I live in constant fear that the Arc team (my beloved browser) will start chasing revenue with these privacy invasive services. Can I please have the option to just pay for the software? I’m so tired of being the product.
Both of those things together basically guarantees they'll try to squeeze out as money as possible from their users as soon as the "growth" phase has been completed.
There's a new .exe that runs on browser launch, blasting users with very, very loud sound. There's no obvious way to disable it. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=opera+loud+startup+site%253Areddit...
When trying to upload a file, one might expect a file picker. Instead, Opera pops open a small window with some pictures of earlier downloads. There's no option to navigate to the file you need. There's no evident path to exit the experience or even a window title to indicate what it's called (easy-files). In short, you're stuck.
But, what is the user supposed to feel is the reason? I feel like the only reasonable explanation is that they're trying to rope more product in to sell data but they don't even seem to be trying to hide it. I just feel like I can't think of an alternative reason any company would care if we used their specific browser.