Opera Free VPN Review

Why Use Opera Free VPN?

There are two good reasons. Firstly, it’s built into the Opera browser, so you only need to download and install the browser, then enable the VPN to switch on the service. That's it!

Secondly, it’s free to use and offers unlimited bandwidth. That's pretty rare for any free VPN – most free services will cut your bandwidth down to a couple of gigabytes, making them less useful for streaming video or heavy downloading.

So, using Opera’s VPN won’t cost you a single cent. Beyond that, it’s very easy to use – and Opera is a great browser with some brilliant features in its own right. The browser keeps evolving, too – the latest version of Opera has a crypto-wallet, dark mode and web 3.0 support.

Opera Browser VPN: The Good

Free VPNs are often rather limited, and the cons can run further than the pros. But, Opera VPN is pretty respectable for a free service.

Effortlessly Simple

It’s very easy to use the Opera VPN service – mainly because it gives you so few settings to dabble with. You can also see at a glance whether the VPN is active just by looking at the icon in the address bar.

Strong Encryption

Provided you’re using the Opera browser, a more secure connection is only ever one click away. Opera uses 256-bit AES encryption – translation? That's good. In fact, this level of encryption is every bit as good as the big commercial VPNs.

Surprisingly Good Speeds

It’s also speedy. Speed tests we ran over the Optimal location weren’t significantly slower than speed tests ran without a VPN.

Opera VPN: The Not-So-Good

Now, onto those limitations we mentioned before.

No App Versions

Opera has reduced its level of support for the VPN and has also halted work on its free mobile VPN apps, which are no longer available to download. That means Opera VPN is only usable on a laptop or desktop, not a smartphone or tablet.

Few Server Choices

The list of locations is tiny, with just Optimal (chosen for you), Europe, Americas and Asia, and when you pick Americas as your location you just get a VPN link to a server within Europe, making the Opera VPN useless if you want to undo region locks on US video streaming services, or unlock, say, the BBC iPlayer from outside the UK.

Privacy Leaks

And while Opera gives you the improved security of an encrypted VPN connection, your privacy doesn’t seem to be so well protected. Leak tests threw up warnings about potential DNS leaks – a serious red flag for a VPN. While these won’t pinpoint your identity or location, they do indicate that you’re connecting through a VPN.

Browser Only

One other thing to make clear: the Opera VPN only works for what you do inside the browser – it doesn’t help at all with any apps that run outside it.

Opera Free vs Paid VPN Prices

Opera is free and there’s no paid-for, upgraded VPN service. on the plus side, this means no nagging messages or even adverts. If you like the Opera browser already, then the VPN is a fantastic option to try out, but we wouldn't recommend it for anyone who's serious about using a VPN with all the trimmings.

If you're serious about your online privacy, and want the flexibility of a VPN that will work with any of your apps, or on your phone or tablet, then it's worth spending some money to upgrade to a paid-for service. This can be as little as a couple of dollars per month. Our top-choice VPN for 2019 is PureVPN – read our full PureVPN review to find out why we rate it so highly.

Getting Started With Opera VPN

As we said, there’s no need to sign-up for anything; you simply visit the Opera website, download the latest version and install it.

There are versions of Opera for Windows, MacOS and Linux.

Once the browser is installed, it's time to turn on the VPN service. To do this, go to Settings (or Preferences on the Mac version), select Privacy and Security, then turn the Free VPN option on.

From here on in, a small VPN icon appears in the address bar, and you can click on this to turn the VPN off and on. The control panel is deliberately simple, with just a switch to enable the VPN and a drop-down menu with a handful of locations, plus a bandwidth meter to tell you how much data has run through the VPN recently.

The Verdict

Opera’s built-in VPN doesn’t offer the best protection for your privacy or anonymity, and also doesn’t do anything for you outside the Opera browser. It’s good, though, as a quick, easy option when you connect through a public WiFi network, but it won’t keep you or your activities as safe or private as a proper, paid-for VPN.