#Delete Opera Splash Screen and Other Opera Annoyware
#Let’s just start with why they are forcing a Splash Screen in the first place… who knows but I am thinking they are stuck in a different decade. I just delete all the automatic crap. The Opera Browser remains working for me without the files removed by my code. I even setup a MagicWord in Brayden SlickRun to do this for me by simply typing dop.
#Just the code:
# Define the installation path $InstallPath = "C:\Program Files\Opera" # Define the names of the files you want to delete $FilesToDelete = @('opera_gx_splash.exe', 'opera_crashreporter.exe', 'opera_autoupdate.exe', 'installer_helper_64.exe', 'notification_helper.exe') # Search for and delete the files in all subdirectories foreach ($File in $FilesToDelete) { Get-ChildItem -Path $InstallPath -Recurse -Filter $File -Verbose | Remove-Item -Verbose -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue }
#Longer Story
#I use Chocolatey to update my system, when I decide, so all these browsers forcing updates every other day is just extra annoying for me. Opera doesn’t provide an option to do manual updates. Removing the opera_autoupdate.exe file seems to work well.
#Patch testing and phased implementations are a thing of the past. The cloud and any applications that deal with the cloud are basically beta software that can hardly be trusted for anything important or secure. Anyone that has to update several times a week hasn’t done a good job in the first place. Trying to keep up with the cloud is a daunting task for programmers but I do not need forced updates and “features” like a splash screen also forced upon me after almost daily updates. I would understand if there were just an option, that worked, to disable all that. I use a 3rd party updater. It has issues when Opera updates itself and I just don’t need forced screen delays when I load software. It is just dumb. Firefox just updated on me while I was using it in Linux with a Canonical install using apt. They had a hidden background update option enabled and it installed then killed all my private windows.
#Also I don’t want my browser running in the background every time I login or Edge, which I never use. Why would I want that? It doesn’t do anything for me when they do that. I can only imagine it benefits them somehow to take up some of my resources when I am using Firefox or Chrome instead.
#I use Opera for real work. It is not a toy for me. It does some things better than other more popular browsers but they have always focused more on monetizing it more than just being the best which is why I never recommend it to anyone.