Linux Solutions

After a few weeks of beta testing, Opera Mini 4.2 for mobile phones has officially been released, and with the recent news that Opera have opened a brand new server park, US users will see a 30 percent boost in speed.

The new release is the first version officially available for the Google Android mobile platform, and is also the first web browser alternative to the current browser on the open Android platform.

The new lightweight browser is pretty darn fast as it cuts out parts of pages that are not essential, and the new version adds more language versions and a choice of browser themes/skins to give it a more personable feel. Opera’s remote servers are set up to pre-process web pages, and the content is compressed to reduce the size of data transfer –enabling faster browsing. Although the main bulk of the speed increase will affect US users, Opera says that users worldwide should notice the difference. The browser will run on a multitude of java-capable handsets, including Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson, and Windows Mobile.

The Opera browser is the most popular mobile browser in the world according to Opera Software, who said that 21 million unique users browed 5 billion pages in October 2008 alone.

Avi Greengart, research director of wireless devices for Current Analysis was interviewed by LinuxInsider and said that Opera, “is without question the world’s most popular aftermarket mobile Web browser,” but he couldn’t tell if it was the most used overall.

“Nokia sells an awful lot of phones with mobile browsers,” he added.

But is Opera Mini browser any good? I’ve personally used versions of Opera in my recent mobiles, and had Opera 4 beta on my Sony Ericsson W810i before I moved on to iPhone, but I liked how it worked on a handset that was never really designed to surf the web.

Greengart likes it too: “For devices with small screens or limited connectivity, no question – Opera Mini does the best job of quickly modifying the site for your tiny screen on its servers, and then sends just that data on to your phone. It is certainly my mobile browser of choice for feature phones,” he said.

Opera tried to convince iPhone to let users have Opera Mini 4.2, however the company were shown the door by Apple because the Opera browser was perhaps to close to Apple’s own Safari browser that’s built in to the phone. Of course other stories say that Opera had never actually submitted the browser to Apple’s App Store for approval, and as of yet there are no alternative browsers for iPhone users to download – highlighting the difference between the open source nature of Android, and the closed door of iPhone.

“As a general rule, Apple likes to control the user experience as much as possible. While Apple has opened up the App Store to all comers, there are a number of ill-defined gates to getting programs onto the iPhone. This appears to protect Apple’s own software development efforts for the platform, which means that users get a consistent Apple experience across major functions, but miss out on potentially disruptive innovations from others,” Greengart said.

“Google is taking the opposite approach, hoping that the development community can smooth over Android’s rough edges, fill in missing functionality, and potentially tinker with the OS itself,” he added.

“Right now, Android is mostly potential, and while I can reasonably know what the iPhone experience will be like a year from now, I can’t predict whether Android will be a whole lot better … or just the same,” he concluded.

In the meantime, you can get Opera Mini 4.2 in the Android Market as well as directly from opera.com and operamini.com. I might just have to get it and cram it on to my old W810i for fun – expect a review shortly.