Opera has released its free VPN app for Android. The app was previously already available for iOS but is now also available in Google's Play Store. While the app is free, users provide data to Opera in return.
The Norwegian browser developer, now in the hands of a Chinese consortium, announced its free VPN service earlier this year. Initially it would be a service that would be part of Opera's desktop browser but later also an iOS app became available.
The Android app is called "Opera Free VPN - Unlimited VPN" and is the latest addition to Opera's VPN products. It allows browsing without a data limit through 5 servers. These are located in the Netherlands, United States, Canada, Germany and Singapore. More locations should become available soon, according to Opera. Besides hiding your location the VPN service is also able to block ad trackers.
Opera's VPN is free but the privacy policy outlines that Opera collects data about usage of the service. This includes visited websites, locations, a random identifier, the device, browser and OS used to access the service and the IP address.
Therefore the VPN is mainly suitable for regular users that quickly want to use a public Wifi network and wants to prevent eavesdropping by that Wifi point. The encrypted connection is good for that but really anonymous browsing is not possible through Opera's VPN.
