Opera VPN what it is for, how to activate and change location on Android

November 9, 2020, by Santiago Comment

A VPN (Virtual Private Network) service is used a lot to be able to access web services that are blocked in the user’s region and prevent third parties from seeing your browsing, improving your privacy, something especially useful in public WiFi networks. For example, it can be used to watch YouTube videos or blocked Netflix content. I have also used it on a couple of occasions to buy online in stores that do not allow international purchases. Since the VPN is located in a compatible region, using that VPN as an intermediary you can connect to the blocked service or store in your country.

There are many free VPN applications that are available for Android, but if you are already using Opera as your browser, you can activate the VPN built into this APP. Just tap the Opera button at the bottom, “Settings” and then “VPN”. Now just open a new private tab to be able to browse with the VPN enabled.

Activate Opera VPN in normal tabs

By default, Opera’s VPN only works on private tabs, but it can be activated for normal tabs by going into the VPN settings. For this, you must first do the above, that is, open the private tab and you will find the VPN Configuration option. There uncheck the box that says «Use VPN for private tabs only«.

Change VPN location

From the same VPN configuration screen you will find the option to change the location of the VPN. Unfortunately, here you only have the “Best” option that selects the location automatically, and America, Asia or Europe available. You cannot switch to a specific country, as with any decent VPN app.

Conclution

Although you can activate Opera’s VPN to navigate on any tab and website, and you also have unlimited browsing or data, unfortunately you cannot choose a specific country to connect (for example, the most used is usually USA, which you cannot configure in this Opera VPN). In addition, it is sometimes too slow to connect, to the point that a simple web page can take several seconds to load.

There is nothing you can do about it other than use a VPN app. If you don’t need too much data, you can try Tunnel Bear, which is among the best free VPNs, or even Surfeasy VPN which is sponsored by Opera and available for free en Play Store. To see a lot of multimedia then download a reliable unlimited data VPN app (thatoneprivacysite.net). Opera VPN was one of the best in this regard, but unfortunately it disappeared. Even if you find its APK, it does not work because the servers of this service were shut down.