Opera VPN is two products under one brand, both carrying the Opera name and its Oslo heritage. The free browser VPN is a no-registration, unlimited, browser-only TLS/HTTPS proxy built into the Opera browser, offering three broad regions (Americas, Europe, Asia) rather than country-level choice; it is a proxy for Opera browser traffic, not a full-device VPN tunnel, and lacks a kill switch. The paid Opera VPN Pro is a full-device VPN (Windows, macOS, Android — no native iOS/Linux app at audit) priced around €4/month with annual plans roughly 50% cheaper, 6 simultaneous devices, and a 30-day money-back guarantee. Crucially, VPN Pro does not run on infrastructure Opera owns: it is a white-labelled third-party network — originally NordVPN's servers, more recently reported (TechRadar) to be powered by ExpressVPN's technology — so the underlying fleet belongs to non-EU VPN consolidators.
On product privacy, Opera has a genuine credential: the free browser VPN completed an independent Deloitte no-log audit (engagement 18 June–10 August 2024) which verified that the infrastructure contains no logging functionality and collects no data about browsing activity or originating network address. Opera Norway AS is the named data controller, and the privacy statement describes both free VPN and VPN Pro as no-log services, with only a random subscriber ID shared with the third-party VPN Pro provider.
The reason this listing exists as a warning rather than a recommendation is the ownership chain — the cleanest 'Norwegian outside, foreign inside' example in the directory. Opera Norway AS (Oslo) is wholly owned through Opera Services AS and Opera Holdings AS by Opera Limited, a holding company incorporated in the Cayman Islands and listed on NASDAQ under OPRA. Opera Limited is in turn majority-controlled by Kunlun Tech Co. Ltd. — a Beijing-based, Shenzhen-listed Chinese technology group holding roughly 69% — whose controlling shareholder Zhou Yahui also serves as Opera's executive chairman. The 2016 acquisition by a Kunlun-led Chinese consortium is the moment the heritage Norwegian browser became a Chinese-controlled asset. For an EU/EEA sovereignty audit, none of the Norwegian heritage signal survives this: the ultimate decision-making and beneficial control sit under Chinese jurisdiction, the listed parent under Cayman/US-securities jurisdiction, and Norway itself is a member of the 'Nine Eyes' extended intelligence alliance. Best read: a usable free browser proxy with a real Deloitte audit, but the structural antithesis of a sovereignty pick. EU/EEA buyers wanting an actual sovereignty profile should prefer Mullvad (SE, founder-owned), OVPN (SE), ProtonVPN (CH, non-profit Foundation), or IVPN.