Why you can trust TechRadar
We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.
You might not be immediately familiar with the Opera web browser, but it has been around long enough to have settled down with a wife and kids. First released in 1995, Opera earned a name for itself as the browser that adhered the closest to web standards such as CSS, making it the go-to choice for web developers.
In 2016, the company released a VPN baked into its web browser; no separate app required. We had a look at the paid OperaVPN Pro version a couple of years ago, and found it somewhat underwhelming as a paid product, especially compared to the best VPNs on the market.
In a world where you can find full–featured free offerings from companies like Windscribe, Proton VPN Free, and PrivadoVPN Free, is there still an argument to be made for using OperaVPN? Let’s find out.
Features
Opera’s offering is rather sparse; users don’t get more than the bare minimum in terms of features. There are three VPN server locations to choose from, and free users also get access to a split tunneling tool, which Opera VPN Free calls “bypass rules”, a feature which is, strangely, absent from the paid Pro version.
Bypass rules allow you to choose if you want specific websites to use your regular connection rather than the VPN connection. This comes in handy if you do a lot of online banking.
OperaVPN also comes with IP and DNS leak protection – but that’s it for features. There’s no support for streaming or torrenting, and no additional security tools beyond those that come as part and parcel of the Opera web browser. All the other features are for paying customers.
The biggest drawback is that Opera VPN Free only protects your browser and nothing else, unlike other free providers that protect all the apps on your device.
Features score: 3/10
Server network
The Opera VPN Free server network is, in a word, tiny. There are three server locations for free users to connect to, including the Americas, Asia, and Europe. By contrast, paid users get access to servers in over 60 locations worldwide.
There is another option called ‘Optimal location’, which automatically chooses the server it thinks offers the fastest connection. There is no ability to pick a more specific location, no cities on offer, though the ability to at least pick a certain point on the map puts OperaVPN above some free VPN providers, which connect you to a random server in a random location whenever you hit the connect button.
As OperaVPN only protects web traffic, there are no specific servers for torrenting or streaming.
Server network score: 3/10
Apps
To use Opera VPN’s free or Pro version, you must install and use the Opera web browser. The browser is available on a wide range of operating systems, including Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, and Chromebooks.
Apps score: 5/10
Ease of use
We found that Opera VPN Free was surprisingly intuitive to use. As basic an offering as it is, there’s little to confuse even those unfamiliar with VPNs.
You access the VPN by clicking the small “VPN” icon in the address bar. After that, you get the usual big power button style connect button with a message that reads ”Unprotected – Enable for enhanced privacy” when the VPN is off and “Protected – Your browsing is secured” when the VPN is up and running – and a map visual showing you where you’re connected to.
Beneath that is a dropdown with four different connection options, which will show your chosen location and new IP address. The other settings for the VPN are accessed via a rather tiny cog icon that takes you to the settings menu.
There’s a handful of additional VPN-specific settings, mainly centered around whether or not you want certain sites to use the VPN, though there are no tool-tips to help beginner users understand why they might want to enable/disable any of these settings, nor is there any help given to explain how the split-tunneling/whitelisting feature works.
Ease of use score: 3/10
Speed and performance
OperaVPN’s performance varies wildly depending on the time of day you access it. Our testing was carried out on a 1 Gb fibre connection during the morning and the evening.
The Asian location gave us a top connection speed of 249 Mbps down with an upload speed of 103 Mps.
The European and American locations were both equally as inconsistent, with top download speeds of 380 Mbps and 136 Mbps respectively. These tests were repeated over multiple days, and speeds varied from passable to barely usable, with the best results being returned in the evening GMT.
4K streaming, for instance, requires connection speeds of 25 Mbps, so while you could maybe stream high-def content via Opera VPN Free, it would be heavily dependent on the time of day you were trying to watch anything.
By contrast, Windscribe’s test results put it in the top ten fastest VPNs with a download speed of 785 Mbps using the WireGuard protocol and a top speed of 365 Mbps when connecting through the OpenVPN protocol. PrivadoVPN Free and Proton VPN’s free offering both returned download speeds that are faster and more stable than OperaVPN as well.
Speed and performance score: 4/10
Unblocking
While OperaVPN Pro was surprisingly competent when it came to unblocking streaming sites around the world, the same cannot be said for the free version.
It failed to access any content on Amazon Prime Video, couldn’t unblock Disney+, and attempts to get to Paramount+ led to a screen telling us that the service wasn’t available in our part of the world.
The same went for BBC iPlayer, with the service detecting that we were not based in the UK and denying us access. If accessing streaming content is a big selling point for you, then not only does this force you to use the websites to stream rather than the bespoke apps, which often leads to degraded picture quality, but you would simply be better off using a different free VPN, with both PrivadoVPN Free and Windscribe offering far better results.
While it was able to access a variety of different torrenting sites, Opera VPN Free offers no protection if you want to download any of these torrents, as you need to use an external client. If you’re looking to do any P2P file sharing, you’d be better off looking at one of the best torrenting VPNs instead.
Unblocking score: 0/10
Privacy and Security
The biggest issue we faced when talking about Opera VPN Free’s privacy and security features is that the provider shares so little definitive information anywhere online.
The client’s privacy and security settings are as bare bones as the rest of its offering, while also managing to be confusing by offering a variety of protocols depending on the platform you’re using. On Windows and macOS, it uses the IPSec protocol. On Android, it uses either IPSec or OpenVPN, and on iOS, it uses the WireGuard protocol.
While other VPN providers offer up-to-date and speedy VPN protocols like WireGuard, OperaVPN free users are restricted to only the somewhat dated IPSec protocol on Windows and macOS.
There’s also no way for you to choose your protocol if you have issues connecting to a server or online resource. Opera does claim to have AES-256-bit encryption, but it’s difficult to verify any of these claims when Opera itself is so tight-lipped about what the VPN is capable of.
We can confirm that there are no DNS, IP, or WebRTC leaks found in any of our testing, and the Opera web browser itself blocks malicious websites, as well as offering advert and tracker blocking.
That’s great news, meaning that it provides some additional protection from intrusive websites trying to track what you’re doing, or wasting your bandwidth with annoying adverts. Beyond that, however, there’s none of the additional security or privacy features we would hope or expect to see, like multi-hop connections, anti-virus, obfuscated servers, or a kill switch.
The company has taken steps to assure both users and critics that it is committed to privacy and security. Towards the end of 2024, the company underwent an independent third-party audit, bringing in Deloitte to look at its systems and processes. The result of this was that Deloitte confirmed that Opera does live up to its no-logs policy and does not log or store any user data.
This is a big step toward proving that while it might be feature-light, Opera VPN Free doesn’t mess around with the privacy of its users.
Privacy and security score: 5/10
Track record
There’s not a great deal to say here, which is a good thing. OperaVPN doesn’t seem to have been involved in any major controversies or data breaches, though there have been some concerns voiced about Opera’s parent company, given that Opera is now majority owned by a Chinese company called Kunlun Tech Co., Ltd.
It also underwent a third-party audit last year that confirmed that its no-logs claim isn’t just an empty promise that can’t be verified.
Track record score: 8/10
Customer support
The short answer is that there is not much in the way of support for Opera VPN Free. Opera VPN Pro has its own dedicated support site, but it’s about as basic as they come. There are a handful of short articles that are mostly concerned with the basics of getting the VPN configured and working.
One of the articles claims to detail the difference between the Pro and Free versions, but it’s little better than a marketing page that directs users to the respective sites for each product and offers only two sentences with an overview of the differences between them.
Free users get even less. There is no dedicated support portal for free users, and nothing more than a handful of extremely basic “how to use the VPN” entries in the overall Opera browser support pages.
If you can’t find any help there, then there are community forums you can use, but the VPN doesn’t even merit its own dedicated forum for queries! There’s one for the AI tools that Opera bundles in, but not for the VPN.
Again, this is in comparison to other free VPNs that boast full-featured knowledge bases and sometimes even a support team you can reach out to for help.
Customer support score: 1/10
Pricing and plans
Opera VPN is available both as a free and a paid Pro version. The Pro version is priced as follows:
- 1 year – $48
- 6 months – $30
- 1 month – $8
There are no bandwidth limits when using the free version of the VPN, and you can install the Opera browser on as many machines/devices as you like, with the understanding that only your browser traffic is going to be protected by the VPN.
The paid version supports up to 6 simultaneous connections for your devices, which is fewer than a lot of other premium VPNs.
The company offers a 7-day free trial, but there seems to be some confusion over the length of the money-back guarantee.
On the Opera website, it appears to suggest that there is a 14-day money-back guarantee, which requires you to fill out a form, print it, scan it, and then send it to Opera’s support desk, which is hardly an intuitive or user-friendly procedure.
But if you look at the Opera VPN Pro forums, it claims that the company offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, and that all you need to do is email the support team.
Pricing and plans score: 7/10
Should you use Opera VPN Free?
Opera VPN’s free offering brings very little to the table that would see us recommend it over its competitors, and Opera seems almost embarrassed by its existence, judging by the dearth of information in its own official forums and support pages.
It has a tiny server network, it only protects your web browser, there’s no support for torrenting or streaming, no support site to help if you run into trouble, and its connection speeds range from the barely-usable to the just-about-adequate. There’s no killswitch, no ability to choose your VPN protocol, and basic whitelisting for URLs only.
It’s not all bad, though. The company passed an independent audit confirming its no-log claims, it’s about as simple a VPN as you could get, making it very easy for absolute beginners to get to grips with, and it does add at least some additional protection to your browsing by masking your IP and ensuring there’s no sneaky DNS leaks.
OperaVPN aims to be the most convenient way to encrypt your web browsing, and that approach does have some merits. The problem, though, is that other free VPNs are almost as simple to use, offer faster speeds, more features, and protection for all your other apps.
OperaVPN might appeal to those who aren’t particularly tech-savvy and want a truly simple product, but the argument could be made that a non-tech-savvy user isn’t going to be browsing the web through Opera to begin with.
Overall score 39/100
We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example: 1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service). 2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad. We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/EuPQnMz43XBezUBxqrqi9e.jpg
Source link
