4 ms·

I'm going to have to switch browser AGAIN? Dammit. Is Opera safe or what shady shit have they done? I haven't used Opera since Opera back in 2006. God I miss t

I'm going to have to switch browser AGAIN? Dammit. Is Opera safe or what shady shit have they done? I haven't used Opera since Opera back in 2006. God I miss the Presto engine and dragonfly. Can I go back to them or they doing shady stuff?

kick 6y ago
Opera is still proprietary, and, uh, also they got caught doing some stuff involving predatory short-term loans to the impoverished in African countries, not to mention their CEO was also involved in an entirely different Chinese conglomerate that was also involved with fraud and some lending thing. Oh yeah and if you haven't used it since 2006: Opera is Chromium now, and the company behind it got sold a time or two.
- sergiotapia 6y ago
  what the fuck, whats happening in the tech scene :( what should I use if I _dont_ want to be in the botnet or scammed and outside of google's mesh
  - coryrc 6y ago
    Firefox, like always.
  - superkuh 6y ago
    I used Opera from 5 to 12, then Firefox till v37, and it's been Pale Moon ever since. Check out the latest release notes. I know I'm not the only one that likes things such as, >Removed more telemetry code >Removed the in-browser speech recognition engine and API >Removed support for the obsolete and unmaintained NVidia 3DVision stereoscopic interface. Palemoon is Firefox if it were still Firefox instead of feature-for-feature chrome copy for watching encrypted netflix.
    - Shared404 6y ago
      I would love to be able to use Palemoon, but I just can't get over the fact that it's a single main developer trying to maintain an entire web browser. That seems like a security nightmare waiting to happen. If I'm wrong about this, please let me know, I really like the idea.
      - Koshkin 6y ago
        Except they don’t “maintain the entire browser,” rather, they “maintain” a trimmed-down build.
        Shared404 6y ago
        Thanks for the clarification, that makes more sense. I'll download it and give it a shot.
        duskwuff 6y ago
        I'm not sure what distinction you're trying to draw here. The fact that Moonchild has removed some a few features they don't like from Palemoon doesn't make the remaining codebase meaningfully easier to maintain. They're still left with what is effectively an orphaned codebase, increasingly unable to use patches from mainline Firefox, and subject to unknown vulnerabilities in portions of the codebase which no longer exist upstream.
        superkuh 6y ago
        Maybe we're touching the same elephant but we're obviously on opposite ends of it. That's how I perceive Firefox security with all it's crazy new features, old experiments left in, black box DRM that's literally unauditable, etc.
    - SahAssar 6y ago
      Dosen't pale moon use https://start.me/ https://start.me/ by default still? From reading https://start.me/privacy https://start.me/privacy that does not seem encouraging.
- aasasd 6y ago
  > they got caught doing some stuff involving predatory short-term loans to the impoverished in African countries, not to mention their CEO was also involved in an entirely different Chinese conglomerate that was also involved with fraud and some lending thing Ooh juicy. Any links to read on this?
  - kick 6y ago
    Previous coverage on HN because I'm very indecisive and don't like giving links myself: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=opera%20loans&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=opera%20chinese&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... You can also find more if you check Opera Software's Wikipedia page.
    - aasasd 6y ago
      Thanks!
- bmn__ 6y ago
  When it turned to shit, Yngve and Jon got out and did their own thing: https://vivaldi.com https://vivaldi.com https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8952517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8952517
drannex 6y ago
They were sold to a chinese consortium, so take that as you will. Vivaldi is an excellent alternative, and the latest versions of Firefox are far superior imo. Vivaldi is essentially Old Opera 2.0 in terms of features, focused on power users, created by the same guy as the original Opera, and runs on Chromium. Still putting my vote in Firefox though.
- toyg 6y ago
  I keep Vivaldi as my "test in Chrome" browser, but their business model is not the most transparent from a privacy perspective (at one point it looked like they were aggregating browsing stats to resell). Firefox is still my main driver. They make the occasional bad choice but their overall business model is basically the best we can hope for in a browser, these days.
SamWhited 6y ago
Just use Firefox (or one of the forks that removes builtin extensions and the like). For all of its problems, Mozilla is still probably the best bet we have at building a web browser that won't do shady things (it will do some annoying things, like having Pocket built in by default, but for the most part they still try to protect your privacy, don't force you into creepy payment models and things like Brave tries to do, etc.)
Priem19 6y ago
May I suggest using Vivaldi browser? https://medium.com/@Priem19/how-to-use-the-web-properly-f98f66727ce0 https://medium.com/@Priem19/how-to-use-the-web-properly-f98f...
- Koshkin 6y ago
  Are we supposed to “trust” this one now?
  - searchableguy 6y ago
    Their code for the full browser isn't open source. Only the chromium code is. Although it's mostly UI related code that you can inspect but just be aware.
csunbird 6y ago
What is wrong with firefox?
- Paul_S 6y ago
  Oh, let me count the ways... or let me just refer you to waterfox's website: https://www.waterfox.net/ https://www.waterfox.net/
  - csunbird 6y ago
    Only advantage I see is "No telemetry" option, which you can disable in firefox.
  - abc-xyz 6y ago
    Waterfox sold-out to an ad company (which “has developed a pre-targeting platform that identifies and unlocks consumer intent across channels including social, native, email, search, market research and lead generation rather than relying solely on what consumers enter into search boxes.”) The founder also claimed that Waterfox was never pivoted as a privacy-focused product.

kick 6y ago

Opera is still proprietary, and, uh, also they got caught doing some stuff involving predatory short-term loans to the impoverished in African countries, not to mention their CEO was also involved in an entirely different Chinese conglomerate that was also involved with fraud and some lending thing. Oh yeah and if you haven't used it since 2006: Opera is Chromium now, and the company behind it got sold a time or two.

sergiotapia 6y ago
what the fuck, whats happening in the tech scene :( what should I use if I _dont_ want to be in the botnet or scammed and outside of google's mesh
- coryrc 6y ago
  Firefox, like always.
- superkuh 6y ago
  I used Opera from 5 to 12, then Firefox till v37, and it's been Pale Moon ever since. Check out the latest release notes. I know I'm not the only one that likes things such as, >Removed more telemetry code >Removed the in-browser speech recognition engine and API >Removed support for the obsolete and unmaintained NVidia 3DVision stereoscopic interface. Palemoon is Firefox if it were still Firefox instead of feature-for-feature chrome copy for watching encrypted netflix.
  - Shared404 6y ago
    I would love to be able to use Palemoon, but I just can't get over the fact that it's a single main developer trying to maintain an entire web browser. That seems like a security nightmare waiting to happen. If I'm wrong about this, please let me know, I really like the idea.
    - Koshkin 6y ago
      Except they don’t “maintain the entire browser,” rather, they “maintain” a trimmed-down build.
      - Shared404 6y ago
        Thanks for the clarification, that makes more sense. I'll download it and give it a shot.
      - duskwuff 6y ago
        I'm not sure what distinction you're trying to draw here. The fact that Moonchild has removed some a few features they don't like from Palemoon doesn't make the remaining codebase meaningfully easier to maintain. They're still left with what is effectively an orphaned codebase, increasingly unable to use patches from mainline Firefox, and subject to unknown vulnerabilities in portions of the codebase which no longer exist upstream.
        superkuh 6y ago
        Maybe we're touching the same elephant but we're obviously on opposite ends of it. That's how I perceive Firefox security with all it's crazy new features, old experiments left in, black box DRM that's literally unauditable, etc.
  - SahAssar 6y ago
    Dosen't pale moon use https://start.me/ https://start.me/ by default still? From reading https://start.me/privacy https://start.me/privacy that does not seem encouraging.
aasasd 6y ago
> they got caught doing some stuff involving predatory short-term loans to the impoverished in African countries, not to mention their CEO was also involved in an entirely different Chinese conglomerate that was also involved with fraud and some lending thing Ooh juicy. Any links to read on this?
- kick 6y ago
  Previous coverage on HN because I'm very indecisive and don't like giving links myself: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=opera%20loans&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=opera%20chinese&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... You can also find more if you check Opera Software's Wikipedia page.
  - aasasd 6y ago
    Thanks!
bmn__ 6y ago
When it turned to shit, Yngve and Jon got out and did their own thing: https://vivaldi.com https://vivaldi.com https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8952517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8952517

drannex 6y ago

They were sold to a chinese consortium, so take that as you will. Vivaldi is an excellent alternative, and the latest versions of Firefox are far superior imo. Vivaldi is essentially Old Opera 2.0 in terms of features, focused on power users, created by the same guy as the original Opera, and runs on Chromium. Still putting my vote in Firefox though.

toyg 6y ago
I keep Vivaldi as my "test in Chrome" browser, but their business model is not the most transparent from a privacy perspective (at one point it looked like they were aggregating browsing stats to resell). Firefox is still my main driver. They make the occasional bad choice but their overall business model is basically the best we can hope for in a browser, these days.

SamWhited 6y ago

Just use Firefox (or one of the forks that removes builtin extensions and the like). For all of its problems, Mozilla is still probably the best bet we have at building a web browser that won't do shady things (it will do some annoying things, like having Pocket built in by default, but for the most part they still try to protect your privacy, don't force you into creepy payment models and things like Brave tries to do, etc.)

Priem19 6y ago

May I suggest using Vivaldi browser? https://medium.com/@Priem19/how-to-use-the-web-properly-f98f66727ce0 https://medium.com/@Priem19/how-to-use-the-web-properly-f98f...

Koshkin 6y ago
Are we supposed to “trust” this one now?
- searchableguy 6y ago
  Their code for the full browser isn't open source. Only the chromium code is. Although it's mostly UI related code that you can inspect but just be aware.

csunbird 6y ago

What is wrong with firefox?

Paul_S 6y ago
Oh, let me count the ways... or let me just refer you to waterfox's website: https://www.waterfox.net/ https://www.waterfox.net/
- csunbird 6y ago
  Only advantage I see is "No telemetry" option, which you can disable in firefox.
- abc-xyz 6y ago
  Waterfox sold-out to an ad company (which “has developed a pre-targeting platform that identifies and unlocks consumer intent across channels including social, native, email, search, market research and lead generation rather than relying solely on what consumers enter into search boxes.”) The founder also claimed that Waterfox was never pivoted as a privacy-focused product.