Is Opera GX Safe? Opera GX Review (2026)

Here's the short version: yes, Opera GX is safe to run as a browser when you get it from Opera, and the "spyware" label doesn't hold up in anything we could open. The real risks are fake installers from third-party sites, the ad-personalization data Opera collects, and who owns Opera (about two-thirds Kunlun Tech, per filings). Whether that last one bothers you is a trust call, not a malware finding.

Get Opera GX from the official site

We haven't used Opera GX ourselves. This review is a synthesis of Opera's own pages, filings, independent reviews and public user feedback, each linked where it's used.

Install It If / Skip It If

Install it if:

• You keep a browser open beside a game on a PC with limited RAM.
• You want RAM, CPU and bandwidth caps built into the browser instead of managing tabs by hand.
• You live in Discord and Twitch and like having both in a sidebar.

Skip it if:

• Privacy is your first filter, or you won't use closed-source software with this ownership. Brave and Firefox, both open source per Wikipedia, are the obvious places to look.
• You hate animations and sound effects and want a plain window onto the web. You can tone GX down, but you'd be fighting the design.
• You expect it to raise your frame rate. Nothing we found says it does.

Opera GX at a Glance

Is Opera GX Safe? Security vs. Privacy

Short answer: the official Opera GX build showed no malware in the independent scans we found (Comparitech), so it isn't spyware or a virus. What you're weighing is privacy and trust: ad-personalization data, and ownership by Kunlun Tech (about two-thirds).

"Safe" covers two separate questions. Security asks whether the software will damage your PC. Privacy asks who sees what you do and what they do with it. Most of the noise around GX comes from treating them as one.

Security: no malware in the official build. Comparitech (updated June 18, 2026) put the installer and main executable through VirusTotal, roughly 70 tools, with no alerts. Spybot Search & Destroy found nothing, and a Kaspersky Threat Intelligence scan of the whole install folder came back clean. Its conclusion is that GX is a legitimate browser with no spyware, malware or viruses, though it adds that a clean scan doesn't rule out data gathering by other means. That's why the privacy section exists.

The engine is Chromium, the same open-source base as Chrome and Edge, per Wikipedia's Opera entry. How quickly Opera ships Chromium security fixes is something we couldn't measure.

One bug, reportedly patched. Gridinsoft (last updated August 19, 2026) says that before a fix, a malicious website could force-install a GX mod that could then read page data such as a username or email address. Gridinsoft says Opera now requires explicit confirmation and that Opera told it there was no evidence of exploitation in the wild. That's secondhand vendor information, and Gridinsoft sells security software, so read it with that in mind. We couldn't check Opera's changelog. Keeping the browser updated is the sensible response.

Privacy: a trade-off. Opera says it doesn't sell personal data (details below) and pushed back on "spyware" claims in a 2023 post on its security blog, arguing that telemetry and security updates are standard practice. That's a company defending itself, so weigh it accordingly. GX collects the kind of data many browsers do, and Opera has an ad business attached.

Who Owns Opera (and Why It Matters)

Opera is headquartered in Oslo, Norway, and GX is developed in Wroclaw, Poland, per Opera's GX page. The parent, Opera Limited, is listed on Nasdaq and incorporated in the Cayman Islands, per Wikipedia.

The controlling shareholder is Kunlun Tech, listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (same Wikipedia entry). Wikipedia cites Opera's 2024 annual report (Form 20-F) for Kunlun indirectly owning 68.8% of the shares. Revenue Memo and StockTitan's filing summary put the reporting persons at about 67.9% as of September 22, 2026, from a Schedule 13D/A filed September 24. We read those through secondary pages and couldn't open the SEC filing, so "about two-thirds" is the number to carry around.

Why it matters: this is a trust question, not a technical one. Comparitech says it found no evidence that Opera secretly sent user data to China, and notes Opera is a Norwegian-based company that follows GDPR (Comparitech, June 2026, says it has never been penalized under it). Lack of evidence isn't proof, and plenty of people will reasonably decline a browser with this ownership. If you're one of them, you've answered the question for yourself.

What Data It Collects (and the Toggles to Check)

Opera's privacy statement says what's collected depends on the product. For the browser it lists:

• A random installation ID, plus hardware, OS and feature-usage statistics, kept up to three years.
• Crash reports with browser version, OS and memory data, kept up to five months.
• Data for personalized content, like the articles you read in the News Feed and your general location, tied to a random browser ID.
• Optional Opera account details if you sign in.

On ads, the statement says "some of our Applications serve targeted ads" through monetization partners, using broad interest categories plus general location, and that Opera processes this data only with your consent. It also says: "We do not sell users' personal data to anyone." The primary data controller is Opera Norway AS.

Opera says you can switch off personalized ads and content, extended usage statistics, crash reporting and promotional notifications in Settings, and its GX page says you can use the browser without an account. We couldn't check which of those switches are on by default for US users, so the checklist below has you look.

The Real Risk: Fake Installers

This is the one most likely to cost you something. Gridinsoft warns that a fake or bundled OperaGXSetup.exe from a warez page, pop-up, fake update or cracked-game installer can be risky, and that the danger is usually the wrapper, not the browser: bundles can add browser hijackers, notification spam and unwanted extensions. Its advice is to get the browser only from Opera or a trusted app store, and to check the file's digital signature.

A page can look official and still not be Opera. Stick to opera.com or an official app store on mobile. Our links go to Opera's site through our tracker; if you'd rather, type the address yourself. Then check the installer's publisher under Properties, Digital Signatures. A missing or odd publisher means delete it.

What Opera GX Actually Does for Gamers

Everything below is Opera's description unless an independent source is named. Opera's pages contain no benchmarks for these features, and we found no independent frame-rate or latency test.

GX Control in Short

GX Control is Opera's panel of limiters for memory, CPU and bandwidth. The pitch on Opera's GX Control page is a situation every PC gamer knows: you alt-tab out of a match to check a build guide, and the tab you forgot about is hoarding a few gigabytes of RAM. The RAM limiter lets you "set hard limits or fine-tune exactly how much memory GX can use." CPU control will "throttle background tabs before they steal your performance." The network limiter, described on its own page, caps the bandwidth the browser uses (in KB/s or MB/s), so a big file in a tab doesn't "wreck your ping mid-match." Opera's tagline for it is "less lag, more play."

What that means for you: GX limits the browser's own appetite. It doesn't speed up your game. Opera describes the idea as leaving more resources for whatever else you're running; we found no independent test of how much it saves. Esports.net is enthusiastic about GX's RAM handling and recommends it for machines with 8GB or less, but gives no figures or test method. It also warns the limiter can be aggressive enough that "you can break your own browser from the lack of memory." Set it sensibly.

Hot Tabs Killer. Opera's GX Control page says it finds "the worst resource offenders" and closes them in one click, which saves a trip to the real task manager at a bad moment.

Twitch and Discord in the sidebar. Opera says the Twitch panel shows which followed channels are live, with optional go-live notifications, and that Discord sits in the sidebar for chatting with teams and friends. We haven't seen independent measurements of whether the sidebar Discord uses less memory than the desktop app.

Mods, themes, sounds and wallpapers. This is the part that makes GX look like GX. According to Opera's GX Mods page, a mod is a free pack that changes how the browser "looks, sounds and behaves." It can bundle a theme, a wallpaper, shaders that add visual effects to web pages, background music, browser sounds, keyboard-stroke sounds and a custom Discord theme for the sidebar (no subscription needed, says Opera). Opera's page points to the GX Store for more. The upside is personal: a browser that matches your desk is one you're less likely to abandon. The cost is clutter and, as the reportedly patched GX Mods bug above showed, more surface area. Opera's page doesn't explain how to turn sounds or animations off, so check the GX settings for the sound and visual options before deciding it's too much. Pick one mod, not ten.

GX Corner and partner promotions. GX Corner is a page of free games, deals, a release calendar and gaming news, per Opera. Opera has also run partner promotions through its rewards menu. Its press release says the Overwatch World Cup 2026 campaign offered 21 esports rewards (skins, avatars, calling cards or sprays) from August 19 through October 1, 2026, claimed by verifying a Battle.net account. A Forsaken (Roblox) pass is listed on Opera's Forsaken page, which gives no end date we could confirm. These are Opera's promotions with the game makers.

Ad blocker. Built in. LaptopMag's reviewer (Feb. 2024) called it "fairly solid" but noted it won't block YouTube ads. If you rely on a heavy-duty blocker extension, keep it.

Free VPN. Opera's VPN page says the free VPN covers browsing inside Opera only, with 256-bit AES encryption and three locations (U.S., Singapore, Netherlands). Protecting other apps is the paid VPN Pro. Opera says its no-log policy is backed by an independent Deloitte audit and Cure53 testing; we couldn't read the reports. LaptopMag found it handled the basics but slowed speeds and struggled with streaming geo-restrictions. Think of it as a browser proxy. Your game doesn't run through it, so it won't change your game's route or ping.

Browser performance, per one reviewer. This comes from LaptopMag's February 2024 review, tested on an MSI Stealth 17 Studio (RTX 4060, 16GB RAM) at default settings. Browser versions have changed since, so treat it as a rough guide.

GX matched Chrome on JetStream and trailed by about 1% on MotionMark and 7% on Speedometer (our arithmetic from LaptopMag's figures). The reviewer said it "feels quite speedy" and that its limiters are useful for multitasking, but reported no RAM or CPU measurements. Its cons: "maybe too crammed with cool features" and a gamer design "not for everyone."

What Real Players Say

On the scale side, Opera's Q2 2026 results, released August 19, 2026, say Opera GX "averaged 37 million MAUs in the quarter across PC and mobile." That's monthly active users, per Opera, out of 288 million across all its products.

On the complaint side, the GX-specific Trustpilot profile showed 1.8 out of 5 from 91 reviews when we opened it on October 17, with 62% giving one star and 25% five stars. It's an unclaimed profile, Opera hasn't invited customers to review, and Trustpilot notes such reviews may not be representative. Next to 37 million monthly users, it's a small, self-selected sample.

The complaints cluster around unwanted installs, often tied to ads, plus slowness, CPU use and a weak ad blocker. One reviewer wrote on Oct. 4, 2026: "They automatically try to download their launcher which is immediately flagged by windows defender." Another, Aug. 7: "just randomly installs and opens itself." On the ad blocker, a May 2026 reviewer called it "clearly below current standards." The praise is specific too. "I love how customizable it is," one reviewer wrote on Oct. 6, and another, on Nov. 26, 2025: "Works pretty much perfectly for me, been using it for a few years now." Some of the angriest reviews also repeat spyware and data-sale claims that we saw no evidence for.

How do you square a 1.8 with that scale? Part of it is self-selection, since unhappy people are the ones who write reviews. Part of it, and this is our reading, is distribution: the install complaints point at pop-up and redirect ads, not at people who chose the browser on purpose. Installing deliberately from opera.com avoids one likely route to ending up with it by accident.

How Opera GX Compares on Limits and Extras

We can't say it's better across the board. A full head-to-head deserves its own page; here's what we could source.

Google's Memory Saver page says Chrome deactivates tabs you aren't using, with Moderate, Balanced and Maximum levels, and mentions no RAM cap. GX's limiter, per Opera, lets you set a memory ceiling yourself and adds CPU and bandwidth caps.

On VPNs, Microsoft's Edge Secure Network page says users signed in with a personal Microsoft account get 5GB a month. GX's free VPN is browser-only with three locations. Brave's VPN is a paid product, per Wikipedia.

Brave and Firefox are both free and open source under MPL 2.0, per Wikipedia; Brave blocks ads and trackers by default through Shields. GX is freeware with a closed layer on a Chromium base.

Your First 10 Minutes With Opera GX

If you decide to install it, use the official Opera GX page. Then run through this once.

1. Check the installer. Right-click, Properties, Digital Signatures. The publisher should be Opera.
2. Bring your stuff over. Use the import option in Settings for bookmarks. If passwords don't come across, export them from your password manager as a file and import that. That's our suggestion, not an Opera instruction.
3. Set a RAM cap. Opera's GX Control FAQ suggests mid-tier systems limit GX to roughly 50-60% of available RAM. Treat that as a starting point, not a tested number. On a 16GB machine that's 8 to 9.6GB (our arithmetic), which is a lot. If a game is open, lower it and see how pages recover. Don't set it so low that tabs keep reloading.
4. Pick a network cap before a big file. Opera says the network limiter protects your ping during a match. We found no test that shows it.
5. Pin Discord and Twitch in the sidebar if you use them, and tidy away the panels you don't.
6. Tame the show. If the sounds and animations aren't for you, look for those options in the GX settings and turn them down.
7. Do the privacy pass. Settings, then Privacy and Security: check the personalized ads and content, extended usage statistics, crash reporting and promotional notification switches, per Opera's privacy statement, and set them how you like. Skip signing in to an Opera account unless you want one.
8. Check for updates. Open the browser's About page and update if it offers one.

Get Opera GX from the official site

What We Couldn't Verify

• Frame-rate or latency impact. Nobody we found measured GX Control against games. Opera's "less lag" is a claim, and we have no hands-on testing.
• Real RAM savings versus Chrome. No independent, quantified comparison turned up. Esports.net's praise has no numbers, and LaptopMag's review has none either.
• Default privacy settings. Opera says ad personalization is consent-based. We couldn't check which switches are on by default for US users.
• The exact current ownership percentage. 68.8% (2024 20-F via Wikipedia) and 67.9% (Schedule 13D/A via secondary sites) differ. We couldn't open the SEC filings.
• Chromium security patch speed. How quickly Opera ships Chromium fixes isn't something we could measure, and we couldn't check Opera's changelog for the GX Mods fix.
• Opera's VPN audits. We read Opera's claims, not the audit reports.
• Benchmark age. LaptopMag's tests date from February 2024, and browser versions have changed.
• The Trustpilot picture. The GX profile is small (91 reviews), unclaimed and self-selected, and we read only the sample the page showed. It tells you about mood, not how common problems are.
• Rewards details. Dates and reward lists come from Opera's pages. We couldn't confirm any Forsaken end date.
• Other controversies. We left out any controversy we couldn't confirm in a primary or major-outlet source, including reports about Opera's lending apps.
• Other browsers. Our comparison covers only the points we could source. We didn't check how Edge or Firefox handle resource limits, and a PC Gamer piece on GX didn't turn up.

Opera GX Review Verdict: Is It Good?

Opera GX is a free, Chromium-based browser with built-in resource caps, Discord and Twitch panels, GX Corner and a lot of cosmetics. On paper it does what Opera describes; we couldn't verify any gaming benefit. The malware fear is mostly a fake-installer problem. What counts against it is ad-personalization data and usage statistics you should review, closed source, its ownership, mixed user feedback, and no independent evidence that it helps in games.

Bottom line: if your PC struggles when a game and a pile of tabs run together, or you keep Discord and Twitch open while you play, GX is worth trying. It's free, so the experiment costs you ten minutes: install it from opera.com, set a RAM cap and run the privacy pass. If privacy or open code comes first for you, pick Brave or Firefox instead.

Get Opera GX from the official site

FAQ

Is Opera GX safe?

The official browser is safe from malware: Comparitech's scans of the installer and install folder found nothing. The real risks are fake installers from third-party sites and ad-personalization data, which Opera says you can switch off. Whether its ownership is acceptable is a personal trust decision.

Is Opera GX spyware?

We found no evidence of it. Comparitech's VirusTotal (roughly 70 tools), Spybot and Kaspersky scans of the official build found no spyware, malware or viruses, though it notes a clean scan doesn't rule out data gathering. Opera does collect usage statistics and ad-personalization data, which it says is consent-based, and says it doesn't sell personal data.

Can Opera GX be trusted?

Opera Limited is Norwegian-headquartered and Nasdaq-listed, and Opera says it doesn't sell personal data. It's also about two-thirds owned by Kunlun Tech, and the code is closed. Comparitech says it found no evidence of secret data transfers to China, but absence of evidence isn't proof. Trust depends on your own threat model.

Is Opera GX actually any good?

For gamers who keep a browser open beside the game, the limiters are the main reason to try it. Opera says they cut the browser's footprint; we found no independent measurement. LaptopMag's 2024 benchmarks put it near Chrome. Don't expect higher frame rates, because there's no evidence of that.

What are the downsides of using Opera GX?

Ad-personalization data and usage statistics you should review, closed source, a browser-only free VPN, and a feature-heavy interface LaptopMag called possibly too crammed. Reviewers on the GX Trustpilot page also complain about unwanted installs and a weak ad blocker.

Why don't people like Opera GX?

Ownership, data collection, the gamer styling and, on Trustpilot, unwanted installs tied to ads. Privacy-focused users prefer open-source browsers. Claims that it's spyware aren't supported by the malware scans we found.

Is Opera GX free?

Yes. It's freeware, per Wikipedia, with an ad blocker and a browser-only VPN included. VPN Pro, which covers other apps, is a separate paid product.

Is Opera GX available for mobile?

Yes. Opera lists iOS and Android apps, and Wikipedia gives Android 10+ and iOS 17+ as minimums. Opera says GX Corner on mobile includes free mobile games.

Can I use Opera GX as a VPN?

Only for the browser. The free VPN covers traffic inside Opera, with three locations, so it won't touch your game's connection. Other apps need the paid VPN Pro.