Opera’s desktop browser can now turn its free VPN on by itself the moment you join a public or unsecured Wi-Fi network. The option is rolling out today to users in the US and France, and it is off by default, so you have to switch it on in settings.
That targets the most ordinary way a VPN lets you down: you meant to turn it on and forgot.
What Opera Changed
Opera has shipped a free VPN inside its browser since 2016. Until now you had to remember to toggle it every time you sat down in a coffee shop, hotel lobby or airport gate. The new setting watches the network you connect to, and when it sees one Opera treats as public or unsecured, it switches the VPN on without asking.
In Opera’s words, “users can study, work, manage finances, or browse without having to remember to turn on protection manually.” The company says it made the feature opt-in “to respect user agency”, and you can turn it off again from the same settings page.
Opera also points out that the VPN “operates under strict GDPR laws” and that Deloitte has audited it independently. It sits alongside the browser’s built-in ad blocker and tracker blocker.
Why Automatic Matters
Most people do not use a VPN at all. Figures from We Are Social’s Digital 2026 mid-year report put the share of internet users aged 16 and over who use one for at least some of their browsing at 23 percent.
If you pay for one, you have probably sat down in a café, done half an hour of work and then noticed it was off. The moments you most need it are the ones where you are distracted, like rushing to send something before a flight is called or checking your bank from a hotel room at 11pm. An automatic switch covers those moments without relying on your memory.
What It Protects, and What It Doesn’t
A browser VPN covers traffic from the browser. That is the important limit here. Your email client, Slack, Dropbox, cloud backups and whatever else your laptop is doing in the background still go out over the hotel network in the normal way.
For most people that is less alarming than it sounds, because almost everything now runs over HTTPS, and someone snooping on the network sees which services you connect to rather than what you send them. The bigger risk on public Wi-Fi is the network itself. A fake hotspot with a convincing name can put you on a login page it controls, and spotting a rogue access point takes a minute once you know what to look for.
If you want everything on the laptop covered, you still need a system-wide VPN app. We went through whether you still need one in 2026 earlier this year, and the answer depends on how often you work away from home.
Should You Turn It On?
If you already use Opera on a laptop and you are in the US or France, yes. It costs nothing, it only activates on networks Opera flags as public or unsecured, and it covers the part of your day where you log in to things.
It is not a reason to switch browsers on its own. Chrome, Safari and Firefox users who want the same habit can get it from most paid VPN apps, which offer an “auto-connect on untrusted Wi-Fi” option and cover the whole machine rather than one app. Mac users with iCloud+ also have Private Relay, which hides your IP address and encrypts your browsing in Safari.
Whichever you pick, the basics still apply, and our public Wi-Fi safety tips cover the ones worth building into a routine, like forgetting networks you will not use again and turning off auto-join for open hotspots.
Do You Bother on Public Wi-Fi?
Do you turn a VPN on when you use hotel or coffee shop Wi-Fi, or do you trust HTTPS to do the job? And would an automatic switch like this change your habits? Tell us in the comments.
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