Opera Browser Asked to Blacklist Pirate Sites in 'Turbo Mode'

Opera web browser's 'Turbo Mode' is designed to speed up browsing. As a side effect, it also bypasses website blocks, something popular with pirates. However, it appears that the company has been in talks to integrate a blacklist which could stop access to blocked domains. From a report on TorrentFreak: It transpires that earlier this year, Opera's owners were approached by Russian telecoms watchdog Roskomnadzor who aired concerns about the browser's ability to unblock banned sites. It was suggested that Opera should introduce some kind of filtering/blacklist mechanism to disallow blocked sites from accessing 'Turbo Mode.' Russian publication Kommersant says that it was able to confirm the nature of the discussions with sources within Opera. And according to Roskomnadzor's Vadim Ampelonsky, a meeting took place between the parties early in the fall. Ampelonsky says that discussion surrounded the technical issues of keeping blocked sites inaccessible when 'Turbo Mode' is activated. Representatives from Opera reportedly confirmed that this kind of filtering is possible. "We are ready to periodically send a list of sites to enter into such a filter at the conclusion of a bilateral agreement [with Opera]," Ampelonsky says, adding that discussions continue.

Re:summary fail / what's new

[The MAZZTer]

Turbo Mode, by it's very nature, also functions as a proxy, since the data needs to go through Opera's servers first to get compressed.

Re:summary fail / what's new

[houstonbofh]

It defeats it by using a proxy to request the page and compress it. Essentially an un-encrypted but compressed VPN. That kind of thing defeats much of the "blocking" today unless the location of the server is also blocked. The easy fix is regional servers, but that has a non-trivial cost.

Führer

[Joe_Dragon]

Di Führer is mad that them.

It's the only reason I use Opera...

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite often switch out of Chrome or Edge to use Opera for this very reason.

Re:

[CaptainDork]

And you unload your gun to go into some biker bars.

Re:

[b0bby]

Chrome on Android has a Data Saver setting which does the same thing, routes you through Google for compression. Looks like it's also available in the Chrome store.

Censorship, plain and simple

[Anonymous Coward]

You thought the Age of the Surveillance State was bad? Enjoy the new hotness: The Age of Censorship, where you're not even allowed to choose anymore, your Nanny State does it for you. They can go fuck themselves sideways with a rusty Zika-and-HIV infested chainsaw.

commentsubject

[Falos]

"The people are only allowed to go to the websites we give them permission to see" but at least they're not compelling them, forcing them. At least this targets infrastructure instead of the people. "You may only use devices pre-loaded with our logger, comrade."

Still shit on balance. Still only affects casuals; there's always several ways around, and Our Betters are satisfied if they're sufficiently obscure, but they don't seem to realize these ALWAYS propagate until it trickles down to being a phone app

Turbo Pirates!

[anthony_greer]

perhaps the perfect metal band name...

Response

[Opportunist]

Yes, we'll certainly eliminate the one feature that sets Opera apart and makes it appealing.

Yeah.

Definitely.

We're working on it as fast as you're pulling out of the areas you're occupying. Promised.

Opera to give up market share ...

[CaptainDork]

... of pirates to another browser.

Turbo mode is least of their worry

[Anonymous Coward]

Opera browser also has a encrypted VPN built-in to the client which connects to their SurfEasy network. So far, the access is free and probably used far more frequently by Opera users in Russia, the UK, or anywhere else domains are blacklisted than Turbo mode is. Turbo doesn't work with HTTPS so its limited in usefulness.

Pirates my ass!

[LTIfox]

I'm surprised that the blurb makes it all about pirates while in fact it's about state censorship. That's Russian government we're talking about. Pirates has nothing to do with the request - it's all about blocking porn, of course! ;)

Re:Pirates my ass!

[KiloByte]

I'm surprised that the blurb makes it all about pirates while in fact it's about state censorship.

And copyright abuses -- heck, copyright at all -- aren't a subset of state censorship, how exactly? From day one, when it was The Worshipful Company of Stationers?

Bilateral

[dromgodis]

bilateral agreement

Bilateral as in "you enforce our censorship and we won't imprison the users of your product in our country".