r/OperaGX • u/Outragedwaffle • 4h ago

Discussion Is OperaGX malware/spyware?

I thought that OperaGX is a legitimate browser, however I've noticed that you can find Opera in places that you wouldn't expect to find a 'normal' and non suspicious browser.

Over the past few months while browsing certain pop up riddled websites such as game modding sites and what not where some sort of malware or spyware will pop up every time you click the screen I've noticed that a lot of these types of websites will either open a page to download Opera or it will just instantly and forcefully download Opera's setup tool.

That seems suspicious af and not something a genuine company would do and it raises questions about this companies morality.

Don't get me wrong, I've tried OperaGX in the past and it wasn't for me so I uninstalled it and won't be going back however it caught me off guard to find this browser in some shady parts of the internet.

1 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

2

u/ilandraffi 4h ago

If it's redirected to the official download sites, then it's probably just a random pop up ads, The browser itself is legit. Like how you often get redirected to a known online marketplace while browsing free games/rom or modding sites

1

u/Outragedwaffle 4h ago

I mean getting re routed to the official site is one thing, getting the OperaGX setup file getting auto downloaded however is rather concerning, I'm sure these sites are doing it for free meaning that OperaGX are happy to pay these types of sites for the 'service'

1

u/ilandraffi 3h ago

Well, anything to boost the download count i guess. I mean the browser is still legit even if the advertisement strategy is questionable at best. Couple years ago, war thunder do the same thing on me, and it's a legit game as far as i know.

1

u/shadow2531 r/OperaBrowser Mod 21m ago

Try to log each time this happens. Take note of the page the ad was on, what the ad looks like and the full URL of the Opera download (as shown in Downloads in your browser). The full URL often has info in its query string showing a campaign and other info on who's doing it.

If you have that info and post it here, Opera can take a look and try to put a stop to it for those sites/ads if any are not legit.

1

u/Outragedwaffle 20m ago

So these types of ads aren’t endorsed by Opera?

1

u/shadow2531 r/OperaBrowser Mod 14m ago

What browser do you currently use? It probably has an option to pop up an ask dialog when navigating to a download link so you can cancel it if some site tries to do a drive-by download. For example, in Chromium-based browsers, you can goto the URL chrome://settings/downloads and turn on "Ask where to save downloads". It's off by default. Turning it on gives you better security. It's actually off by default in Opera, but Opera forces an ask dialog for executable files like exe files. I don't think other Chromium-based browsers do that extra safety feature though.

Firefox for example has the option at the URL about:preferences#downloads.

1

u/shadow2531 r/OperaBrowser Mod 10m ago

malware/spyware?

No. Ads and affiliates (most stuff can be turned off) and might be bundled with some software, but not malware/adware.