Frequently asked questions

Opera is an internet company with three main lines of business.

Opera browsers: Opera products enable more than 350 million internet consumers worldwide to discover and connect with the web content and services that matter most to them, no matter the device, network or location. Our team around the world is dedicated to building the best web browser for any device or platform.

Opera Mediaworks: Opera helps advertisers reach the audiences that build value for their businesses.

Opera's operator solutions: Opera delivers products and services to more than 120 mobile operators around the world, enabling them to provide a faster, more economical and better network experience to their subscribers.

Opera began in 1994 as a research project within Norway's largest telecom company, Telenor. Within a year, it branched out into an independent development company named Opera Software ASA.

Opera is shaping an open, connected world. We believe that an open, connected world — powered by great technology and services — is essential to break down barriers that limit access to information, education and fun. Our culture is playful, people-centric and innovation-driven, and our goal is to improve communication for the benefit of everyone. You can find more information about Opera's vision, ethical code of conduct and environmental policy on our website.

Opera's headquarters is in Norway, with locations in the United States, Sweden, China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Taiwan, Iceland and India.

The Opera group consists of Opera Software ASA, maker of the Opera browsers; Opera Mediaworks, the world's largest mobile advertising platform (including AdMarvel, an ad-serving and mediation platform; Mobile Theory, a premium mobile ad network in the United States; 4th Screen Advertising Ltd., a premium ad network in the United Kingdom; and Opera Mediaworks Performance, a results-driven mobile ad network); and Skyfire Labs, who improves the mobile internet experience by using cloud computing.

Opera's product lineup includes:

Opera for computers, our browser offering for desktop and laptop computers
Opera Coast, the browser tailor-made for iPad
Opera for Android, the best all-in-one app for Android smartphones
Opera Mini, a fast and compact web browser with compression technology
Opera Web Pass, a solution that allows operators to package their mobile internet offerings in flexible, easy-to-understand and marketable ways to their customers
Rocket Optimizer, an innovative, next-generation cloud approach to mobile video and data optimization for carriers
Opera Mobile Ad Exchange, an open platform that brings mobile publishers, carriers and advertisers together in a common marketplace
Opera Audience Network, an easy-to-use business-intelligence tool that provides fine-grain intelligence and aggregated market analytics about mobile consumer trends and behavior
Opera Mobile Store, the 5th-largest app store in the world, with 60 million monthly unique users
Opera Devices SDK, an extensible TV platform for interactive connected-TV solutions
Opera TV Store, Opera's HTML5 app platform for Smart TV devices
Opera TV Snap, a next-generation TV app technology with the ability to transform onlinevideo into apps for connected TV
Opera TV Emulator, a solution that allows web developers to test HTML5 and CE-HTML content for TVs and other appliances running the Opera Devices SDK
Opera TV browser, the full web-browsing experience for connected TVs

As of September 2013, more than 350 million people use Opera each month to browse the web, whether by phone, computer or TV.

Opera provides cloud-based mobile services and solutions to operators, publishers and advertisers and enables hundreds of millions of consumers, via the Company's global cloud infrastructure, to connect to the internet content and services that matter most to them. Along those lines, Opera has different revenue models, depending on the customer type:

• Operators. Opera's revenue sources from this hosted solution include active user fees, data fees, NRE/development fees, hosting services, advertising and maintenance, and support.
• Mobile consumers (via partnerships with search providers and advertisers). The primary driver of mobile consumer revenue is revenue from mobile search, the Opera Mobile Store and active user growth.
• Mobile publishers and advertisers. Revenue comes from Opera's mobile advertising services and technology solutions, offered to premium and performance advertisers, ad agencies, publishers and developers.
• Device OEMs. Revenue comes through license agreements with a wide range of consumer-electronic-device OEMs.
• Desktop consumers. Revenue comes primarily from search and e-commerce partnerships.

Opera has always welcomed open competition and believes the increased competition in the browser market is positive for the end users, as browser makers are now fighting to provide the best, most innovative products.

Along those lines, Opera keeps reinventing itself and chose to adopt and contribute to the Blink engine, to focus on developing the new features and user-friendly solutions that are expected from a company that invented so many of the features used today by the browser industry at large.

Opera is a publicly-listed company on the Oslo Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "OPERA". Refer to our Investor Relations pages for more information.

We take pride in making Opera a secure browser and have an excellent security track record to prove it. Opera has pioneered work with the security badge and address field, giving users all relevant information about secure sites, such as those for shopping and banking. If a site is suspected of fraudulent activity, users are warned by the browser before entering. Privacy is also important to us, and Opera offers users advanced privacy settings, private mode and the ability to delete all traces of their online activity. To put any concerns at rest, we have a team of security experts working with Opera at all times. Opera automatically checks for updates to make sure users will always have the latest version available.

Opera Turbo allows users to experience faster browsing by using less bandwidth. By compressing webpages by up to 80 percent, Opera Turbo provides significant improvements in browsing speeds over limited bandwidth or very crowded connections.

Video boost is a feature that optimizes videos by compressing the size of video data before it lands on the user’s phone, to reduce the amount of buffering time. The smaller amount of data consumed also means it can save users on their data bills. It is available in the Opera Mini browser for iOS, while watching videos in the Opera Turbo data savings mode.

The Discover feature is a curated list of top websites available for the user's selected country. Users can choose their fields of interest and let the Discover feature do the legwork of bringing them the latest news in those categories. The list is updated constantly and maintained by Opera to verify the quality of sites and content. The Discover feature is now available on the latest versions of Opera for computers and Opera for Android.

Opera Mini is a fast and compact web browser that uses advanced compression technology, reducing the amount of data required to load a webpage to as little as 10% of the original size. It helps users browse faster - especially on basic phones or slow, congested networks. Opera Mini is compatible with more than 3,000 different phone models, from Java-based phones to special versions for Windows Mobile, Android, BlackBerry and iPhone.

Opera for Android is our best all-in-one app for that platform. It has a light, sleek interface, and includes the Discover feature and Opera Turbo mode. Opera for Android is based on the Chromium engine and is compatible with Android, versions 4.0 and above.

Opera for Android is available for Android phones, versions 4.0 and above. Opera Mini is available on all Java-based phones, in addition to special versions for Windows Mobile, Android, BlackBerry and iPhone.

Mobile Classic is the previous version of Opera for Android, based on the Presto engine and compatible with Android tablets and smartphones. Mobile Classic is still available for legacy usage, but we encourage all users to update to Opera for Android, which is our latest offering for Android phones.

Opera has no current plans to open source its browser. Opera has great respect for the open source movement, and Opera's products run on the various open source platforms. Furthermore, Opera contributes with open source code on https://github.com/operasoftware and sends code back to the Chromium and Blink projects, both of which are open source. Opera believes that the most important thing is open web standards. If websites and browsers are created based on open standards, users gain an ideal environment for innovation and healthy competition.

Opera believes in an internet where everyone can meet, innovate and thrive. For this to happen, certain international standards must be followed by everyone. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) develops interoperable technologies, such as specifications, guidelines,software and tools that make this possible. For more on Opera's values, take a look at Opera's vision.

Opera believes that many software and so-called business method patents do not protect or encourage innovation in the software industry. Rather, we believe they discourage the development of open standards and interoperability - two of Opera's core values.

As a highly innovative company, Opera often develops technology that may be patentable. In some situations, we apply for patent protection as a way to protect ourselves from attack by aggressive patent holders and non-practicing entities. At the same time, Opera often contributes back these inventions through the W3C's Royalty Free Patent Policy and other initiatives seeking to ensure an open development environment for all.

From version 15 onward, Opera for computers supports Chromium extensions, many of which are available in our ever-growing extensions catalog.

Yes. If a user visits a page that requires Java, and it is not already installed, Opera will guide the user through downloading and installing it. Please note that Java is a third-party add-on that is outside Opera's control. We strongly recommend that users keep any such plug-ins up to date when their system advises it.

Opera for Android does not include support for Flash. Flash on mobile phones is being phased out, as it's no longer supported by Adobe. Most video sites now offer the content as HTML5 video instead, which plays fine in Opera for Android.

Passwords are stored in your browser in a secure way. Users can easily delete all passwords and other private information such as history and cookies.