Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Question from Gene J.: I use Chrome for most everything but I always open Facebook in Opera.
Every time I open Opera it opens Facebook by default (which is what I want), but it also always opens a new tab as the active tab.
I have to always click the X to close that new tab in order to see the Facebook tab.
How can I get Opera to open just the Facebook tab without opening a new tab along with it?
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
A while back I wrote a post discussing Opera’s addition of a free VPN service that’s integrated right into their awesome Opera desktop and mobile browsers.
I’ve used the free Opera VPN ever since it was first introduced because I really love the convenience of having my VPN seamlessly integrated into my web browser.
Unfortunately, Opera has just announced they’ll be removing the free integrated VPN service from their browsers at the end this month. [Read more…]
Important Update: Opera has announced that they’ll be removing the integrated VPN from their browsers on April 30, 2018.
I really enjoyed having my VPN seamlessly integrated with my web browser, but things are what they are. It sure was nice while it lasted.
Note: The original post begins below.
If you ever use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to securely use the Internet with your laptop or desktop PC, you should know that the fantastic Opera browser now has a VPN feature built right in to it!
Opera’s free VPN service allows you to safely access the Internet via open Wi-Fi hotspots such as those commonly found in restaurants, coffee shops and many other types of venues.
And the best part is you can do it without having to install a browser extension or sign into a VPS server!
Once the VPS feature is turned on, your Opera browser will automatically create a secure, encrypted connection between your PC and an Opera-owned VPN server. It really is as simple as that!
Simply follow the steps below to download the latest version of Opera and turn on the VPN feature: [Read more…]
Question from Callen W.: I really need your help Rick. I followed your advice and installed the Opera browser so I could use the built-in VPN.
Everything worked perfectly for a couple of days, then Opera started hanging up and no websites would load.
I noticed that the VPN button in the address bar was white instead of blue so I clicked on it and saw that the VPN was turned off and trying to connect.
Every time I try clicking the button to turn the VPN on it says “Connecting” but it never connects.
I did some research and saw where someone said it could be a conflict with my antivirus software. I temporarily disabled AVG Antivirus and sure enough, the VPN connected just fine and websites started loading with no problem.
The problem is when I re-enable AVG the connection issue comes back after a little while.
I’ve used AVG for years and I’d rather not have to give it up just to use Opera and its built-in VPN. Is there something I can do to make Opera and AVG work together?
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
Question from Camille I.: I have cable Internet through Charter and it’s usually pretty fast, but during the evenings it sometimes slows to a crawl. I read somewhere a while back that some web browsers work better on slow Internet connections than others. Can you recommend one?
Rick’s answer: I sure can Camille. For overall speed it’s hard to beat Google Chrome, but if you have a slow Internet connection Opera running in turbo mode is amazing! What makes Opera so much faster over a slow connection than other browsers is their data proprietary compression system. [Read more…]