The development team behind the Opera browser have this week announced new updates making privacy and security features more accessible and the addition of a new tracker blocker. Opera already offers a free, unlimited VPN, built-in ad blocker and the new tracker blocker can speed up your browsing while also increasing your level of privacy. Once switched on, both the ad blocker and tracker can be disabled for individual websites, for example, when a publisher requires that you do so in order to to access their content, says Opera.
The Opera tracker blocker relies on the EasyPrivacy Tracking Protection List. Once you switch it on, it works similarly to Opera’s native ad blocker, suing a list of known tracker scripts, blocking them from loading to protect your privacy. Watch the quick overview video embedded below to learn more about the privacy features within the Opera 64 desktop web browser.
“Whenever you use the web, you leave traces, and websites tend to follow your every click. To get information about your browsing habits, many of them add invisible elements, record some data or use your user account information. This is called first-party tracking and it’s often quite handy as it can provide useful customization for the service you are using.
Today however, websites also tend to use an extensive amount of third-party tracking tools. While many of these are useful for the website owners, these third-party trackers are often able to build a picture of your online activity by gathering information from several websites that you are logged into. This can create privacy concerns because people’s data might be collected and shared with third parties that they never knew about.
The most blatant examples of this are personalized ads. Oftentimes, once you’ve looked for a product on a website, that product follows you around to other websites. If you switch on the tracker blocker in the Easy setup menu, the content shouldn’t follow you around anymore and you’ll become less visible to third parties.”
Source: OperaBlog