Opera Mini Mobile Browser Officially Released

worb writes "The tiny mobile browser Opera Mini was officially released worldwide today. Opera is known for its PC and mobile browsers, but even the cell phone version Opera require more memory than most phones today are capable of. Opera Mini works by passing pages through Opera's servers to strip them down before they are displayed on the phone. Also, the Register has a story on how this actually means that Opera now offers a reason not to buy a smartphone, a market Opera currently has a strong foothold in."

Opera Mini: Screenshots and discussion

Screenshots here:
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=13423 [osnews.com]
Interesting discussion here about how good Opera Mini really is or it is not:
http://www.russellbeattie.com/notebook/1008770.htm l [russellbeattie.com]

Re:Opera Mini: Screenshots and discussion

where's the discussion about this 'feature':

Opera Mini works by passing pages through Opera's servers to strip them down before they are displayed on the phone.

I assume this is an automated process, just like Google's ability to insert relevant ads into G-Mail.

Not to be alarmist, but the question remains, what're they planning to do with those browsing histories?

Amazing browser technology these days

Opera Mini works by passing pages through Opera's servers to strip them down before they are displayed on the phone.

So does this mean that we can finally see pictures of Jessica Simpson and Seven of Nine naked?

Opera for Pocket PC

So when can I get opera for my Pocket PC? Or any other decent browser for that matter.

Re:Opera for Pocket PC

By downloading the Opera for Windows Mobile Pocket PC edition http://opera.com/products/mobile/products/winmobil eppc/ [opera.com]

Note this is not the same as the mobile browser listed in the article... that one uses Java and will run on almost anything that uses Java. This one is actually an application written for the Pocket PC. I used the one that this slashdot article is talking about on my Palm Treo 600 (not for long tho, found it slow and too basic) For my new Axim x51v I use the Pocket PC version.

As for is this a reason to not buy a smartphone? Uhhhh No.

Not as such....

"...today offers a reason not to buy a smart phone."

Um, no. This is, in fact, the best reason to buy a smart phone yet. Non-smartphones typically save money by having little ram, little flash memory, and slow processors, this makes them cheap and great on batteries. Even with on-the-fly-proxy-html-rewriting surfing the modern broad-band oriented Internet can be a painful experience.

I have a SideKick II (which has Danger's very good html/image compressing proxies behind it), a Nokia 6682 (good Edge GSM phone), and a Treo 650. All of which can download a typical webpage before a SonyEricson T610 can run the most trivial of Java apps. Each of the phones has features I like, but when I need a data device I reach unhesitatingly for the Treo. 320x320 pixels and 300 Mhz beats both proxy-compression and Edge for overall web use for no other reason than more pixels and a more processor make the navigating the received page so much faster. It's also worth noting that now that T-Mobile has rolled out it's Edge network, multi-timeslot downloads are working with the Treo, so in well-covered areas it's twice as fast (~44kbits/s) as a typical GPRS download rate (~22kbits/s). In addition, the Treo has enough processor to play highframe rate videos (TCPMP), makes good use of 2gb SD cards, and has a good OpenSource SSH client (tuSSH).

In short, if you really want to surf from your phone, spend the extra bucks and get a smartphone, or 1000 minutes of use from now you'll wish you had.

Opera RSS feeds

I wonder if Opera Mini will also have the ability to handle RSS feeds something like the regular Opera 8.51 does. I'm running it now on my knoppix remaster, and I have several RSS feeds, (including slashdot), and I think it's cool how the little feed download popup in the lower right hand corner of the screen works. Every so often it pops up and shows the download of more stories from the various feeds. Even on dialup, it loads from scratch in less than a minute, sometimes over 180 stories! Then maintains the feed lists with the updates. On a mobile device, do you suppose Opera Mini will have some sort of sound to notify of updated feed lists? Also, the way Opera handles the feeds is superior to Firefox, which only shows the titles of the stories in the bookmarks toolbar folder, in the drop down box. Opera gives you the summary of the story when you click on it, sometimes several lines long, enough for you to decide whether or not you want to click on the main link provided, and go to the actual web page for that item. Opera provides a quick and bandwidth-conserving way of scanning a lot of news items and articles very quickly. Opera Mini might be able to do this also for the mobile devices.

Re:Opera RSS feeds

I'm testing it right now and it doesn't seem to have any feed integration.

Then again, the Advanced version i'm using is only 100kb, and it's stunningly fast, good looking and readable (even with the fonts set to minimum size) so I really doubt they could include an RSS reader to boot.

Just use bloglines or that kind of stuff and put your RSS on the web

AvantGo?

Opera Mini works by passing pages through Opera's servers to strip them down before they are displayed on the phone.

Uh, I thought that was how AvantGo worked, too. Not flamebait, just asking why this is considered amazing.

Re:AvantGo?

Opera Mini works by passing pages through Opera's servers to strip them down before they are displayed on the phone.

Uh, I thought that was how AvantGo worked, too. Not flamebait, just asking why this is considered amazing.

Because AvantGo provides you some downloaded content that you can browse on your device at your leisure, and Opera Mini is a web browser, with which you can dynamically view content?

At least, that's all AvantGo did last time I used it (for Palm) and AFAICT from a super-quick glance over their website, it's all they do now.

I love Opera Mini...

...it lets me get FP anytime, anywhere. In fact, I'm posting this with it right now...

OLD NEWS!!!

I've been using this for a whole week..(it was given to sprint users for Vision Phones from a link they provided on 1/13)

http://www.sprintusers.com/forum/showthread.php?t= 87456&highlight=opera+mini [sprintusers.com]

O-Mini seems to pass all comm through thier servers in real time. It slices most full window pages into 30 slices. It does the same on large, wider-then-tall images.

Actually I love it so far.. I just hope they keep it free...

Also check out Google Maps for mobile:
http://www.google.com/glm/index.html [google.com]

And Orb (stream MUCHO from home computer):
http://www.orb.com/what_is_orb/ [orb.com]

Opera Maxi

Any idea when the new version of Opera Maxi (i.e. normal Opera) will be coming out? 9 has been in beta for a long time, and I'd like to see Gmail work right for once.

BREW version?

Opera Mini, just like Google Local for Mobile [google.com], is a J2ME app. Hopefully they'll both have a BREW [qualcomm.com] version soon.

An idea for Opera users...

By default Opera identifies itself as "Internet Explorer" and some webmasters incorrectly use this information to determine which web browsers are more commonly used.

If you're a big fan of Opera, like we are (and it's already standard at some of the companies we regularly deal with too), you can actually cast an implied vote by setting the default to "Opera" in the settings:

1. "Tools" menu
2. "Preferences" item
3. "Advanced" tab
4. "Network" option (on the left-hand side)
5. "Browser identification" pull-down menu

And if you find a web site that lectures you on which web browser they think you should use, then send a friendly message to the sales department (don't bother the webmaster because given their attitude they'll probably just ignore you and not bother to let the sales people know) telling them that you were interested in their product but since you can use Opera to browse their web site that you'll just have to find the needed information somewhere else.

Bring out yer flamebait mods.....

So, does this mean that if Opera desperatly needs some more cache, they'll start logging the pages they strip and sell off the logs to the highest bidder? What about DOJ requests for folks checking out pr0n on their mobile phone?

Is this liability that Opera really wants to take on?

Re:Bring out yer flamebait mods.....

If they obey the laws of Norway, being a Norwegian company, and/or if their proxy servers are hosted in Norway, then they are not allowed to keep any personal information and definetly not allowed to sell them on. Pretty sure police/court requests don't change that situation either.

What they do with anonymous data is not clear though.

However I doubt they use central servers, probably got some deal with google or us/global networks....

I thought...

I thought the best reason not to buy a smartphone was having to try and read websites on a 1.5" screen. I suppose if you enjoy something like that, it's all well and good, but I can't even put up with reading text messages. At least they're only a few words long.

landscape mode

I wonder whether it can be viewed in Landscape mode on, say a PPC-6700 smartphone. The screenshots displayed text layout much better than IE...which will minimize expensive scrolling /. in the company bathroom stall.

ROKR : Finally

Finally - A browser that actually works on the ROKR - I haven't been able to hit gmail on a cell since upgrading phones - until now.

I always thought Opera for desktops should have been free, but this - I'd have gladly paid $30-$40 bucks for it.

Dedicated Opera Mini User

I have been using Opera Mini on my Nokia 6230 for about a month now. It runs very quickly, much better than the built in browser on my particular phone. I have found only rare pages that don't work properly. I use HTML gmail, without a problem, and many other full sites work great. You can still look at the mobile versions of sites, and they work even more quickly than the mobile versions in the built-in browser. Supports cookies and SSL without a problem. It's great when you want to go to a site without argument of what your phone can and can not do.
It has a nice front page that helps you quickly return to sites you looked at in the last session, your top bookmarks, and jsut sites you'd like to see on the front page. It also has a very complete options menu, for the standard browser options.
Only one problem: it doesn't support the required technologies to properly support AJAX. It's becoming more and more necessary, and it's a shame that you can't use the dynamic gmail and dynamic custom Google front page. I'm sure they'll get it worked out soon. I'm not sure if it's the javascript, the XML, or the HTTPRequest object, but it just doesn't work. It may even be a DHTML issue.

Conclusion: Try this browser if you have a java phone, you'll love it.

Opera Mini vs. Openwave on Mobiletracker

Just an intersting note from Mobile Tracker http://www.mobiletracker.net/archives/2005/11/10/l g-vx9800-review [mobiletracker.net] ...Opera Mobile requires between 3 and 4 MBs of RAM. This device does not set aside that much RAM for the browser. And if it had more RAM, I am sure the included browser would run better anyway.

As for Opera Mini, its abilities are WORSE than the version of the Openwave browser included in this phone: version 6.2.3.2. Opera Mini is a very scaled-down mini-browser (even centering text doesn't work) where all the rendering is done on a special server (that Verizon does not support), so even if you had Java in the phone, it would still not work for you, and if it did, rendering quality wouldn't be as good as the included browser's.

So, if Verizon listens to their customers, their providers (OEMs) will have to move their butt and will have to use a more modern browser. Openwave has it ready for them (version 7.1 of their browser that does a whole lot more, in exchange to more RAM usage, naturally). But until consumers like you complain to Verizon, *nothing is going to change* and LG and others will STILL ship new phones with 2-year old browsers.

The power is on your cellphone to start with. Call Verizon, call Sprint, call T-Mobile, call Cingular, and let them know. And while you are at it, tell them to minimize GPRS rates too cause I just blew another $3 today. ;-)

Whee!

I like where this is going. While I do think the Nokia 770 concept is really cool, rather than building stripped-down laptop/cellphone/pda hybrid thingys, why not focus on wireless dumb terminals that access larger servers to do their computing and storage? Picture this: a folding device (like a Nintendo DS or like two PSPs on a hinge) with one screen as a display, and one as a reconfigurable control pad (like the DS touchscreen maybe?) or maybe a qwerty thumbboard (dunno how good a touchscreen setting of that'll be without a stylus), with an earpiece/mic cable thing (so NOT used like a N-Gayge); then a small amount of RAM and tiny processor (about as much or a little more than a Nokia 770, a PSP or DS amount maybe?) and a cell phone/bluetooth/802.11b/g/n communications array. Then all data storage, programs, and real computing power could be accessed wirelessly (maybe Remote Access your home computer?). This would be a lot cheaper, smaller, and (depending on your computer and connectivity) more powerful. USB could allow for connecting a hard drive, external DVD player, battery, or other device. I'd buy one. Of course, wireless speeds are probably still too slow for this, but with the advent of fiber lines, cable, and bpl, along with 802.11n, this could own. I like where this is going. While I do think the Nokia 770 concept is really cool, rather than building stripped-down laptop/cellphone/pda hybrid thingys, why not focus on wireless dumb terminals that access larger servers to do their computing and storage? Picture this: a folding device (like a Nintendo DS or like two PSPs on a hinge) with one screen as a display, and one as a reconfigurable control pad (like the DS touchscreen maybe?) or maybe a qwerty thumbboard (dunno how good a touchscreen setting of that'll be without a stylus), with an earpiece/mic cable thing (so NOT used like a N-Gayge); then a small amount of RAM and tiny processor (about as much or a little more than a Nokia 770, a PSP or DS amount maybe?) and a cell phone/bluetooth/802.11b/g communications array. Then all data storage, programs, and real computing power could be accessed wirelessly (maybe Remote Access your home computer?). This would be a lot cheaper, smaller, and (depending on your computer and connectivity) more powerful. USB could allow for connecting a hard drive, external DVD player, battery, or other device. I'd buy one.

mini.opera.com slashdotted

I cannot get very far in the download with my WAP browser on my blackberry 7510 before it says download failed. On a side note, I have been trying to download and install 1.2 for a few days now, but I keep getting a java out of memory error on installation. I guess they did not QA for all platforms.

Mirror:
http://www.getjar.com/products/3334/OperaMini [getjar.com]
or from your phone:
wap.getjar.com

Proxy Support

Until Opera Mini supports proxies (for T-mobile), it sucks.

Finished Installing...

I just finished installing Opera Mini on my Tungsten E2, and this is an amazingly fast browser. I've been using Blazer and there is just no comparison in performance.

The interface is minimalist and not entirely intuitive for a long time Palm user and at best it could be said to be a little errr... unpolished, but it is serviceable.

You can compare the performance between Opera and Google because they both offer WAP proxying and you can expect Opera's performance to be somewhat faster. Over all it's a sound app, and it works swimmingly on a humble E2 (despite the fact that they claim it isn't supported) so if you have a Lifedrive or Tx the performance should be outstanding.

At least the showed the good sense...

At least they showed the good sense not to call it Operetta.
Making gadgets do more and more things is neato and all, but I can't get excited about surfing the web or watching videos on a 1-1/2 inch screen. It would be like riding a motorcycle with 4-inch tires -- good for about 5 minutes of novelty, then give me back my Harley.

/like I have a Harley

Great Browser!

I just installed it and played for a while. This is about 19 steps up from the browser that came with my Sony Ericsson S700i...fast, smooth, and ACTUALLY USABLE as a browser! I can surf pron on my phone!

It launches faster than my built-in browser, too, although I cant use the internet button to launch Opera Mini. I wish I could change the default browser.

My only complaint: the function keys (save bookmark, etc) are not exactly intuitive. Saving a bookmark is # 7; it is not in the More context menu, so you actually have to remember the various key combos.

One more complaint...my provider charges 25 centavos per KB. I ran thru 200 pesos (3.50 USD) in 3 minutes. There ain't price competition in the Philippines.

I am a long-time user of Opera on Windows. I have stopped using it most of the time because of incompatibility with my common websites. Opera Mini makes me want to start using the full-size browser again.

It's great

I've been using it this morning and it's much better than my phone's built in browser. They seemed to have actually taken usablity into account. (I didn't realize that a phone app could be this nice.)

Sweet!

That's pretty cool. I need to buy me a nice PDA. I'd love to have Opera running on it as well. That and Firefox... but I wouldn't know which to use more. Same way for me on my Mac; I switch between Safari and Firefox.

Re:Super bleeding edge.

What are you talking about? I have the Motorola Linux feature-phone E680i running Opera 7 (Motorola's linux smartphones are not true smartphones because the SDK is not given away to developers to write native apps for the phone -- a crucial part of a smartphone platform), and I have also installed Opera Mini 1.2 just fine. It works fine.

Re:GRPS vs EDGE?

I guess it's using the standard network abstraction layer from your phone's J2ME, so it'll download at what the phone gives him e.g. I'm pretty sure it'll download at EDGE speed when available.

Re:Opera mini servers slashdotted?

O2 are quite useless when it comes to stuff like that. I expect that you need to be on WAP over GPRS instead of over GSM. You might have the wrong settings in your phone.

For the Nokia phone I used to have, I couldn't get the correct settings from O2 for their own servers! I had to go to the Nokia website and have it text the details to me. Ludicrous.

But fear not, I have exactly the same phone as you, I use O2, and it works fine for me. Give customer support a call and ask them to text you the connection details for GPRS.

Also be aware that O2's GPRS seems to just go off for hours at a time, so you might be experiencing an outage.

Re:Blackberry works, but not very well

It also works very poorly on the 7290 - I removed it almost as soon as I got it installed.

Re:Just exactly what the doctor ordered!

This is just what I always wanted: A poorly written browser nobody uses on a platform nobody finds comfortable!

    Now, come on. We've had Internet Explorer for years now.

    PS: I've just tried Opera Mini on an old POS Nokia phone and it worked flawlessly. I'm floored; kudos to the Opera crew!

Re:An idea for Opera users...

By default Opera identifies itself as "Internet Explorer" and some webmasters incorrectly use this information to determine which web browsers are more commonly used.

How the hell do you accidentally post a comment twice? Or was it because the original was so thoroughly debunked?

If you're a big fan of Opera, like we are (and it's already standard at some of the companies we regularly deal with too)

Dude, if you're not astroturfing you really need to work on your writing style. It sounds like you're writing ad copy.

Re:Opera mini servers slashdotted?

Not working on my T610 either. O2 are a steaming pile of shit anyway and their GPRS coverage is ropey in the extreme.
I was also enraged to find out recently that they block access to the mobileweb AP from PAYG phones, meaning no email. They don't tell you this 'til after you've bought the phone of course so now I've the extra expense of getting the thing unlocked and debranded.