The Opera GX browser has received an amazing update. If not used for two weeks, it may think you are dead. In this case, he will invent a false history with completely suitable sites, to hide the real visits, which are perhaps unmentionable.
Rarely has an update been more unusual than the one just pushed by Opera Software on July 27, 2023. Its Opera GX web browser now includes a setting which, if satisfied, will have the effect of replacing the real history navigation by a completely fictitious list of sites that you allegedly visited.
It turns out that your death can be a criterion triggering the replacement of the history. In fact, the browser will not be able to know if you have passed away. The software will rely on a continuous period of inactivity – two weeks without using Opera GX – to consider that you may have died and that it is time to hide your research.
Of course, there are other less tragic reasons for not launching Opera GX for two weeks: you may have changed browsers on the PC and not uninstalled the old one. You can be on leave for more than two weeks. You can spend a long time in the hospital without a computer. Your PC may be under repair.
However, it is on this worst-case scenario that Opera directs its communication, as well as on other scenarios that are to say the least improbable, such as falling straight into a black hole. The reality, of course, is that it is mostly a privacy setting that comes into play after 14 days of inactivity – or right away, if the appropriate option is checked by the user.
” In case your curious partner, relative, or roommate opens Opera GX and takes a posthumous peek at your history, they might marvel at your online tastes and the fictional exploits that fill your digital past.. “A digital past” much nicer », dixit Opera, which avoids coming across anything embarrassing… like pornography.
Which research would be much more admissible? The editor mentions, for example, queries on ” local volunteer opportunities “, of the ” free online courses for personal development » or even guides for « encourage voting in my community ” or ” build a birdhouse “. Nothing fishy, in short.
An option of uncertain interest, on an uncommon browser
The option is only announced for Opera GX, the “gaming” version of the Opera web browser. The degree of adoption of Opera GX is unknown, but its big brother, Opera, has 320 million monthly Internet users. It is one of the most used web browsers, but far behind Google Chrome, Safari and Microsoft Edge. It has a market share close to that of Mozilla Firefox.
Unusual, the feature dubbed Fake My History, however, has an uncertain practical interest: protecting browsing history suggests that the browser is on a shared computer. However, in this case, the 14-day period is too long: another person in the accommodation may come across the real sites visited long before, if they launch Opera GX.
On the other hand, if we are talking about a computer whose session is protected by a password, the role of Fake My History is less clear. Access to Opera GX and therefore to the browsing history requires knowing the access code – or else, the session must already be open on the computer. Ditto on the smartphone, since there is a mobile version of this browser.
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