The article mentions:

An appeals process does at least exist. Before a "mitigation measure" is taken, users can request an independent review of the accusation, but not from a judge; it remains unclear who exactly will handle the appeal. To keep everyone from using the system every time, there's a $35 filing fee (which can be waived by the independent reviewer).

But notably absent is any mention of a filing fee copyright holders need to pay to prevent them from abusing the accusation process.

Existing users who recieved automatic updates never recieved an updated EULA or any kind of notice of this addition and it was not even mentioned in the changelog.

It's not like I can switch to Opera. Their latest stuff won't run on my Linux machines.

Have you actually tried? They at least claim to support a lot of versions of Linux. (unless you have Sparc machines, then nevermind.)