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Opera has started giving out its widely publicized VPN service through its browser. However the company has started using the VPN service to run through all traffic. It is not a VPN they are using though but rather a proxy. The company has been offering a free service to its users of the VPN, and anyone who chooses to use it can get it.
All the web traffic which will go through the browser is therefore encrypted, and other browser functions such as tracking of cookies will be blocked. As usual because it’s a VPN, the IP address is also going to be hidden from others.
The use of the in-built VPN service by users will protect them and their data from the prying eyes which have been on the internet lately. These prying eyes are anything from hackers and criminals who have been trying to sniff the Wifi traffic or some advertisers who might be trying to track the internet habits of their users.
The use of the VPN can also be used to allow the web browsers to get across the issue of geo-location restricted content. This means that Opera users can easily watch some content which might be restricted in their geographical locations.
The use of VPNs has been widely accepted by people especially those who constantly use Public Wifi’s which might be open to everyone. VPN use on public Wifi’s is widely appreciated because it can stop sensitive files from being taken. Most of the people who are privacy conscious make use of the VPN many times and it doesn’t matter where they are.
However one big disadvantage to VPNs is that they may be hard to setup for those who are not tech savvy. Many of them are not free and most of them have a bandwidth cap if they are being offered for free. Therefore the offer from Opera for a free and non bandwidth limited VPN is expected to attract a lot of privacy minded people to the service. The company hopes to attract a certain user base with the offer.
However, what Opera is really offering is not really a VPN. The traffic that is going to be encrypted by the Opera browser is only going to be in the browser and will not cover all the traffic that will be sent and received by the network itself. Therefore all emails, chats and any other traffic that is not included in the browser traffic will not be encrypted. Therefore since its more restricted to the browser it becomes more of a proxy.
There seems like there seems to be a problem with the nomenclature of what Opera is offering. One thing to keep in mind is that all traffic is going through the Opera servers which means that the company might be able to see everything all its users do.
