Thursday, April 21, 2016

Technology Evolves: The Latest Security Feature For The Web Browser Niche

(updated at 04.23.16 1800 hr)

Most of us are big fans of evolving tools.   In the information economy, many products are slowly integrated into one framework.  For the modern day web surfers,  the browser is the hub that integrates the cloud,  the web-accessed mobile phone and the search engine.

Someone in our group just noticed that Opera Software has just added a free vpn feature to their browser.

The Possible Positive
Performance
The browser is entirely written in C++.  Therefore it should be idealistically fast.

A Computerworld Review
Computerworld downloaded and installed the Mac version of Opera's preview, enabled the VPN, and successfully browsed to numerous websites. Some, however, took a very long time to load, at least on the first instance.


Some paranoids believed that the slow load time means that this is a "a wolf in sheep's clothing" scenario.

Only the paranoids survive.  -  Andrew Grove

While most VPN are quite slow, the first version of any new feature in most software app is occasionally slow and unfocused.

While my preferences are Firefox and Chrome as my "alpha" browsers, I do like the Opera browser for its "sheer" efficiency.  


It is only a matter of time that the Firefox browser, the Chrome browser and other browsers will possess the same feature within a few cyber seasons.

In the information economy, most software features can be duplicated in a cyber moment.

The Negatives
The first negative is that the company "might" be owned by a PRC's group soon.  Some security conscious people do not trust the new owners.


The other big negative will affect the competing VPN's companies. If a browser has a free and efficient VPN module, why would they need to purchase a VPN service?

The Question of the Day
Why would a "soon to be owned by a PRC company" software company released a product that circumvents their own country's blocking efforts using VPNs?

The Big Tangible Picture
To increase user-ship in a consumer-driven economy,  releasing new and innovative features is a requirement.  Historically, the Opera browser has provided innovative features that have been emulated by other competing browsers. 

Since 2015,  the Opera Browser is the fourth most popular browser within the mobile phone niche.

The Gold Priority
Safety and security should always be the number one priority when surfing the web. However, we concluded that some of the security-conscious people would rather "wait for Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome to include this feature instead of using the Opera browser.  

Opera Browser currently has the temporary technological lead.  In most instances, it will be popular with the security-driven paranoids. 

In the future,  some of us will soon be experimenting with this  evolving tool on an experimental base.

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