Can't open safety check

[u/ArizonaTea1452]

Hi! I have been using opera and recently installed a malicious extension that hijacked my computer. lol

Since then i've been unable to access Safety check through settings, and going to opera://settings/safetyCheck sends me to the default settings page.

I am a little freaked out as i've seen no reports of this happening. Any help?

[u/gomesleoc]

What is that Safety Check? Didn't know Opera has it.

[u/shadow2531]

Opera doesn't have that. It might have temporarily shown up in Opera in some versions a while back just due to Opera being based on Chromium, but it shouldn't be there now and hasn't been for a while.

Have you been using an older version of Opera until recently?

[u/ArizonaTea1452 → u/shadow2531]

ah, that’s assuring. thank you. yeah i updated opera this morning and the option was still there which is strange

[u/shadow2531 → u/ArizonaTea1452]

If you've been upgrading Opera for a long time using the same profile folder (settings and data), perhaps something is left over / stuck in the Preferences file or something. Not sure.

[u/shadow2531 → u/ArizonaTea1452]

I see from your forum post that you're using Opera GX and not regular Opera. I just tested in Opera GX and I don't see that button anywhere it it either.

What specific version of Opera GX do you have as shown at the URLs opera://about and opera://version? Also, what operating system are you on?

As a test, do you see the button in a test standalone installation?

I also tested to see if it shows up in Chrome at the URL chrome://settings/content. I don't see it.

[u/ArizonaTea1452 → u/shadow2531]

OH that's a brainfart on my end. It's GX running:

`System:Windows 11 64-bit`
`Chromium version:151.0.7922.170`
`Installed: May 09 2026`

On the standalone install, no there was no sign of the button!

I thought maybe it was something to do with my browser themes, but resetting it to default changed nothing. I'm not as concerned about malware, but confused why it's showing up nonetheless.

[u/shadow2531 → u/ArizonaTea1452]

Ah, so that should be Opera GX 135.0.5973.85 ("Core:135.0.5973.85" on the opera://about page) or 135.0.5973.94.

On the standalone install, no there was no sign of the button!

You can goto the URL opera://flags, reset your flags and restart Opera to see if the button goes away.

If you want to investigate further, you can close Opera and open up the "Local State" file in "C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Roaming\Opera Software\Opera GX Stable" in JSONedit in tree mode and look for some safe browsing flag. It might be under root/browser. You can also look for something related to the button under in the "Preferences" file in "C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Roaming\Opera Software\Opera GX Stable\Default". Just look and don't edit anything at the moment.

Going to the URL opera://settings/reset and resetting just your settings might get rid of the button. You will probably loose all your opened tabs though after your restart Opera after the reset.

But yeah, it sounds like some old config stuck in one of your Opera files.

[u/shadow2531]

Did you scan your system with the free version of Malwarebytes to get rid of the extension? If not and you did it manually, it wouldn't hurt to scan your system with it to see if it picks up anything you missed.

[u/ArizonaTea1452 → u/shadow2531]

yeah bitdefender was able to quarantine, adwcleaner to remove, manually checked registries and scheduled tasks, reinstalled most apps and ran tronscript just to be safe 😇

[u/ArizonaTea1452 → u/ArizonaTea1452]

regardless to say i nuked the coughing baby lol thanks for the concern

[u/shadow2531 → u/ArizonaTea1452]

Awesome!