Opera Mini brings full web pages to your phone
Posted 16 November 2007 at 8:44AM by Simon Dickson in Connecting to the Internet
A few months back, we talked about Opera Mini - the free program for your mobile which actually makes the web usable. The latest release has just been given the green light for public consumption, and it's better than ever.
As we said last time, there are two reasons why you need Opera Mini. It's remarkably good at making big ugly web pages work on your tiny screen. And perhaps even more importantly, it squeezes them into tiny downloads via a 'proxy server', reducing their size by over 80%, helping you make the most of whatever data tariff you're on. But version 4 goes much further.
The most striking addition is the ability to view 'proper' web pages, not just the stripped-bare views offered by previous versions. What you'll see initially is the web page as you'd expect to see it on your desktop, but 'zoomed out' to suit your mobile screen. The new 'power scrolling' method lets you move the cursor around using the number keypad like 'arrow keys' on the keyboard, zooming in and out by pressing '5'. It makes a 'best guess' of where you'll want to start reading, and usually gets it right. Press * then #, and you can even go 'landscape'.
It's all surprisingly effective, and feels like real web browsing on a small device. OK, granted, it's not exactly the iPhone - but it's almost certainly a vast improvement on the web browser which came with your phone. Mind you, I still find myself using the old-school 'mobile view' a lot of the time. A lot of the time, it strips out the visual clutter you didn't actually want in the first place. You'll find it as an option on the 'Settings' page, or on the new 'context menu' (press '1').
All in all, I think it's the only must-have application for your mobile phone, and there's a very good reason why I've got it set as a one-click shortcut on my handset. If I haven't convinced you yet, try the Java-based demo on Opera's website - it's a perfect simulation of the handset experience. Or just download it. You've got nothing to lose.
Tags: browsers, java, mobile phones, opera, opera mini
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2. At November 19, 2007 9:33 AM, anjanesh wrote:
thumbs up to this thread ! in fact it was by chance that i checked this thread on my opera mini (on a nokia) . as a long time user of the mini ; fully agree with the review here. In fact opera is not new to mobiles ; the built in web browser since the late 1990's bundled with Nokia communicator series has been a striped down opera ( it still is). am waiting for tabbed browsing on the mobile (hopefully firefox will follow suit)
one thing though - when i tried to post the comment on this blog via the mini it did'nt work...presumably cookie handling issues with opera or is it the site itself..?
3. At November 19, 2007 12:20 PM, Jonathan wrote:
Downloaded this on friday for my MDA and it makes surfing a lot more enjoyable as I now very rarely get the "mobile" versions of things like hotmail and the BBC which irritate me.
Does anybody know if firefox have any intention of creating a mobile version of their browser?
4. At November 20, 2007 8:06 AM, anjanesh wrote:
Jonathan -
mozilla foundation has already kickstarted the process to bring out firefox on mobile devices (current priority being Firefox3). however , a proper version for windows mobile already exists(yes with tabbed browsing and all) call the Minimo project .A 3.1 mb download it will work on Windows Mobile 5+ .
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1. At November 16, 2007 1:55 PM, paul cassidy wrote: