gHacks technology news » opera mini http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:31:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Opera Mini 5 beta http://www.ghacks.net/2009/09/16/opera-mini-5-beta/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/09/16/opera-mini-5-beta/#comments Wed, 16 Sep 2009 10:03:45 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=16394 operaOpera has just released a beta version of their acclaimed mobile web browser Opera Mini 5. The beta version, which is available publicly can be downloaded to a mobile phone directly or to the computer system first. Versions for Blackberrys and Java compatible cell phones are provided on the download page. Opera 5 Mini comes with several new features that make the mobile browsing experience more pleasant. Some of them are:

  • Sleek design — Opera Mini 5 features a new, intuitive and advanced look and feel.
  • Tabbed browsing — This desktop favorite is now available for Opera Mini. Tabs allow users to browser several sites simultaneously. This helps users easily jump from one page to another with the click of a tab.
  • Touchscreen or keypad browsing — Opera Mini caters to the needs of your phone, offering optimal browsing for both touchscreen and keypad-based phones.
  • Password manager — Opera Mini is a virtual memory bank, securely saving all passwords for e-mail, social-networking sites, online banking and more.
  • Speed Dial — This is our take on a table of contents for your Web adventure. Opera’s Speed Dial will greet you with your pre-selected Internet favorites upon loading the browser.

opera mini 5opera mini

The Opera developers have released a video that demonstrates the functionality of Opera Mini 5.

Mobile users who are interested in testing the new Opera 5 Mini web browser can point their mobile devices to m.opera.com/next to download it directly from the device or to the download page at the Opera website to download it to their PC.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Related posts

]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2009/09/16/opera-mini-5-beta/feed/ 16 Web Browser: Opera Turbo Preview http://www.ghacks.net/2009/03/13/web-browser-opera-turbo-preview/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/03/13/web-browser-opera-turbo-preview/#comments Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:51:10 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=11196 Opera Software has made available a preview version of their much acclaimed Opera Turbo technology. Windows, Linux and Mac OS X users can download a preview version of Opera 10 containing Opera Turbo, a new function that is using proxy servers to compress the traffic before it reaches the Opera browser on the client’s computer system.

Opera Turbo has been designed for computer systems with limited bandwith. Users with fast connections will see no huge differences in the speed that the websites are displayed but will notice a traffic reduction thanks to the compression. Users with limited bandwidth on the other hand will notice both a website loading improvement and traffic reductions.

The layouts of websites that are accessed with Opera Turbo will look exactly like they did before. The major difference is that image resolutions may appear lower which can be attributed to the compression. Please note that text and other elements are also compressed.

opera turbo

Encrypted traffic will not be routed through the Opera compression servers. This means that accessing your bank’s website, PayPal or any other website that is using the SSL protocol will make use of direct connections.

Please note that Opera 10 with Turbo is still in alpha stage. Opera Turbo will display an icon in the Opera status bar that is giving the user indications whether it is enabled or disabled. It will also display the average compression ratio as an icon and the saved Megabytes when hovering over the Opera Turbo status bar icon.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Related posts

]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2009/03/13/web-browser-opera-turbo-preview/feed/ 6 Opera Turbo http://www.ghacks.net/2009/02/14/opera-turbo/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/02/14/opera-turbo/#comments Sat, 14 Feb 2009 11:07:31 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=10551 Opera positioned itself as one of the marketing leaders in web based compression software solutions with their Opera Mini web browser which utilized Internet traffic compression to reduce the load time on mobile devices. This was achieved by sending all network traffic through specifically crafted Opera servers which compressed the traffic before it was send to the client’s mobile device.

Opera Turbo builds up on the experience that the Opera development team gathered during the development of Opera Mini. The new service will be officially announced at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. The information that can be gathered from the available whitepaper suggests a broader service that allows businesses to run Opera Turbo servers which will manage the compression for their clients. Internet traffic will be routed through Opera Turbo servers which compress it and send it to the clients. The browsers on the client side will also compress any data before it is send to the Opera Turbo server which unpacks it before it is send to the actual destination.

opera turbo

According to the whitepaper Opera Turbo will be able to compress network traffic by up to 80%. The benefits of Opera Turbo should be obvious. The service will save businesses bandwidth, speed up web surfing for clients and reduce costs thanks to the reduced bandwidth requirements. The main Achilles’ heel of Opera Turbo is the requirement to use Opera software to make use of the technique. Opera currently has a web browser market share of about 1% which means that about 99% of all Internet users will probably never be able to test Opera Turbo. Existing Opera users on the other hand might be able to benefit from Opera Turbo as Opera has the intention to utilize the technique into the Opera web browser and Opera mobile browser.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Related posts

]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2009/02/14/opera-turbo/feed/ 15 Use The Opera Mini Browser On A PC http://www.ghacks.net/2008/07/21/use-the-opera-mini-browser-on-a-pc/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/07/21/use-the-opera-mini-browser-on-a-pc/#comments Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:59:05 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=5483 The Opera Mini browser was designed with mobile devices in mind. It compresses the contents before they are send to the device of the user who is running Opera Mini which results in lower bandwidth needs because the traffic is routed through an Opera server first to achieve that.

Pritesh pointed out that there is a way to run the Opera Mini browser on a normal computer by following instructions found on the Java on Mobile Devices website. It’s a bit complicated but doable for anyone with a technical understanding.

A user basically needs to download the Java SE Development Kit (JDK), the Sun Java Wireless Toolkit 2.5.2 for CLDC, the OperaMiniLargeDevice configuration created by the author and obviously the Opera Mini Browser.

Start by installing the JDK and the Wireless Toolkit afterward. Now extract and move the OperaMiniLargeDevice folder to the wtklib\devices path of the Wireless Toolkit and choose it as the default service in the start menu. Now run Run MIDP Application from the same start menu entry which will load Opera Mini if you select the JAD file that you have downloaded earlier.

The author provides two additional screen resolutions that provide support for the Asus EEE PC and the HTC Shift. The latest updated files are available at this post.

The main advantage of using Opera Mini is the compression in my opinion and probably the low resource usage of the browser. Setup is slightly complicated but once everything is running you can be sure that you are using a low resource and low bandwidth browser, probably as low as it can get.

Tags: , , , , ,

Related posts

]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/07/21/use-the-opera-mini-browser-on-a-pc/feed/ 10