Today, the team behind the Opera browser released a new developer version of their product. Opera 51.0.2791.0 is now available for download. It features a renewed VPN feature, a "Reset Browser" feature, and the ability to backup your preferences.
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VPN
According to the developers, the built-in "VPN" service got a huge number of improvements in this release. It will be moved to Opera's own data centers. Opera’s current server infrastructure is already hosting services such as the compression engine for Opera Mini. With this move, the developers expect to achieve performance improvements, scalability and load balancing capabilities.
The location list for VPN is changing from countries to regions. The following options are available: Optimal location (default), the Americas, Europe and Asia.
Another improvement made to VPN in Opera is related to search results. By default, the Opera browser will now bypass the browser VPN when you use your native search engines, such as Google, Bing and Yandex. When you click on links to navigate away from the search engines, the VPN service will be automatically re-enabled in Opera. Without this change, you would get irrelevant search results because the search engine would use the VPN server's IP address to determine your location and display results in a different language than what you use.
Reset Browser Settings
A new option will allow resetting all the browser options without reinstalling. It will revert any custom search engines to the default, remove pinned tabs, disable extensions and will clear temporary data such as cookies. It keeps bookmarks, history and saved passwords.
The option can be found under Settings - Browser.
Preferences backup
Another important feature of Opera 51 is the ability to backup your preferences. This will help if your browser's profile was undesirably altered by some software or became corrupted. If your profile was successfully loaded, the browser will back it up automatically. If the profile can't be loaded, the browser will restore it from the backup.
Other Changes
- The "opera:about" page has a re-organized layout.
- Chromium was updated to version 64.0.3269.3.
Download links
- Opera developer for Windows (Using Opera developer for Windows installer means Opera for Computers EULA is accepted)
- Opera developer for Windows (Portable version)
- Opera developer for macOS
- Opera developer for Linux – deb packages
- Opera developer for Linux – RPM packages
Source: Opera
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Personally speaking, I’m totally unconvinced it is an improvement to Bypass VPN when Searching, as we all know that the big Search Engines do their very best to gather masses of data on user habits etc., which they can then use for their own purposes or sell on to others. Seems to me THIS new default “improvement” defeats the purpose of using VPN if it only does half the job. I unticked this option.
IMHO it’s far better to have extra irrelevant location results than have the likes of Google monitoring and data gathering.
Now a really worthwhile improvement to Opera VPN would be a “killswitch” (for want of a better word) because I have found Opera VPN on occasions to be prone to random very short VPN disconnects and reconnects (especially at weekends and late afternoon in my location). If using full screen mode there is no way a user will be aware they are going in and out of VPN mode and their privacy at risk,
I consider Opera VPN is a truly wonderful addition to Opera (especially as it is free and with unlimited data usage), but without a “killswitch” it allows monitoring and data collecting by third parties when it occasionally randomly pops in and out of VPN.