Thanks to Opera Max, the super-useful program for reducing data consumption on your smartphone, we’re putting together a raffle for our users. The process is very simple: you just have to do three of the actions outlined below to enter the raffle for a brand-new Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge valued at 699€/$760. Anyone can sign up for the raffle between December 7 and 20, with no geographical limitations whatsoever, meaning the prize can be sent to any part of the world. You can consult the terms and conditions of the raffle below.



Opera Max Giveaway with UptoDown



Terms and Conditions

The giveaway is an international giveaway. If we cannot ship to your country, you will be compensated with an online gift card of equal MSRP value to the prize.

The competition is open from 07/12/2015 to 20/12/2015.

The prize is a Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge. The approximate retail value of each prize is EUO 699,00.

We are not responsible for lost shipments.

You must be age of majority in your country of residence.

We are not responsible for any duties, import taxes that you may incur.

Only 1 entry per person, do not enter multiple email addresses. We will verify all winners and if we detect multiple email addresses by the same person you will not be eligible to win.

We reserve all rights to make any changes to this giveaway.

The prize will ship when it is available to purchase.

This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook.

By playing you agree to these terms and the Official Contest Rules available at http://www.operasoftware.com/portal/contestrules, which are incorporated herein by this reference.

Double how long your data allowance lasts with Opera Max

Exactly one year ago we first mentioned here on the blog the appeals of the Opera Max app for Android when it comes to supplying a system to reduce your smartphone data consumption. In successive versions it’s added more features such as data management on WiFi networks and the option to completely block applications, thus becoming an essential tool for your smartphone.

How does Opera Max work?

The app runs by compressing content that you receive over the Internet—especially images and videos, to reduce the download traffic—with hardly any loss of quality. To do so, it connects you to a VPN that acts as an intermediary between your device and the ‘outside world’, thus allowing you to evaluate the type of service your using while also doing the compression.

This procedure, which to start might sound very technical for your average user, is fully automated, meaning when you go into the app for the first time a small help tool will guide you through the two-click process of activating the VPN, whereupon a small key icon will appear in your notifications bar. Most importantly, the service will never use your data allowance or cost anything at all. Opera Max is completely free.

Opera Max in numbers

If you go into app itself you’ll see both an initial estimate of your anticipated data savings as well as an actual report of the number of megabytes you’ve ‘saved’ every day while using your device. In the case of video streaming services like YouTube or Netflix the results are especially notable: it can reduce your data consumption by up to 50%. In other apps that have a lot of multimedia content the results are equally good, usually saving you some 40% on your data usage.

Initially Opera Max was conceived of as a savings system for 3G/4G smartphone data allowances, but in certain situations it can also be a good idea to limit your bandwidth consumption on WiFi. The app lets you activate the compression in both cases; you can even completely block an app so it consumes no data under any circumstances, ideal if for example you’re using roaming when traveling in another country or using a connection with a fixed monthly limit.

But … is it secure?

The million-dollar question and the one that most concerns users, due to the small matter of having to pass their data over an external network. The VPN is completely private and allows no access to your data. What’s more, under no circumstances are your encrypted data that use a secure HTTPS connection compressed or modified. This means that apps like Facebook or Twitter show no improvement whatsoever when used over Opera Max.

Did you know that Opera also offers a browser for computers? Stay tuned as we’ll share some news about this soon! Visit opera.com/computers for more info. “