The IT Nerd

You might have heard of the Opera web browser. Or perhaps you might not have heard of it because its market share when compared to browsers like Chrome and Firefox is really small. I am guessing that this is affecting it’s revenue because according to Android Police, Opera has a new line of business. Predatory loans:

You may recall that Opera became a public company in mid-2017, shortly after it was purchased by a China-based investor group. Since then, Opera’s market share has continued to fall, due to the increasing dominance of Chrome. As a result, Opera decided to pivot to predatory short-term lending in Africa and Asia across four apps: OKash and OPesa in Kenya, CashBean in India, and OPay in Nigeria.

The apps have apparently remained available in the Play Store (except OPesa, which seems to be gone) by advertising different loan rates in the app description than users actually receive. For example, the listing for OKash stated its loans range from 91-365 days (the page now says 61-365 days), but an email response from the company stated it only offered loans from 15-29 days — significantly lower than the 60-day minimum enforced by Google. All of Opera’s other apps were also found to be in violation to varying extents.

If you think that’s bad, then buckle in! According to Play Store reviews, the OKash and OPesa apps sent text messages or calls to people in the user’s contacts when payments were late, threatening to take legal action or place the borrower on a credit blacklist. A former employee told Hindenburg Research that this practice ended last year “because it was said it was illegal.” That’s probably a good reason to stop doing something, right?

Opera is really scraping the bottom of the barrel here. I haven’t used Opera in years, and when it first appeared, it was a viable browser option for many. Now it is clear that the company who now owns them is pretty shady. Thus if I were you, I’d dump the Opera browser if you’re still running it because if this company does this sort of stuff, who knows what they are doing with the Opera browser. In the meantime, if you want an alternative to the browsers that are out there, try the Vivaldi browser as the team behind it is made up of Ex-Opera team members who left after the buyout. Or you can simply bite the bullet and try one of the usual suspects meaning Chrome, Firefox, or the new Edge browser. Because anything is better than what Opera is offering up to users.

eBay just announced the launch of a Price Match Guarantee in the Canadian market. Starting on Monday, July 10, this new eBay program guarantees that eligible deals will be offered at the best price online, or eBay will match the lower price of competitors, including Amazon.ca, BestBuy.caand Walmart.ca.

The launch coincides with eBay’s summer Deals event, running July 10-18 – no membership required!

What does this mean for you?

While eBay offers great deals all year round, consumers can expect deep discounts of up to 70% off on items between July 10 – 18. And, if they find a better deal elsewhere for the same item – they can let eBay know, and they will match the price. Here are a few examples of the deep discounts:

• • 50% off on LG Electronics 55” 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV
  • 20% off on Apple iPhone 7 128GB (Refurbished)
  • 61% off on Apple iPad 3 16GB Wi-Fi and Cellular (Unlocked)
  • 53% off on Cobra RC Toys 2.4GHZ Drone
  • 28% off on Hoverzon S Self Balancing Hoverboard
  • 52% off on Hamilton 22 Jet 6 Person Plug & Play Spa
  • 31% off on Senville 10,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner

If a shopper finds a competitor offering the same product for less, once verified, eBay Canada will offer a coupon for the difference in price that can be used towards the purchase of the item. Items eligible for the Price Match Guarantee are:

• New: Brand new, in retail packaging, and available daily in the Canadian eBay Deals program
• Identical and Available: Both items must be exactly the same and currently in stock
• Competitors: Amazon.ca, BestBuy.ca, Walmart.ca

Take a look at ebay.ca/deals to see what deals you can find.

Remember I mentioned a teaser page that I saw on the Opera site last week. They’ve stopped teasing and announce Opera Unite. What is it you ask? I’ll let them tell you:

Opera today unveiled Opera Unite, a new technology that shakes up the old client-server computing model of the Web. Opera Unite turns any computer into both a client and a server, allowing it to interact with and serve content to other computers directly across the Web, without the need for third-party servers.

Opera Unite makes serving data as simple and easy as browsing the Web. For consumers, Opera Unite services give greater control of private data and make it easy to share data with any device equipped with a modern Web browser.

For Web developers, Opera Unite services are based on the same open Web standards as Web sites today. This dramatically simplifies the complexity of authoring cutting-edge Web services. With Opera Unite, creating a full Web service is now as easy as coding a Web page.

Sounds interesting. It might be cool if it catches on. You can take a look at the Opera Unite site and watch a YouTube video about the product. Then you can judge for yourself.

This teaser page has appeared on the Opera website which claims that they are about to “Reinvent The Web.” My best guess is that Opera 10 will come out of beta on that day. Or perhaps they’ve hired Al Gore who (at least in his mind) invented the Internet in the first place. I guess we’ll see on Tuesday.

Anybody have any other guesses?