Privacy preferences

The privacy preferences give you control over how Web servers handle and monitor your net activities.

The pre-defined settings should work for most users. Users that wish to increase their privacy can fine-tune the settings. Note that tampering with these settings can cause some Web services to function improperly, so be sure you know what you're doing.

Privacy

Enable referrer logging

It is common practice for Web sites to refer to each other. Many Web sites make a note of which page you came from, and behave accordingly. Whether or not you take issue with this is up to you, but disabling this option will prevent this kind of logging.

Note: Some sites may not work properly if you turn off referrer logging.

Enable automatic redirection

Some Web pages redirect you to another site. This is not really a security problem, but can waste your time. Opera therefore allows you to turn this feature off.

Use cookies to trace password protected pages

Normally, when you log in to a Web site using a password, the page is marked as sensitive and is thus deleted from your cache when you exit Opera. However, pages you navigate to within a site are not deleted, just the authentication page itself. To make sure all cached pages from a visit to an authenticated site are deleted when you exit Opera, check this option.

Note: Checking this option may cause customization pages, for example your configuration of a Web search service, to stop working.

Cookies

The first drop-down menu

The first drop-down menu gives you these options:

Automatically accept all cookies	Accepts cookies regardless of who sets them and where they are referred.
Accept only cookies from selected servers	Use this to accept cookies from the servers you select.
Display received cookies	If this is selected, each and every cookie that is sent to Opera will be displayed in an accept/reject dialog box.
Do not accept cookies	All cookies will be refused.

The second drop-down menu

The second drop-down menu applies to all the settings except for "Do not accept cookies". It sets the handling of cookies to...

Only accept cookies for the server	Accepts all cookies set by the active server -- the server that you received the current page from. It will also accept cookies from within the active server's domain, so if you are viewing a page at http://www.example.com/, a page at http://www.example.com/folder/ can also place a cookie.
Don't accept third party cookies	Refuses cookies from other sources that are meant to apply to the active server.
Display third party cookies	Displays third party cookies on receipt, giving you the option to accept or refuse them.
Accept from any servers	Accepts all cookies from all servers.

Cookie server filters

The cookie server filters allow you to configure cookie handling on a per-server or per-domain basis, for example accept cookies from example.com but refuse cookies from questionable.com. To edit your cookie filters, click .

With this dialog you can change how Opera handles cookies from different servers. Each "rule" has a list of servers that apply for that particular rule. To see all the rules, click the down arrow.

Accept from server	Cookies will be accepted automatically for any server you enter here. For example, you could enter www.example.com to accept cookies from this site. That site can then set a cookie, but web.example.com cannot.
Accept from domains	It is possible to accept cookies from domains also. The domain name should be written as com or example.com. If you use example.com, then all cookies from this domain will be accepted, whether they come from www.example.com or web.example.com.
Accept third party from server	Trusted third party servers may be set here; this means Opera will always accept cookies sent to other servers from the server(s) defined here.
Accept third party from domains	Trusted third party servers may be defined in this box so that your Opera copy will always accept cookies set to other domains from the domains defined here.
Refuse from server Refuse from domains Refuse third party from server Refuse third party from domains	Setting this will reverse the previous four options
Allow illegal paths Refuse illegal paths	Allows or refuses cookies for a top level domain, such as .com, .net or .org.

In the filters dialog box you have a dynamic button. The button shows as for filters that accept cookies, and as for filters that refuse cookies. Clicking the button in either case thus inverts the rule for the currently selected server.

Other options

Throw away new cookies on exit	If checked, all cookies are deleted from your computer when you exit Opera.
Display warning for illegal domains	If checked, Opera displays a warning dialog if a server attempts to set a cookie for a top level domain, such as .com, .net or .org.
Display warning for illegal path	If checked, Opera will display a warning dialog if a server attempts to set a cookie with a path that does not match the server.