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I really like Opera as a browser. But I am still wary of its owners. 48.0%: Beijing Kunlun Tech Co., Ltd. (Zhou Yahui) 27.5%: Qifei International Development

by jannes 8y ago

I really like Opera as a browser. But I am still wary of its owners. 48.0%: Beijing Kunlun Tech Co., Ltd. (Zhou Yahui) 27.5%: Qifei International Development Co. Limited (Qihoo 360) 19.5%: Keeneyes Future Holdings Inc (Zhou Yahui) 5.0%: Golden Brick Capital Private Equity Fund I L.P. I don't know anything about these firms and whether I can trust them. Something about this ownership structure just makes me uneasy about the product.

toyg 8y ago
I think it just reflects the only market that really cares about it, i.e. the Asian one.
shakna 8y ago
As with all things Chinese, the story is never entirely clear. Propaganda from both sides of the Firewall obscure a lot. However... --- Qihoo 360 may be the owners of StartCom, and WoSign, who behaved so badly both Chrome and Firefox have decided their certificates can never be trusted again. Got to figure that it isn't an accident that they bought a (large) interest in Opera. And there's the confusing story of the Chinese government sanctioning Qihoo 360 themselves over privacy violations to do with webcams. They tend to be a company mired in controversy. (They also have the controlling share in Golden Brick Capital). --- Beijing Kunlun Tech aren't that well known in the West. They started out as online gambling, however they also bought out Grindr, and now a controlling stake in Opera. They don't seem to have a huge amount of direction, besides blasting adverts and trying to eak out a profit wherever they can. Which they seem extremely successful in. Successful enough that Zhou Yahui ended up paying $1.1billion to settle a divorce with his wife quite recently. --- So, basically, ownership is split between a gambling tycoon, and a company with an awful reputation around security and privacy who have a vested interest in a browser, and how they can influence the web from it.

by jannes 8y ago

toyg 8y ago

I think it just reflects the only market that really cares about it, i.e. the Asian one.

shakna 8y ago

As with all things Chinese, the story is never entirely clear. Propaganda from both sides of the Firewall obscure a lot. However... --- Qihoo 360 may be the owners of StartCom, and WoSign, who behaved so badly both Chrome and Firefox have decided their certificates can never be trusted again. Got to figure that it isn't an accident that they bought a (large) interest in Opera. And there's the confusing story of the Chinese government sanctioning Qihoo 360 themselves over privacy violations to do with webcams. They tend to be a company mired in controversy. (They also have the controlling share in Golden Brick Capital). --- Beijing Kunlun Tech aren't that well known in the West. They started out as online gambling, however they also bought out Grindr, and now a controlling stake in Opera. They don't seem to have a huge amount of direction, besides blasting adverts and trying to eak out a profit wherever they can. Which they seem extremely successful in. Successful enough that Zhou Yahui ended up paying $1.1billion to settle a divorce with his wife quite recently. --- So, basically, ownership is split between a gambling tycoon, and a company with an awful reputation around security and privacy who have a vested interest in a browser, and how they can influence the web from it.