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by netsharc12 hours ago |
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upvoteby ramon15611 hours ago|
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It hurts me that their marketing worked. Gamers are Choosing Opera GX because its "non bs". There's a ton of fingerprinting data being sent to chinese servers. No one is immune to propaganda
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upvoteby alex_smart9 hours ago|
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You overestimate how much the rest of the world cares about data being sent to “chinese servers”, when all this while our data was being sent to “American servers” anyways.
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upvoteby afavour7 hours ago|
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I think OP's point is that sending your browsing data to a server, be it American or Chinese, isn't "no bs".

I see this recurrent feeling on HN that because the US does bad things we shouldn't care about other countries doing the same. I think we should care about all of them!

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upvoteby soperj6 hours ago|
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The feeling is that "no one" cares about it being sent to American servers, why should they suddenly care about it going to Chinese servers just because they're Chinese.
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upvoteby LtWorf4 hours ago|
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Not only that, USA is far more likely to send someone to kill you than china is. So between the 2 I'll take china (I'd prefer my data to not be sent to any foreign power).
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upvoteby tosti3 hours ago|
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Well perhaps today is a good day to die.
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upvoteby throw109209 hours ago|
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Whataboutism (doesn't matter if another entity does it - if it's wrong, then pointing out another entity doing it is fallacious), redirection, and false dichotomy (you can care about the US and China doing it - for all you know the parent poster was in the EU and does care about both).

Nobody mentioned the US upstream of your comment until you did. This is obvious propaganda - one of the classic maneuvers in the PRC influence playbook is, when called out on anything, to try to implement whataboutism with the United States (even if it's not relevant, like here, which is equally sad and funny).

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upvoteby lmm3 hours ago|
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> Nobody mentioned the US upstream of your comment until you did.

No, because programs sending telemetry to the US is so routine that and pervasive that we don't even remark on it.

> This is obvious propaganda

Now who's committing a whole catalogue of fallacies?

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upvoteby kouteiheika8 hours ago|
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What OP's saying is fundamentally true though? Unfortunately most people don't really care about privacy, regardless of whether it's going to an American company or a Chinese one.
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upvoteby bluGill7 hours ago|
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Not exactly. Most US companies have a presence in Europe and so give at least an attempt to obey European laws. While the laws are different and not as strong, the US has privacy laws in place that will protect you. China might have some of those same laws - but they don't apply to the government at all (the US makes some attempt to have laws apply to the government)

That doesn't mean you should be happy with data in America, but China is worse.

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upvoteby 6 hours ago|
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upvoteby gsnedders7 hours ago|
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Last I knew Opera still had a decent amount of engineering staff in Poland, and still had some in Sweden, both in the EU, plus still has some amount of staff in Norway, not in the EU but definitely in Europe.

That’s not to say their privacy story is fantastic, but they very much still have European operations.

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upvoteby mananaysiempre6 hours ago|
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> [T]he US has privacy laws in place that will protect you [...] (the US makes some attempt to have laws apply to the government)

I believe the US stance is that nobody outside the US is entitled to court relief against the US government regarding their privacy, and nobody outside the US and EU is entitled to any relief at all, even from the executive (the “Data Protection Review Court” non-court, formerly the “Privacy Shield Ombudsperson”). In the EU, there are some protections in some countries but for example the GDPR specifically does not apply to governments.

I mean, the Chinese government is worse on this, but the US is nevertheless really bad and a number of EU countries also suck to a remarkable extent. Until the US press starts dropping the “of Americans” from their latest surprised-Pikachu headlines on “mass government surveillance of Americans”, I’m unconvinced the situation will improve.

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upvoteby anal_reactor4 hours ago|
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I use Opera Mobile on my phone because it's literally the only mobile browser which UX isn't completely botched.

In Firefox you cannot choose the folder to save files to, which is something I absolutely need because I mostly download porn but once in a while I have non-porn and these two must be in different folders.

Chrome doesn't support text reflow on zoom. I don't even have a comment because this makes it literally impossible to use desktop view which usually provides better experience.

I'm not even a power user. These features are IMO extremely basic things. Opera's built-in VPN is nice for browsing Twitter but that's an extra I could live without.

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upvoteby metabagel4 hours ago|
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> In Firefox you cannot choose the folder to save files to, which is something I absolutely need because I mostly download porn but once in a while I have non-porn and these two must be in different folders.

First world problems.

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upvoteby brabel10 hours ago|
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You seem to be spreading propaganda yourself by accusing Opera of something I have not seen evidence of. Are you saying this just because the company is Chinese?
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upvoteby flexagoon10 hours ago|
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See for example

https://www.kuketz-blog.de/opera-datensendeverhalten-desktop...

(In German, but Kagi translate or Google translate work fine here)

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upvoteby lxgr9 hours ago|
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Thanks, that's pretty damning, in particular sending every visited domain to the browser vendor under the guise of "safe browsing". Really sad to see a former world-class browser stooping so low.

And I really couldn't care less if the browser vendor or their servers are in the US, China, or even any supposed "data privacy haven". It's simply none of their business which websites I visit.

For the same reason I'm not using Chrome, which intentionally kneecaps browser history sync when sync encryption is enabled, effectively forcing users to choose between non-synced history and privacy, when e.g. Firefox manages to do encrypted sync just fine.

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upvoteby throw109209 hours ago|
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> For the same reason I'm not using Chrome, which intentionally kneecaps browser history sync when sync encryption is enabled, effectively forcing users to choose between non-synced history and privacy, when e.g. Firefox manages to do encrypted sync just fine.

This is novel to me - what's the kneecap specifically? How do you only kinda sync browser history??

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upvoteby lxgr8 hours ago|
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Chrome only syncs "typed URL" (i.e. everything you enter in the address bar/"omnibox") website visits when your profile is encrypted, as far as I remember. "True" history sync is somehow tied to Google's generic "activity sync", which only exists unencrypted.

For me, this completely defeats the point of having history sync in the first place, so this particular change was what made me switch browsers several years ago.

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