[OU] Updating to 9.51 don't respect my preferences.

[Andrew Gregory]

On Sat, 02 Aug 2008 18:43:48 +0800, macintoshzoom  
<macintoshzoom at lavabit.com> wrote:

> Hi Andrew Gregory? or HTH?,

HTH = Hope This Helps

> Are you from the Opera staff?

No.

> Thanks for answering.

Hmmm. That's a contrast to the rest of your message!

> Andrew Gregory wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, 02 Aug 2008 16:14:06 +0800, macintoshzoom
>> <macintoshzoom at lavabit.com> wrote:
>>
>>> SUMMARY REPORT:
>>> ISSUE 1: Updating to 9.51 don't respect previous preferences settings.
>>
>> We'll need a lot more details than that! Anything will be better than
>> zero. I don't recall any of my preferences being altered by an upgrade.
>
> Well it happened to me.
> You may tell me a lier.
> Have any of you guys experienced this issue? Please post.

Nobody has called you a liar. All I said was that I've never lost my  
preferences after an upgrade.

What it sounds like is that Opera has lost track of your original profile  
and created a new one for you. This most often occurs when doing a  
multi-user install over a single-user install, or vice versa.

I'm not overly familar with all the technicalities of profiles, but this  
page may help:

http://operawiki.info/OperaProfiles

>>> ISSUE 2: Updating to 9.51 forces you to start at a preset "opera
>>> 9.51welcome/firstrun" site.
>>
>> This has happened for every update install for as long as I can
>> remember. Happens with every other browser I've updated too. Often
>> happens when I update some software packages. Just close the tab when it
>> opens. It won't come back. Not until your next update, anyway.
>
> Yes, these are bad manners from most browser creators from long time
> ago, but it don't justify bad manners.
> You force people to browse where they didn't ask to go for, and to leave
> their fingerprints and logging to your site, without user permission.

Seriously - you don't in general have complete control over what  
communications the browser makes. Unless you set all your web comms to go  
through a firewall or proxy. Opera also "phones home" to check for updates  
and compatibility improvements. This is a non-issue. You've already  
visited Opera to download the app. What's the problem if Opera knows  
you've actually installed it?

>>> ISSUE 3: Preferences setting identify as and mask as a different
>>> browserDON'T WORK. These are faking preferences to deceive users.
>>
>> Those preferences work fine.
>
> Not, you are wrong, Those preferences DON'T work fine.
>
> You are lying or deceiving all opera users intentionally:

Hmmm. Since you're quick to accuse people of lying to you, I guess you  
accusing others of lying to you is par for the course. It's just a shame  
that neither has been the case! :(

> Test your browser at the sites that I specified in my post , and that
> you deliberately have not shown here (WHEN YOU SPEAK ABOUT WHAT OTHERS
> SAID, ALWAYS INCLUDE THEIR FULL TEXT, not what you like others hear
> about them):
>
> From my original post:
> Test sites to verify this user-agent/settings ISSUE:
> https://www.jondos.de/en/anontest
> https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2 (shieldup>browser headings)
>
> Do you home job, and tell me and tell all in this list that those tests
> doesn't shows Opera 9.51 and your OS in their user-agent results.

If I mask as Firefox or IE, there's no sign of Opera on those pages.  
Masking the user-agent does not hide your operating system, and has never  
claimed to!

The settings are working exactly as intended. You'll need to be more  
specific about what you expect.

If you want to totally hide your user-agent and operating system, you'll  
need to use a proxy that can modify the requests you send out.

> Note that I started a post some weeks ago asking for "How to anonymize
> Opera?", with no real success yet for a real answer: "How to anonymize
> Opera?". Nobody could be able to give me the answer.

Well, if you were running on Windows, I'd recommend OperaTor (note that I  
haven't actually used it, but plenty of people seem to like it):

http://archetwist.com/en/opera/operator

I don't use Linux in other than a server capacity, so I can't advise  
there. Nor can I give advice on other operating systems, such as MacOS.

> Note: Here is a copy of my complete posting thread, for proper reference
> to all readers, as Andrew Gregory published above a partial/censored one:

There's absolutely no need for that. Subscribers to the mailing list will  
already have a copy of your original, plus there's the copy in the mailing  
list archives if they've already deleted their copy.

https://list.opera.com/mailman/listinfo/opera-users

Not trimming emails is simply being rude and inconsiderate of those people  
on dial-up or who otherwise pay per-byte for their Internet connection,  
but given the tone of your emails so far, I'm guessing there's only one  
person around here you care about! :(

Hoo boy! Am I glad I'm going for a two-week holiday!

HTH,
-- 
Andrew Gregory <mailto:andrew at scss.com.au>
<http://www.scss.com.au/family/andrew/>