The end of Opera VPN

Opera Software announced today that it will retire the company's Opera VPN applications for Android and iOS on April 30, 2018.

Opera Software launched Opera VPN for Android in 2016 and Opera VPN for iOS some time before that. The service launched as a free offering initially which users could use right away without forced registration of an account or any form of payment.

Opera VPN Gold was introduced in 2017 as a way to earn revenue from the VPN service by offering more features to paying customers. The Gold version unlocked new regions that users could connect to and provided paying customers with other benefits besides that.

Opera Software wants to appease affected customers of Opera VPN by offering free or discounted subscriptions to SurfEasy Ultra and Total VPN plans.

Existing Opera Gold users get a free upgrade to SurfEasy Ultra and free users of Opera VPN an 80% discount on SurfEasy Total VPN instead.

SurfEasy offers more features and better functionality when compared to OperaVPN. SurfEasy Ultra supports unlimited usage on up to five devices, supports Windows, Mac and Amazon devices next to Android and iOS, and offers access to servers in 28 different regions. The company has a strict no-logging policy and allows P2P traffic. The regular price of of SurfEasy Ultra is $6.49 per month.

SurfEasy Total VPN supports fewer regions and does not come with torrent servers. SurfEasy Total is available for $3.99 per month, and a 80% discount for the first year would reduce the price to less than $1 per month if paid annually.

The company notes that Opera VPN Gold customers on iOS will be able to migrate using the latest version of the Oprea VPN application. Free Opera VPN users will "be able to redeem an 80% discount" through the latest version of the Opera VPN application on Android and iOS.

It is unclear at this point in time how that is going to work and how Opera VPN Gold for Android users can take advantage of the offer.

A quick check in the Opera VPN application on Android was unsuccessful. No announcement or option to get the discount was displayed in the application on first use after installation.

Opera VPN Gold was available for about $30 per year when it launched.

A free Starter version of SurfEasy is also available that is good for 500 Megabytes of free data.

Particularly interesting from a user's point of view is that Opera Software owns SurfEasy, and that it is SurfEasy that operates Opera VPN.

The move looks as if Opera Software wants to consolidate its VPN offerings, maybe, because Opera Gold was not as successful as the company hoped it would be.

Opera Software sold SurfEasy to Symantec in November 2017.

Opera VPN is the second mobile application that Opera Software discontinues after retiring Opera Max back in August of 2017.

Note that the retiring of Opera VPN for Android and iOS has no impact on the VPN integration in the web browser.

Now You: Are you affected by the change?