Your digital privacy is a matter of concern now. Especially during these times when companies and advertisers are trying their level best to track you and obtain data from you. It is difficult to hide your internet footprints as most of the websites these days come loaded with trackers and your internet cookies can be used for “profiling” your identity.
Thankfully, there are multiple means to keep your privacy intact and a Virtual Private Network or VPN is one of the most common methods used by internet users. For those who are unaware how VPN works, it routes your data through a series of encrypted tunnels that makes it virtually impossible for anyone to track your IP address or any personal identifier that could reveal your identity.
Knowing about VPN is one thing and choosing the best VPN is another. Truth be told, VPNs are costly and there are very few reliable free VPN service providers. Recently, another name has been added to the list of free VPN service providers – Opera.
The popular browser now comes with an integrated free VPN service. After being available in beta for a long time, Opera’s browser VPN is now available in the stable version of the app which you can download from the Google Play Store.
Opera has made its VPN user-friendly with the option for users to turn it on whenever they want. It also lets you choose the websites on which you want to bypass the VPN feature. This is helpful especially when you are making a location-specific search.
How To Use Opera Browser’s Free VPN?
To use the VPN service integrated right into the browser, you need to follow the below-mentioned steps:
- Download the Opera Browser app from the Google Play Store.
- Launch the Opera app and tap on the Opera icon available on the bottom-right corner of the screen.
- Next, tap on Settings.
- Under the browser tab, enable the toggle against “VPN”. You will note that if you have enabled the data saving toggle, the browser will display a warning- “Enabling VPN will switch off data saving.” This is due to the fact that the VPN requires extra data to function. Hence, you cannot turn on both the options at the same time.
- If you have followed the above steps correctly, VPN will be activated for you. However, according to Opera’s default settings, VPN will be active only in a private tab and the search engine will bypass the VPN for location-specific searches.
If you want to enable VPN for normal browsing, you need to follow the under mentioned steps:
- Click on the “VPN” option under Settings to open VPN settings.
- Uncheck the box that says “Use VPN for private tabs only.”
- If you want to use VPN even in the search engine, you need to disable the “Bypass VPN for search” option in the VPN settings.
The VPN baked right into Opera Browser is free to use and you also have the option to choose from a selected location. Click on the “Virtual location” option in the VPN settings menu and you find three different options to choose from.
Opera VPN has servers in America, Asia, and Europe. Moreover, there is an “optimal” option that automatically chooses the server according to speed and availability.
VPNs have become pre-requisite these days if you are concerned about your digital privacy. If you want to hide your IP address for some purpose but do not want to pay the monthly or yearly subscription of a VPN service, Opera browser’s VPN is a good free VPN that you can use.
Img courtesy: Opera Blog