When comparing Opera vs Brave, the Slant community recommends Brave for most people. In the question“What are the best desktop web browsers?” Brave is ranked 9th while Opera is ranked 28th. The most important reason people chose Brave is:
Released to the community under the Mozilla Public License (MPL), this software respect the FSF's four freedoms, including the freedom to use, modify, and redistribute with or without modification freely.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Built-In Adblocker
The built-In adblocker is faster than any extension. It's possible to add your own filter lists. However, the adblocker isn't enabled by default.
Pro VPN onboard
Free VPN onboard (but it's slow and it leaks your IP), includes Germany, Canada, USA, Netherlands, Singapore.
Pro Video pop-out feature
You can pop-out any video and it will stay on top while you are surfing on other tabs.
Pro Compatible with Chrome extensions
Since Opera is built on Blink, the same engine Chromium is built on, it was possible for Opera developers to allow Chrome extensions to run in their browser.
Pro Strong HTML5 feature support
Opera scores highly on HTML5 feature support.
Pro Opera Turbo
Opera has a functionality called Turbo which increases browsers speed and reduces data consumption considerably by compressing the data that's found in a web page.
Pro You can install extensions on the sidebar
Unlike other browsers, you can install add-ons such as tabs, bookmarks, history, sessions, notes, and extension manager in the sidebar. So you have the flexibility to use it for your purpose.
Pro Opera Sync
Opera Sync allows you to synchronize your bookmarks, passwords, and more from any computer, phone, or tablet.
Pro Customizable
Opera is full of user controlled settings. Everything can be imported and exported even RSS feeds. It can be skinned in a variety of different themes or it can be extended through the use of a large number of plugins available.
Pro Battery saving mode
Pro Opera can have extensions from Opera Addons & Chrome Store websites
Opera supports cross-browser extensions. Opera Addons site keeps quality up compared to Chrome Store. Full of useful extensions, Opera also supports extra APIs like Speed Dial API, Extension Sidebar API and Stash API meaning wider variety of extension possibilities than in Chrome.
Pro Speed Dial
Opera's Speed Dial (new tab page) has the ability to hold as many websites as you want, and you can customize it almost however you want. You can also organize the websites on the Speed Dial into folders.
Pro Partly open source
Source code available on GitHub.
Pro Blazingly fast
Scores top on Basemark.
Pro Portable
You can save the Opera's setup files on a USB hard drive and run its portable version anywhere.
Pro For Opera 2017 & 2018 gonna be time of new
Opera got Reborn UI as the first implementation from Opera Neon concept browser. Snap -feature is next. Opera constantly improves its basic functionality - unlike Chrome.
Pro Free vpn
Without any cost unlimited and working.
Pro Lightweight
It doesn't consume much RAM, unlike Chrome.
Pro Touch bar support
Pro Built-in currency converter
Just highlight price on a website and see this price in your currency.
Pro Fast video loading
Opera loads videos faster, making it useful for slow internet connections.
Pro Free/libre software
Released to the community under the Mozilla Public License (MPL), this software respect the FSF's four freedoms, including the freedom to use, modify, and redistribute with or without modification freely.
Pro Option to disable additional privacy concerns
Like fingerprint tracking.
Pro Takes care of privacy and security
Takes privacy seriously by blocking ads and trackers and not tracking people's searches. Things like HTTPS everywhere and no tracking are standard with Brave. In most other browsers, things like these are optional at best.
Pro Built-in adblocking
Other apps make it difficult to block ads without rooting your phone or going through unoptimized add-on stores, but Link Bubble blocks them out of the box, making browsing much less crowded. Contains an optional "Allow Brave Acceptable Ads" So you can support the site you truly enjoy.
Pro Optional feature for you to get reimbursed for viewing ads
Basic Attention Token; you can decide to opt into a new blockchain-based digital advertising system, giving publishers a better deal and users a share of the ad revenue for their attention.
Pro Now supports Chrome Webstore
It's now a faster, less intrusive Chrome.
Pro Tor is available right in the browser
Private Window with Tor hides your IP address from the sites you visit.
Pro Faster than Google Chrome
Brave consistently beats Chrome in speed, might have to do with less tracking being run in the background.
Pro Very fast
The fastest browser out there.
Pro Sync is now available
Option to synchronize data between devices using peer-to-peer connections. No sign-in required, only a sync code.
Pro Option to pay supported sites based on view time percentage
Set up automatic micro-donations. Brave will automatically divide a monthly donation among the top sites you visit.
And/or, you can decide which sites get what percentage of your donation. It’s called pinning.
Pro Supports the latest technologies
Brave regularly adds new functionalities like decentralized domain support and a native crypto wallet long before Chrome considers them. These features to be disabled in settings.
Pro Developed by creator of Mozilla and Javascript
Pro Cross-platform Web Browser
Brave is available on Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, iOS
Cons
Con Owned by a Chinese consortium
Who certainly need to conform with Chinese government requirements to let them infiltrate everything you do online.
Con Trash VPN (Slow and Leaks IP address)
Terrible VPN service. Super slow. It's just a proxy service that leaks your IP address, not a VPN. Not recommended!
Con Cannot select tabs
Unlike in Chrome and Vivaldi, one cannot select multiple tabs to move to another/new window.
Con WebKit/Blink is not customisable or lightweight
Opera is built on WebKit/Blink, which means it shares cons of Chromium: high RAM usage (Not lightweight), lack of customizability.
Con Uneditable default search providers
It can not delete or replace already built-in search services such as Yahoo, Google, DuckDuckGo, and Wikipedia.
Con Proprietary
While Opera is currently available gratis (without monetary charge), it is currently not libre (meaning that it does not allow users to view the source code used to create, to modify that code, or to redistribute modifications) and is therefor neither free nor open-source software.
Con Unable to sync extensions
Imagine having 100 extensions and Opera link cannot sync them, which will be troublesome.
Con No address bar in fullscreen mode
Unlike in Vivaldi.
Con Buggy
Some buggy or confusing behavior with the bookmarks bar and moving tabs, and entire windows turning black after a while.
Con Same security-holes as Chrome
Opera uses the same browser engine as Chrome, meaning it has the same security-holes as Chrome. Chrome is a big target for hackers (being the most popular browser in the world), and a webpage that will hack Chrome will also hack Opera.
Con No reader view
There is a great reader view extension which is available.
Con Built ad-blocker works when it wants
Con Basically a Chrome clone
The latest versions of Opera are basically Chrome clones, so they really don't add anything new.
Con No menu bar
Con The advertisements are terrible
There are too many advertisements in this browser.
Con Extension icons not directly moveable
Con Cannot stop auto update
Con Needs user prompt to install from Chrome web store
Every time you install an extension, you need to say install first from Opera extension list to proceed.
Con Brave is an Ad company
Brave Software is a for-profit company (though users must opt into Brave ads and Brave doesn't track users.)
Con Download package is very large considering it as a browser
Brave takes on a lot of roles besides just browsing so it is understandably a larger file.
Con Useless built-in 'ad blocker'
Its adblocker is useless to be honest. Since the extension uBlock Origin is a great blocker by itself, the Brave ad blocker does not block every ad!
Con Quite intrusive advertisements, especially on Windows
Advertisements keep popping up in the Windows notification center. Must opt in to ad system, but no option to disable sound for ad notifications only.
Con Still dependent on Google
Since it's based on Chrome.
Con Uses much RAM
1 tab, 400+ RAM, also it depends on what website you're on.
Con Same security-holes as Chrome
On the desktop: Brave uses the same browser engine as Chrome, meaning it has the same security-holes as Chrome. Chrome is a big target for hackers (being the most popular browser in the world), and a webpage that will hack Chrome may also hack Brave.
However, Brave has security features that Chrome doesn't (such as a built-in adblocker). Those features will stop many hacking attempts.
Con Doesn't remove search engine ads
Con No reader view
Can be accessed with an extension though.
Con Dumbed down in the latest versions
In previous versions, Brave felt more like Firefox. Now it's been dumbed down, it feels more like Chrome/Chromium. For example: There's no menu-bar.
Con The iPhone version has some odd behavior
On reopening Brave, it often returns you to the "search results" page, rather than the webpage you had previously browsed to from the search results page. Might just be a specific configuration.
Con Cache dump
Doesn't clear cache well, shows same page even after emptying it until you ctrl+F5 to get fresh page every time you visit the page(s).
Con A browser for NFT-ers(?)
There would be less of a problem with using Web3 solutions if they weren't sometimes looking like an art for art's sake, a jerkcircle shoving down it's own topic down the users' throat. Replacing the Web 2.0 with another commercial solution is bound to end up as a reinvention of the wheel, where even more commercialization and direct monetization will push digital exclusion. Non-profit open source community has achieved great things while so far NFTs and cryptos are, not without a reason, ridiculed.
Con Sync issues
Unable to sync extensions, no cloud sync (only device sync).
Con Appearance
No options to customize apperance, and make the bookmarks appear on the home page, for instance.
Con Creator support limited
Most creators don't use it and so will not profit from the crypto system.
Con Poor Customer Support
Only customer support available in Brave community. Mods usually does not help.
Con Promotes search engines that track users such as Bing and Google
Google Search is the first search engine on the list.
Con Bookmark management
Bookmark management is not as seamless as other browsers.
Con No cloud sync like Firefox
Con Power hungry, uses much more battery power than other browsers
Per default Brave enables hardware acceleration which results in a much higher energy (battery) consumption than the most other web browsers.
Con Hypocritical/deceptive stance on privacy and advertisement
Brave is advertised as a browser that respects your privacy and blocks ads while still supporting content creators. However, at the same time the company is making deals with Facebook, Twitter and others to whitelist their trackers and ads
Con Bookmark button located on the left side of the URL bar and can't be moved
