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.

The situation however is a bit different if you compare Firefox and Opera. Firefox users can install several extensions that help them save bandwidth while Opera users have to rely on the build in features and options offered in the preferences of the browser.

We make use of two methods to change configuration settings in Opera. The first is the Preferences menu which can be accessed from Tools > Preferences.

Check that images are only loaded if they are already in the cache by clicking on the Web Pages tab in Opera. It should display Cached Images next to the Images setting.

Now head over to the advanced tab and click on the Content entry in the left menu. Now disable animated images, sound in Web-pages, Javascript, Java and Plugins in that menu and add exceptions for the websites that you visit and require some of these. Most likely it will be Javascript that will be required.

You can add exceptions by clicking on Manage Site Preferences and adding websites that you want to configure individually.

Now click on History and change the interval that Opera uses to check if a new version of a document or image is available on a server. I suggest to change at least the image setting to 24 hours and the document setting to every hour. You can still force the check by hitting F5.

You can also disable favicons under browsing. Now download the Flashblocker file from Opera to replace flash content with a button that only loads that content if the button is pressed.

Make sure you read the instructions. You have to copy two files into different Opera directories and activate the Flashblocker in Opera.

Now head over to another userscript that blocks Javascript popups and make sure you read the instructions carefully.