Why Opera GX is kinda fucking weird
What even IS Opera GX?
Opera GX is a popular web browser that gamers often gravitate to, thanks to frequent recommendation and praise from popular Internet personalities. I mean no hate towards these guys, but it really sucks that so many people can be recommended crappy products because a guy they trust or seriously consider the opinion of pushes it.
The browser is a fork of the modern Opera browser, which is now just a fork of Google's Chromium web browser. Most web browsers these days are powered by Chromium, with the exceptions being WebKit (used on all iOS browsers, macOS Safari, and a few Linux browsers), and Gecko (Firefox). The appeal is mainly centered around the effective gamer-focused Discord-esque marketing and the social media intern who continues a long and arduous trend of artificial Wendy's-roast-like banter and memes. It prides itself on its gamer aesthetics, as well as other features like Opera's existing built-in VPN and various streamer/gamer-friendly quality of life additions.
So, what's the problem? It has a solid base in the most secure browser engine, and seems to have found a comfortable niche within the audience of gamers.
Better the devil you know than the devil you don't
Google is a very untrustworthy company. I don't like them. I think Google as a whole makes very frustrating sweeping decisions and cannibalizes their own software very often. However, one of the things Google consistently does right is security. They have teams dedicated to squashing zero-days in other companies' software. They do a ton of hardening of their two big operating systems, Android and Chrome OS. They implement a ton of very useful security-focused features within Chrome.
Chrome is THE most widely used web browser and Google has a very vested interest in keeping it alive and kicking. As a result, it has the most eyes on it and is under the most scrutiny. Web browser security is crucial because it's the application that most people store the vast majority of sensitive information on. And it's similarly important to have a rock-solid "chain of trust" from a big name vendor like Google.
Opera, on the other hand, is a smaller company. I refuse to buy into the sinophobic garbage that insinuates that Chinese-developed software (or just software where a Chinese company owns a part of the share) is inherently less secure or private. However, they ARE a smaller company. Additionally, Opera is proprietary software and they add features on top of the Chromium base. There's no way to really vet these things. Ultimately, they just do not have the resources to match up against a giant like Google and often times you may be left behind in terms of security updates. Imagine a situation where a severe vulnerability hits Chrome and it takes a day or two for Opera to update their version of the Chromium engine to catch up to what Chrome got almost immediately. My point is that trust is important.
Opera (company) seems to be infatuated with crypto shit with an "Opera Crypto Browser" in public beta. Personally, this indicates to me that they're struggling to really find a niche in the existing browser market and are struggling. They seem to be scatterbrained in implementing features, and I'm not a fan. Opera GX is yet another fork of the existing Opera browser, and it exacerbates these issues. There's even less eyes on the project. Even less elements of the UI are battle-tested. What frustrates me is they decided to go this route instead of offering a "GX Extension" of sorts that can be installed on existing browsers.
Ultimately, most browsers are "spyware", but it's way, way better to have spyware from a trusted company like Google that is in the information-dealing business over one that does almost everything in their browser behind closed doors. Some of the features implemented raise big red flags and make me question the project's sustainability: the embedded VPN, RGB LED support, built-in adblocker, etc. It doesn't inspire confidence that the GX team could resist against malicious actors or even unintentional massive oversights that puts their userbase at risk.
Hard-limiting resource usage in a browser this way is dumb
RAM is meant to be used and it's good that your web browser is taking advantage of the RAM present on your computer. Of course, memory leaks and bloat do exist. However, the solution is almost never to hard cap how much a program can use from within the program itself. Streets say the functionality is half-baked anyways.
Okay, then what am I supposed to use?
If you dislike Chrome, there are a couple options. Brave, Edge, and uhhhh nope that's it. Brave has some questionable crypto garbage injected into their browser and does some other stuff like built-in adblock and BitTorrent client. These are useful features, sure, but I'd rather they be separated onto dedicated extensions or applications. Microsoft Edge is solid but the Windows team is obsessed with pushing it in the most obnoxious, unpleasant way. The homepage is excessively busy and they make some strange UI decisions, but it feels more "at home" on a Windows system. They also do seem to care quite a bit about their user's security, enjoying the security benefits of the Chromium base over their own in-house engine of old.
Firefox is an alternative to those looking to escape the Google-opoly. Firefox is often times lighter, but more and more of the web is heading in the direction of excessive FF-unfriendly DRM and screwing over non-Chromium users. Additionally, to my knowledge, Firefox lacks some of the modern features Chromium-based browsers enjoy like per-tab sandboxing. If you're able to look past these, Firefox is a decent alternative. It's also my weapon of choice: I use it on macOS, Linux, and Windows and utilize the sync features to have some level of continuity. It's BY FAR the best option on Linux with the best support for hardware decoding of video, Wayland, and integration with modern systems like Flatpak and portals. Mozilla ships an official Flatpak, actually.
I do not recommend Safari/WebKit based browsers as they lack a lot of the security features of either Firefox or Chrome, and don't have the ubiquity they do. Safari is like the only one I recommend because Apple has a level of vested interest in keeping it reasonably safe. Unfortunately, if you use iOS, EVERYTHING is just Safari and you do not have a choice. Die die die. Apple please fix this.
Overall, I wish gamers would avoid less trustworthy software for things as crucial as their web browser. Similar principles apply to random proprietary RGB controller software or even weird operating systems like Atlas OS that strip Windows of stuff like UAC and Windows Defender. Defaulting to the "boring" option used at work is often times the correct one. If you take anything from this article, don't fall for snake oil bullshit peddled by sponsored YouTubers or public personalities.