
I used Opera back in the day... I think I primarily used it because I liked the built in email client. These days I switched over to Edge from all other browsers and havent looked back.
 
Been using Firefox for over 15 years...plenty fast and stable.

But I'm not one of those oddballs that thinks their Internet God status is dependant on having 368 tabs open.
 
No because it's just another chromium browser
 
Still fighting the good fight with Firefox across a Windows laptop + desktop, Linux and my phone.

Problem free aside from the occasional shit-extension. I'm even pivoting from NordVPN to Mozilla VPN to throw a few in the coffer

That said: Anybody who experiences an app crashing '20 times per hour'... and doesn't reach the immediate conclusion that the problem is on their end...
 
I'm sorry if this question sounds so noob.

Why so many of you guys prefer the non-chromium based browser?
What's the problems with the chromium based browser?

I myself have been using Chrome since I had my first android (back in 2013) as the transition between devices and google profile are so smooth. Since then I haven't tried any other browser.
Previously I used mostly firefox and opera and it has been more than 10 years ago since I used them LMAO.

Side note: even on for Desktop PC (windows installation), I prefer the lightweight OS eg. superlite version as it disables the Edge browser automatically.
 
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It's a web browser. Unless someone is offering something zany that the others can't do (unlikely considering what a web browser actually does), I don't see a reason to care.
 
rinaldo00 said:
Given what I am about to tell you I bet that the answer would be a resounding NO!

I have used Opera for years and I heard about Opera GX and thought I would try it. I also decide to search what the differences between Opera and Opera GX and I found this:

The Inherent Security Risks of Opera and Opera GX: Unraveling the China Connection​

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/inherent-security-risks-opera-gx-unraveling-china-griffin-d-hamell#:~:text=Opera Software, the company behind,] The New York Times).

Rather worrisome.
Click to expand...
Opera GX has been this way for like a decade. I'm surprised you have been out of the loop. Having the "only browser for gamers" is a way to sucker in low-information people, especially the younger ones.
riev90 said:
I'm sorry if this question sounds so noob.

Why so many of you guys prefer the non-chromium based browser?
What's the problems with the chromium based browser?

I myself have been using Chrome since I had my first android (back in 2013) as the transition between devices and google profile are so smooth. Since then I haven't tried any other browser.
Previously I used mostly firefox and opera and it has been more than 10 years ago since I used them LMAO.

Side note: even on for Desktop PC (windows installation), I prefer the lightweight OS eg. superlite version as it disables the Edge browser automatically.
Click to expand...
Nothing wrong with the Blink engine. I quite like Edge. Firefox still gives the user a modicum of control in how it operates, though. It's the most secure browser next to Brave if you don't want to go as far as to use Tor. I just don't like the Brave GUI. You can create a Mozilla account and sync your profile across devices the same way Chrome does, if you so choose, and Firefox supports the use of extensions on its mobile version. Firefox mobile + uBlock Origin = no Youtube ads. Mobile Chrome doesn't support extensions.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I tried Opera 15 years ago, back when they were running on their own engine, Presto, instead of Blink like everyone else except Firefox these days.

I had heard great things and was excited to try it, but I found it to be s teaming pile of shit. The Presto engine broke like 80% of all webpages I tried loading on it. It was damn near unusable.

I ahvent tried it since they switched to Blink, but I'd imagine the experience would now be similar to that of Chrome, Edge or Safari, (but apparently with an added bonus of Chinese espionage)
Click to expand...
If you switched the identifier for a site that wasn't working to another browser like IE it would work great most of the time. I only had very few instances where things wouldn't work as well, usually flash related. I used opera for ages (since like 98-99) until they switched renderer and took out the mail client.
 
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