Opera offers iPhone users free VPN, with strings attached

Opera Software yesterday released a free VPN (virtual private networking) app for Apple's iOS, the mobile operating system best known for powering the iPhone.

Tagged as "Opera VPN," the app relies on the same backbone -- the Toronto-based SurfEasy, which the Norwegian browser maker acquired in March -- as does the firm's Opera desktop browser for disguising location, avoiding online tracking, and circumventing blacklists maintained by countries, corporations and schools.