Bitcoin Global News (BGN)
August 09, 2018 -- ADVFN Crypto NewsWire
-- Opera, the browser that is known for openly
promoting anonymity and ad-blocking alongside giants like Firefox,
has released its own in-browser Cryptocurrency wallet.
What many of you may not yet know
is that the Opera company has already been offering a crypto wallet
that is mobile compatible, for the beta version of its browser for Android phones.
Company spokespeople reportedly
said that a strong response from its customers was the major
motivation for adding its Crypto offering to its strongest
browser.
While it may sound like
other products like Metamask that have led the way for
quite some time in the Browser wallet niche, Opera’s offering does
have the added benefit that it was built specifically to be a
connection to its existing mobile wallet. Thus, unlike Metamask,
which is essentially as of now a stand-alone product, Opera now has
a Crypto wallet suite.
Furthermore, the connection between
Opera’s mobile and desktop wallets enables the suite to use a sort
of 2FA(two factor authorization) to further secure user accounts.
On top of this, this bridge apparently also means that the public
and private keys to each user’s wallet need to be stored on his or
her Android phone.
This raises a few difficulties.
First of all, since Opera has structured their suite in this way,
this appears to mean that the only people who can use their Crypto
wallet are those who own Android phones.
Given that apparently
around 33% of the world now owns
smartphones, this seems to have been an unnecessary narrowing of
Opera’s potential market. As of now, however, since there is no
indication that this will be a paid product, this point is most
likely insignificant.
The second difficulty that the
Opera wallet’s dual existence raises is the question of where the
user’s Crypto is stored. Judging by the company’s statements
related to the wallet’s public and private keys as well as related
to the mobile version being the primary wallet, one can reasonably
assume that the answer is on the user’s phone.
Despite all of this, because of the
fact that Opera has chosen to put anti-crypto jacking software into
its Crypto wallet, it just might rise above those that came before
it.
If you’re not yet aware, this
software is special because it has the sole aim of preventing
hackers from mining on computers that belong to others without
their knowledge. With events like the Coinhive hack, which involved
hackers illegally attaching Monero mining software to around 400
websites, the importance of such software has only grown over
time.
In addition to this, Opera is
providing users with a link to a dedicated website for periodically
checking if your device has been compromised.
Over all, while it is possible that
other wallets are using similar software, at the same time, this
possibility has not been widely publicized. As time presses on, it
will be interesting to see if this extra security helps Opera rise
above the pack in some way, as well as if they eventually move
their wallet onto other mobile platforms.
By: BGN Editorial Staff
News:
Opera
Browser
Cryptocurrency
Wallet