Opera Browser....spyware??!

[Chadder007]

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=9056

RESTING IN SUNNY FLORIDA, I was Running Opera on a nephew's system, specifically ver 7.03 US - the adware version. I didn't mind ignoring the ads too much, and even occasionally clicked on a few to feed the clikthru hungry bannerati. Lo and behold, without entering any voluntary location data, and always entering such info in a dodgy fashion when it was a "required field", the banner ads started getting personal, or at least - local, advertising businesses very close by. It seemed as if the browser might be feeding back URL lists, or perhaps, gasp, form field content, or XML. Naw... I thought - not Opera. I like those folks, and have recommended it to so many.

I personally have been experiencing this swelling memory problem and the browser crashing often myself!!...

Edit: ran ad-aware after I had been running Opera alone for a month and it found 83 files on my system even though it had been clean before and no other "activex" installs had been put on my system. Plus Opera had been putting up advertisements of very local places at the top of my screen even though i had not filled out in the browser where I live or my zip code.

 

[Ameesh]

OMG!!! OH NO! AIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! NOOOOOO!O!OO!O!!!!


actually, yawn, the 35 people who use it might be concerned though.

 

[human2k]

Internet Explorer is the best, its free and works~!

 

[Shawn]

Originally posted by: human2k
Internet Explorer is the best, its free and works~!

true dat. Mozilla isn't bad either...... better than Opera.

 

[Cenalian]

You're believing a story from theinquirer.net

???

Its a memory hog, yes, but that is something that is being looked into and worked out.

 

[kermalou]

phoenix (the soon to be new MOzilla) is da bomb......

 

[Chadder007]

Anyone who has used Opera 7.0 knows that it is a great browser including an extraordinary amount of goodies....but this has ruined it for me. Im waiting to find out now if purchasing it stops the spyware from installing in the background of the PC.

 

[Demon-Xanth]

What Mozilla needs to replace Opera 6 (for me):
The quick preferences menu (specifically enable/disable popups)
Force MDI option (don't allow external windows, all tabbed)
Hide/show/show cached images button and a user/author mode button (for pages w/ hideous color schemes)

These aren't major things, and if someone knows of a plugin that will do these, let me know (I already found the mouse gesture plugin)

 

[Soybomb]

Mail opera and ask, I've never seen it do that and don't believe it would.

 

[jlee]

I like Opera...I'm a big fan of the mouse guestures & Control-D (paste/go in address bar)...

 

[wnied]

I run the Opera Adware ver 6. Running now over 8 months without a problem.

~wnied~

 

[Anubis]

i run opera 7.03. mines registered so no adds. i run adaware 6 and apybot. and neither of them find anything attached to opera

 

[kermalou]

Originally posted by: Demon-Xanth
What Mozilla needs to replace Opera 6 (for me):
The quick preferences menu (specifically enable/disable popups)
Force MDI option (don't allow external windows, all tabbed)
Hide/show/show cached images button and a user/author mode button (for pages w/ hideous color schemes)

These aren't major things, and if someone knows of a plugin that will do these, let me know (I already found the mouse gesture plugin)

phoenix does have that....

 

[Demon-Xanth]

Originally posted by: kermalou

Originally posted by: Demon-Xanth
What Mozilla needs to replace Opera 6 (for me):
The quick preferences menu (specifically enable/disable popups)
Force MDI option (don't allow external windows, all tabbed)
Hide/show/show cached images button and a user/author mode button (for pages w/ hideous color schemes)

These aren't major things, and if someone knows of a plugin that will do these, let me know (I already found the mouse gesture plugin)

phoenix does have that....

...looks like I gotta do a DL tonight. Thanks.

 

[Chadder007]

Using phoenix now.
Not nearly at feature rich though, but oh well....no spyware.

 

[Chadder007]

If purchasing it gets rid of the bloat spyware and stops it from growing in memory so much....I guess it will be worth the purchase. Features of Opera 7.0 are still > any other browsers ive used.

 

[Soybomb]

Originally posted by: Chadder007
If purchasing it gets rid of the bloat spyware and stops it from growing in memory so much....I guess it will be worth the purchase. Features of Opera 7.0 are still > any other browsers ive used.

You've posted about 4 times now about how much you love Opera but think it has spyware. Why don't you email (privacy@opera.com) the opera people with your concerns and see what they tell you? It sounds to me like a coincidence. If you don't trust them fire up ethereal and capture traffic and see if it is functioning as spyware.

From opera's site:
The advertising banner in Opera was first introduced with the launch of Opera 5 in December 2000. All of Opera's desktop browsers now include this technology. Opera Software has taken much care in the development so that user privacy and security are not compromised. No personal information is collected or shared, and providing ad profile information in the browser is strictly optional. The Opera user's Web usage is not tracked. What is recorded and shared with the advertising service provider (Advertising.com) is the user's interaction with the relative banner advertising. Please see links below for more information about the company that provides the advertising in Opera.

 

[datalink7]

Not worried about it. Running 7.1 and I love it.

Of cource, I have the purchased version...

 

[Thegonagle]

Originally posted by: TheEvil1
i run opera 7.03. mines registered so no adds. i run adaware 6 and apybot. and neither of them find anything attached to opera

That's good news. I've discovered that Opera is a really good browser. My main rig is down, so I'm browsing on a P-150, with 96 MB of FPM (RAM from the 486 era), running XP pro. IE is SLOW, but Opera is bearable, and I've found that I really like the interface. Mouse Gestures is a great feature, and while at first I didn't think that using tabs would be much different from using the task bar, I've fould that it really is an improvement.

Why XP on a P-150? Am I crazy? Well, I couldn't find the driver disc for my PCI modem to use with 98, nor my Win 2K CD, so I gave the XP disc a whirl in my old 8x CD-ROM. It took 2-3 hours to install. Now, with all effects turned off, the overall performance for just Opera and Word 97 is novelty-slow, but it's temporarily workable.

 

[BaliBabyDoc]

I'm an Opera fan as well but my WinME machines have never really taken to it.

 

[chiwawa626]

Opera is just another porn browser, its not good enough to use for everyday purposes, but since it maintains its own history its great for porn

 

[Thegonagle]

Originally posted by: BaliBabyDoc
I'm an Opera fan as well but my WinME machines have never really taken to it.

Fair enough, but most of us have never really taken to WinME.

 

[BD2003]

Opera is way better than IE. Seriously opera is way way faster, and thats even on a XP2000. On the few sites that Im forced to use IE, it feels so sloooow.

Tabs are the sht too. Crazy Browser has them too, but opera is way better.