• @DontTreadOnBigfoot@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Holy shit.

    I thought this was just going to be a matter of poor security implementation or crappy feature sets.

    Turns out they converted the company into a loan shark operation owned by Chinese ad companies

    when the Opera browser continued losing users (due to competition from Google and Apple), the company shifted gears to building mobile apps that provided predatory short-term loans. The interest rates on those loans ranged from 365-876% per year, and loan terms from 7-29 days.

    • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️
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      01 year ago

      This behavior is just beyond batshit. Before anyone decides tl;dr, the article is well worth a read.

      I had a hunch that Opera was circling the drain when I started seeing them sponsor Youtubers. A general rule of thumb is that no company that has anything worth a shit devolves to sponsoring Youtube videos. I had no idea about the predatory loans thing, or the crypto scam chasing thing, or the ripping off ChatGPT thing…

      Back here in reality, there is no reason anyone should be using any other browser than Firefox. There is one organization left in this arena still devoted to protecting privacy, maintaining open standards, and a fair and open web for all. And it ain’t Google, it ain’t Microsoft, and it ain’t Opera.

      • @fartsparkles@sh.itjust.works
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        01 year ago

        And it’s always been Firefox since day one. Out of the ashes of Netscape Navigator rose Firefox and Mozilla have been one of the only bastions of the free and open web ever since. I honestly don’t understand why anyone would use another browser.

          • @TheBananaKing@lemmy.world
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            01 year ago

            Actually it’s an effective cloud-based password manager that doesn’t rely on local storage or weird plugins or backups.

            That’s what keeps me using chrome. I could lose everything in a house fire, pick up any device, log in and have access to all my stuff without any further action on my part, right out of the box.

            That’s the only feature I care about, and chrome is the only browser I’ve seen that provides it.

            Get me that in firefox, and I’ll switch today.

            • Deebster
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              1 year ago

              I’m confused since Firefox Sync has been letting you sync/backup your passwords, bookmarks and history for a decade or two at this point, and you can even self-host the sync server.

              I don’t know the complete FF password manager details (Bitwarden user here) but where does Firefox fall short for you?

            • 📛Maven
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              1 year ago

              What are you talking about? Firefox has had literally Sync since before Chrome existed.

              Firefox Sync initial release: December 21, 2007

              Google Chrome intial release: September 2, 2008 (Beta), (1.0) December 11, 2008

              A full year, my guy.