I mean to me one of their huge red flags is their advertising. IE my big never using nord, was one of their commercials where basically it was voicing a guys vacuume, smart TV and Alexa, and vacume etc... talking about him behind his back. Which then the narrator is "Your devices are all talking about you behind your back, get nordvpn to protect yourself".

That and many more were just blatent misrepresentation of what a VPN can and can't do. (point being, in the real world... everythings running https or some level of encryption. If your devices are compiling information, it's via their connection to their services. Of which a vpn isn't going to do jack to protect you from.

Also a lot of shady things still within there, 2019 they had a major data breach, Many complaints on their service auto renewing.

you can get a summary of a lot of parts of it with https://windscribe.com/vpnmap

(site catalogs data breaches, complaints etc... with VPN services).

Ummm, the features you described are all in Vivaldi. Browser engine is Blink (Chromium). My experience with it has been that it's very fast and stable. I've used Opera since about version 6. My nostalgia is real.

Ignore people like this. Just bad mouthing a browser to be cool.

Vivaldi is ahead of any other browser in features, control, customization and security. Even AdBlock extensions still work.

Yes, it is Chromium based, so what? I loved Opera before it was sold for parts to a Chinese hedge fund and Firefox is too glitchy for my taste.

Being old and stubborn matters. ;)

an old user who hates to change his ways

Ain't we all? this is why I use MATE btw

My preferences often stray onto darker paths, but why not both? https://youtu.be/VhoHnKuf-HI

To be fair to Vivaldi's fans, that browser (while also too bloated for me to use) does steer clear of a lot of the criticisms leveled against Opera here. The author is a Vivaldi fan, so I imagine they're all coming from a genuine place. Specifically:

Modern Opera ships with a wide range of built‑in features that extend well beyond browsing. Sidebar messengers, crypto tools, media enhancements, and a generative AI assistant are all part of the default experience.

While I use a combination of Waterfox and LibreWolf on my personal computer, unfortunately for work I need to use a Chromium based browser to work with all of the corporate spynet type stuff. I used to use Opera for a decade plus but recently switched to Vivaldi because it feels more like OG Opera instead of an amalgamation of stuff