Opera is lovely really

THOUGH I AM impressed with mr. busigin's ability to count loaded modules, this entire article is moot without any talk of captured packets sent by opera.

opera can snoop all it wants, but unless there's a top secret cia-sanctioned wireless transmitter built into my motherboard, opera software (or any other company/organization, etc) has no access to this gathered information.

now i am particularly interested in this issue because (though i'm not a module-miser) i've noticed opera's huge memory footprint. I regularly view many pages with 150 or more images and after half an hour of doing this opera takes up well over 100mb and becomes unstable. (displaying a blank pane where a fully loaded page should be, etc.) - yes, i have set limits on opera's memory cache. these seem to be ignored.

I would appreciate it if mr. busigin would complete his little rant with some amount of hard evidence. (and for me that means captured packets.)

Yes i could do my own research if i wanted to but i'm not the one getting up on the enquirer and screaming "bloody spy-ware!"

Mr. busigin speaks of trust. why should i trust his claims? he's reported no spyware activity. enumerating installed software does not spyware make (it's a step in the general direction, but foreplay is not penetration).

Wossen Wyatt

My name is William and I'm not an Opera Employee but I will state freely I am an Opera fan, but not due to blind faith. I am very familiar with Opera and its downfalls. However, Opera is not spyware and your publication stating otherwise is simply inaccurate and misrepresents the Opera Web Browser (and company). I would request that you at least back up your claims with some semi-valid research. Did you even try your "tests" on other machines?

I think you should check out the following links and consider carefully the article that has been published: (note: I assume you are very busy so these are direct links, you will not need to search)

Direct response to article's concerns: http://my.opera.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=118262#post118262

Opera's Policy on Spyware: http://www.opera.com/support/search/supsearch.dml?index=453

Just a quick definitive statement: http://my.opera.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=118262#post118314

What Opera keeps track of: http://my.opera.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10058#post83440

Previous Spyware Accusation Debunked: http://my.opera.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10058#post60363

I look forward to your response and hope that the article can be completely retracted before any more damage is done. Thank you for your time.

William

Chances are that the browser accessing PGP stuff is more related to outlook or pgp itself, pgp can integrate some of its functionality into outlook i dont know at what level it does this however opera can be configured to use an outlook profile so even if its not visible it could be an outlook component causing this access

As far as the printer stuff goes id say this is definately a thing with the printer drivers, dont know what kind you use but most alot of HP/Epson printers i've used all install a fair number of files, the loading of the drivers would just be triggered thru using the printer dialog as they're needed for things like the extra tabs in the properties page

The fact a webpage can guess at your location is nothing new, web sites can tell your language settings and pick your country up easy enough and I've even seen pages that direct you based on your ip range if you come from a major isp, self updating dlls are always worrying but the .dll may only be a resource file with strings that tell it where to load its ads from.

Not that I completely trust advertising organisations, any company that thinks annoying several million people to get a few hundred sales isn't one id jump to hand money too

Just to respond on your Opera article.....I've been experiencing the same crap from my Opera browser installation too!!! Its been swelling in memory size week after week and crashing more and more often. (I had thought it was just some bad memory leakage also) Along with some strangely local places popping up on my ads bar. I shall be uninstalling it now, thanks. :)

Email address supplied

Read the Opera site! Read the headline "Targeting Options" They clearly have to keep information on your location to be able to target you based on "Country" and "City", for example. Don't you think? The site doesn't really beat around the bush with it either, does it? So then, Opera is betraying who? The ones with their head in the sand, the no-brainers, or the ones looking for a scoop, no matter if it means making up a story from scratch? This have to be embarassing for you...

Sincerly
Nik

I would like to formally request that you run an apology to Opera in your next article.

You provide no solid evidence that any spying is taking place; you only offer guesses at what you don't understand. A little paranoia is good, especially when dealing with security, but before you start using the word "betrayal," I'd suggest you'd get your facts first; it only hurts your credibility.

This topic of spy tactics has come up before and has been refuted. The majority of Opera's users are "hobbyists" who would notice if such a thing were going on. I'll reference you to this thread.

Specifically, from an Opera employee: "When Opera5 was released, I was among the ones raging about spyware. I did lot of testing, which showed up with nothing, and after getting access to the sourcecode, I was able to verify that absolutely no snooping is done. I don't mind people questioning the ad-system, but please investigate it thoroughly before bringing out accusations."

A more reasonable (and interactive) alternative to your FUD would have been to ask your Opera-using readers if they have any evidence proving or disproving spying tactics. Instead you chose to slander a good piece of software without proof. Not a big fan of the justice system, are you?

Considering that Opera faces an uphill battle for browser market share, I find it a shame that your unproven comments could be damaging (someone might actually believe them). I can only hope that your apparent lack of knowledge will prevent readers from actually following your advice.

Again, I demand that you publicly apologize and show your readers that Opera is not spyware.

Brian Clary

I also suggest that you upgrade to Opera 7.10 (the Notes panel is damn handy).

Subject: your article is fucked and you know absolutely nothing

dear idiot,

do you even know what a fucking .dll IS???

talk about "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing"! It is plainly obvious to anyone who knows anything at all about computers that YOU don't know fucking JACK SHIT about computer, programs, operating systems .. anything!

Opera is spyware eh? So where's your network traffic intercept of it sending something, anything, to any suspicious address? That is the obvious and most basic piece of evidence and should be the starting point for any accusation! But no .. you load up a couple of "hax0r tools" and think you're fucking Sherlock Holmes!! Jesus christ!

And LOL to your "two virus scans a day" (absolutely no-one needs to do that much .. your actions smack of superstition and misunderstanding) and an extra LOL to your fucked up nephew with his stupid fucking MUD server (who uses MUDs??!!) and not to mention the image in my head of you, some clueless 40-something californian wanker, manually stepping through hundreds of DLLs over hours because you think you're onto the trail of some big story .. my friend, you are the wrong dog barking up the wrong fucking tree in the wrong language and your article proves absolutely nothing. I can't believe anyone would allow this crap to be published. No wonder the Inq has a bad reputation.

Once again .. YOUR ARTICLE IS SO FUCKED!!!!!!!

Sho

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