Opera died to me after version 12 (the moment it essentially became Chrome with a different skin).

I was their user since version 5 or 6 (this was before everyone started the crazy version system, back them they released a major version about once a year).

The biggest things that I loved about the browser you couldn't get by extension, they could do many things because they could directly update the engine.

Now learning that they are owned by PRC there's even less reasons for me to use it.

Opera could have done a lot of good if they would open sourced their old browser (kind of line what Netscape did). Someone leaked the original source code, but because it was leaked and not officially published, no one wants to touch it. Anyway now it's too late, because it's way behind the current browsers.

Yes.

There are in fact reasons to distrust the Chinese state which have nothing to do with race.

What are those reasons?

The Chinese government cannot be trusted. PRC-based companies are required to cooperate with the state intelligence apparatus. Not that much different in the US and the US-aligned world, but at least there is more transparency, open discussion, and defiance.

All the reasons (privacy/spying, government unaccountability, etc.) that would make basing a tech company in the US bad are worse in China.

It does seem, though, many are (seemingly in bad faith) increasingly conflating criticism and scepticism of the Chinese government with racial or ethnic animosity. It is almost identical to how discussions surrounding the Israeli government are conflated (seemingly in bad faith) with anti-Semitism.

E: spelling and placement

but is Opera operated by the Chinese Government? looks like it is from what you are saying but dang I have no clue.

They don't have to be fully operated by a govt in order to exert operational control in certain areas of interest.

We have seen this with Zoom: China-Based Executive at U.S. Telecommunications Company Charged with Disrupting Video Meetings Commemorating Tiananmen Square Massacre

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/china-based-executive-us-tele...

Uyghur genocide, the Dalai Lama, Tibet, Hong Kong, Inner Mongolia, West Philippine Sea, Spratly Islands, Taiwan, Galwan Valley, Mekong River, Nepal, Laos, social credit, pervasive surveillance, Falun Gong persecution and organ harvesting (debated?), stealing tech, economic protectionism, ...

America does bad too, but we can't act like this state is any better. Some of the things they're doing to play catch up are appalling.

That's a weird theory. Also, I'm Swedish, not Norwegian.