A majority of Opera Software shareholders have voted in favor of a deal that would see the company be acquired by a consortium of China-based parties. As noted by TechCrunch, the deal is worth $1.2 billion and will see Golden Brick, a group of companies including Qihoo 360 and Kunlun, take full control of the Norwegian internet brand and software developer.
Opera Software has been pumping out a number of new products for its software, including a full-featured ad-blocker in the Opera web browser and a built-in private VPN service. This sale will unlock access to the Chinese market for Opera, which should bring a new wave of users to the Opera product line. It’ll be interesting to see how its direction is maintained post-acquisition.