Opera Offers Free VPN integrated in its Browser For Better Online Privacy

Opera has released a developer version of its desktop web browser with native VPN support. You only have to flick a virtual switch to get a 256-bit encrypted connection that hides your connection details and prevents sites or governments from blocking content they don't want you to see.

The preview version only gives you three simulated locations for the VPN (Canada, Germany and the US), so this won't give you access to a whole lot until the finished browser is ready. However, the VPN is free. If all you want is to access a forbidden streaming service or make it harder for snoops to monitor your traffic, this might be your easiest and most affordable solution.




Source: Opera
Via: Engadget

Read More

Opera Mini's built-in video compression finally arrives on Android

More than a year after hitting iOS, Opera is finally bringing its innovative video compression feature to its Android browser, Opera Mini.

You'll have to enable "video boost" manually in the browser's "high savings mode," but once you do your videos will load much faster than before. Of course, that also means you'll lose quite a bit of quality, which could be noticeable on newer high-resolution Android screens.

But if you live in an area with crummy bandwidth, or just travel a lot, you'll probably get plenty of mileage out of video boost. (The browser will even count the amount of videos it's optimized for you.)




Source: Engadget

Read More

Opera Mini Updates with New Search Bar, Better Downloads

Today, Opera is announcing a pretty large update for a pretty small app. It's for Opera Mini, which is their lightweight browser, meant to work well for those that don't have a ton of space on their smartphone. Opera Mini is getting a few nifty updates and features to the browser. Including a new search bar. In this search bar, you'll now be able to decide which categories you want to search in. Whether it is photos, videos, news, or something else. Making it easier to find exactly what you are looking for.

In this update, there are some changes to downloads as well. Opera Mini has now made it so that you can tame big downloads. We've all tried downloading a movie or video onto our smartphones before, those can be some big files. Now you can choose how those downloads are handled. Whether it's on WiFi or on your mobile data connection. This way you won't end up using up your data for a download, and being stuck with overages the rest of the month. A great feature, especially in the age of data caps. To change this setting, just head to the Download settings, and select WiFi if you don't have unlimited data. You can also have Opera Mini ask for each individual download.

Opera is also adding the ability to queue up downloads. So now if you need to download a few videos or songs, you can queue them up to download once you're back on WiFi, so you aren't using up your data plan. You can also prioritize these downloads and have the more important download now on LTE and have the rest download once you get back to WiFi. Making life pretty convenient. Finally, you can fine-tune your downloads. By having Opera Mini show your downloads when they start or just keep browsing the web and have them download in the background. You can also have the browser ask you for each download where you want to store the file, or just have it store it in the same folder for each download.



Source : Android Headlines

Read More

Saving data: Opera for Android adds video playback compression

With mobile video viewing on the rise and accounting for a greater amount of bandwidth,Opera has addressed the situation by adding video compression technology to its Opera browser for Android.

The company announced the new feature on Tuesday and it's available in the latest version of Opera in the Google Play Store.

Opera has long focused on fast mobile internet access in its browsers by using back-end compression for websites. The company compresses web content on the server side and then serves up smaller web pages directly in its mobile browser. The new video compression takes the same approach.

That's good for those on a metered mobile broadband connection or for areas with limited mobile network infrastructure. But if you feel strongly about mobile browsing privacy, you're giving some of that up since Opera will directly see which sites and videos you're looking at.

All in all, though, I'd call this a win, particularly in emerging markets that don't have LTE networks deployed. Instead of tons of buffering during video playback on a slower network, the experience should be improved since less data is being sent to smartphones and tablets.

To use the new feature after updating to or installing the latest version of Opera for Android, open the app's Settings and enable the Video Compression option under Data Savings.

Source : ZDNet 

Read More

Opera For Desktop Gets Password Sync, Starts Integrating SurfEasy VPN

Earlier this year, Opera Software bought SurfEasy, a virtual private networking (VPN) service that helps users maintain their privacy and surf safely. With the release of Opera 32 for desktop today, the company is now starting to integrate SurfEasy into its flagship browser for Windows, Mac and Linux.

For now, this integration is pretty light, though. When you open a private tab in Opera 32, the browser will pop up a link to download SurfEasy. That's it for the time being, but chances are the company is working on a tighter integration between its tools and SurfEasy. Besides its browsers, Opera Max, its compression-centric proxy service for Android, seems like a natural fit for a SurfEasy integration

SurfEasy offers both a mobile and desktop service, but its free tier only allows for 500mb of transfer volume. To get unlimited data, you need to pay at least $3.99 per month for the desktop version or $2.49 for the mobile app.

Also new in this version are improved syncing options. Most importantly, this means you can now also sync your password in addition to your bookmarks, tabs and other browser data.

Other new features include the option to see your bookmarks in a tree view to make it easier for users with lots of bookmarks to organize them.

In case you feel a static background image isn't personal enough for your taste, Opera now also allows you to choose an animated backgroundtheme for your Speed Dial (Opera's version of the 'new tab' page in other browsers). The company uses the Google-backed WebM and WebP file formats for this, which should keep the files pretty small.

Source : TechCrunch 

Read More

Opera Mini browser for Android now lets you choose between speed and experience while saving data

In order to reduce bandwidth use and serve pages faster, Mini's 'extreme' mode pulls scaled-down images and simplified layouts, while saving up to 90 percent of data.

'High' mode doesn't save quite as much — it manages about 30-40 percent on average — but presents pages with all their visual elements and rich media components (like video players) intact.

Facebook in Opera Mini's Extreme Mode (left); the same page in High mode (right)

Opera says the latest version includes a new UI for saved pages and bookmarks and handles large downloads better than before in 'High' compression mode.

Read More