Opera Mini Now Available On Verizon Feature Phones

The Opera Mini web browser is the most popular in the world with over 85 million users.  it’s easy to see why. Opera’s proxy architecture compresses web pages by up to 90% before sending them to the phone.  That cuts the cost of browsing,  makes page loads faster and allows even basic phones to load the largest desktop web pages. Up to now non-smartphone users on Verizon, the largest US operator, have been denied the advantages of Opera Mini. That’s … Continue reading

New Opera Mini Beta Fixes Symbian^3 Stability Issue

A second beta of  the native Symbian (.sis) version  of Opera Mini 5.1 was released yesterday.  Among other things it fixes two significant bugs from the first Beta. The previous version would crash if you enabled the option to use the Symbian (and Swype) keyboards.  Based on my testing this bug is completely gone.  I been using the new Beta extensively on an N8 for a full day and have experienced no crashes whatsoever The previous version was unable to … Continue reading

Image Quality and Word Wrap Issues With The Latest Opera Mini for Android Release

Opera released an update to the Opera Mini 5.1 client for Android last week. It’s version 5.1.22460 and according to Opera changes include: Adjusted font sizes. Font fixes for Chinese and Japanese, so speed on pages with these fonts should be greatly improved. Improved stability. Improved input for Sony Ericsson X10 Mini and X10 Mini Pro. Chinese users can now download the application from the Android Market. A bunch of bug fixes. I installed the update on a T-Mobile MyTouch … Continue reading

New Opera Mini Native Symbian Version Reviewed

Yesterday, Opera Software released a Beta version of Opera Mini 5.1 as a native Symbian (.sis file) app. It’s available for Symbian S60 2nd and third edition, Symbian^1 and Symbian^3. Opera lists the following features of the new version: Huge start up time improvements. Lightning fast page load times. Improved scrolling performance. Integration with your device’s native input. Option to choose default access point – no more annoying connection dialogs Now supporting more devices than ever. Download the new version … Continue reading

Opera Mini 5 Beta for Android Is Here – Full Review

Opera Software today released their long awaited upgrade to Opera Mini for Android.  The Opera Mini 5 Android Beta is now available in the Android Market.  Search for “Opera Mini” in the Market to find it.  The Beta installs alongside of Opera Mini 4 rather than replacing it. It’s Version 5.0.18302 for those who track such things. I’ve been using the new browser on an HTC Magic  running the latest Cyanogenmod ROM. It’s everything I hoped for in Opera Mini … Continue reading

Opera Mini 5 Beta 2 – Does Progressive Loading Speed Up Browsing?

Following up on yesterday’s release of new Opera Mini Beta, the official Opera Mini Blog published a short list of the main enhancements in Beta 2. It includes an explanation of the new “Progressive Loading” feature in this release. According to Opera, “your browsing experience will be faster and better” with progressive loading because pages are loaded in chunks allowing the page to start displaying sooner.  I was surprised because I hadn’t noticed that Beta 2 was any faster than … Continue reading

Opera Mini Blocked in China

CC  Carsten Ulrich Some rights reserved Over the weekend users of the international version of Opera Mini, no matter what site they tried to visit, landed on a screen with the message “For better browsing experience, please upgrade to Opera Mini China version at mini.opera.com“. A blogger in China, Carsten Ulrich posted the screen shot shown here. The international version of Opera Mini uses proxy servers in Europe and the U.S. and has apparently long been a popular way for … Continue reading

Opera Mini 5 Beta – First Impressions

Early this morning Opera Software released the long awaited  first Beta of Opera Mini 5.  You can get it by pointing your phone’s built in browser at mini.opera.com/next.  Or download the .jad and .jar fles or the Blackberry .alx and .cod to your PC for side loading from opera.com/mini/next/download/ Opera Mini 5 is bigger at 221 KB than its 125 KB predecessor and uses more phone resources.  Given the new features this is to be expected but it also means … Continue reading