bjoernvold.com

Some time ago Opera was bought by Google.

Now it comes revived into the market with a unique niche of its own; I has free VPN

So I installed Opera and turned on VPN

To enable VPN:

From the main menu, select Settings.
Click Privacy & security on the sidebar.
Under VPN, tick the Enable VPN checkbox.

And after that I am surfing anonymously -right?

Weell..I'll get back to that.

First I checked the speed and it is about as snappy as surfing without VPN; so that is really good!

My Ip is hidden and my speed is the same.

I get a nice badge on the top right where I can turn on and off the VPN and it does work. The amount of data I can transfer is unlimited.

Time to jump up and down for joy for privacy minded people right?

Wrong!

And here is why:

I checked the DNSservers at http://dnsleaktest.com and they are all Google servers in Belgium and the Netherlands.
I was able to change the location on the top left to Germany - but still all Google servers. Then The VPN seems to break down -constantly - and "Opera is working on it" - in this case it defaults to the Dutch server. Same place that Microsoft have their servers for Europe...that are under US jurisdiction...

And here is the problem:

The owners of the servers above have the ability to associate your personal IP address with the names of all the sites you connect to and store this data indefinitely. This does not mean that they do log or store it indefinitely but they may and you need to trust whatever their policy says.
If you are connected to a VPN service and ANY of the servers listed above are not provided by the VPN service then you have a DNS leak and are choosing to trust the owners of the above servers with your private data.

Soo I guess that means that you have to trust the Google policies ..and they are not famous for respecting your privacy; they are famous for removing it.

The VPN service is supplied from a Canadian company.

Five eyes countries and even if Google wants to respect my privacy their government does not and have taped their servers before.

So don't download any illegal Hollywood movies from TPB; you will be caught before you can say "Apfelstrudel".
(Actually don't do that with any VPN - it is illegal)

The old rule applies:

If it sounds to good to be true.....then it probably is

Chances are that more of your surfing behavior will be stored than before.

Good idea though and it will work just fine against Internet stores that try to geofence their offerings.

I was thinking about the same thing...

The VPN that comes with Opera is SurfEasy.
They say they do not keep logs and won't know anything about you. It is Free for fair use and you do not have to give up your email if you use it with Opera.

VPN is a free service, and the amount of data you are allowed to transfer is unlimited.

If you download it separatly you will have to register with your email.

The Nameservers used are all Google so if you trust Google then this VPN is great. It could not hurt to install Opera and use that VPN.

I surf with two browsers opened with two different IP's here.
Remember to block adds since cookies can still reveal your location (use a private window).

General concerns:
Your surfing can still be monitored through your DNS requests that are plain text with a man in the middle attack.Dnscrypt is turned off by the Opera VPN.
Google is not famous for respecting privacy.
WebRTC can reveal what your VPN tries to hide.

I tested the Opera VPN here:

https://privacytoolsio.github.io/privac ... io/#webrtc

and it did not leak anything no public nor private IP
I have installed the Privacy Badger and WebRTC leak prevent extensions.

I LOLED everytime when VPN service providers say they don't log. Every VPN does that. Not all activity are logged then the starting point of session and end is recorded. Meanwhile the activity you is on their servers.

Read a hilarious review! Won't take name of the domain, but it looked like the way the guy was describing the security feature of that vpn, the vpn was straight coming out of the white house. THESE CLAIMS MAN, I swear!

mariad wrote:

R_Head wrote:I was thinking about the same thing...

Exactly, if every vpn is the same why pay for a premium one, and just keep using the opera built in vpn.

Agree there is a significant difference between free VPNs and premium VPNs, Previously I was also a user of freemium VPN but then I realize how its security is then I switched to Purevpn which is premium, and I must say I have experienced so much difference in speed, security, features and in everything.

kennethhall wrote:My friend has been using PIA VPN for couple of weeks and it works well on Opera browser. Also, it compatible with all leading internet devices as well as chrome and firefox.

Go ahead with the link to find the details: https://www.bestvpn.co/reviews/operavpn/

Hi Kennethhall, I also using PIA for this purpose but as of my research about free VPNs, ExpressVPN and PureVPN both offer Dedicated ip VPN services thats why i go for these.

I thought they were shutting down their “VPN” service.