Opera Mini

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Opera Mini Opera Mini 7.5 for Android displaying its start page. Developer(s) Opera Software Initial release August 10, 2005; 7 years ago (2005-08-10) Stable release

Android: 7.5.1 (January 10, 2013; 5 months ago (2013-01-10))

iOS: 7.0.5 (October 24, 2012; 7 months ago (2012-10-24))

BlackBerry: 7.1 (November 20, 2012; 6 months ago (2012-11-20))

Symbian: 7.1 (January 25, 2013; 4 months ago (2013-01-25))

J2ME:

7.1 (November 20, 2012; 6 months ago (2012-11-20)) Development status Active Written in C++, Java, Pike Platform Java ME, Android, Bada, Windows Mobile, iOS, BlackBerry OS, Symbian-UIQ3, Zeebo Available in Various Type Mobile browser License Proprietary, freeware Website www.opera.com/mobile/download/

Opera Mini is a web browser designed primarily for mobile phones, smartphones and personal digital assistants. Until version 4 it used the Java ME platform, requiring the mobile device to run Java ME applications. From version 5 it is also available as a native application for Android, bada, iOS, Symbian OS, and Windows Mobile. Opera Mini is offered free of charge, supported mainly through deals with mobile operators to have Opera Mini pre-installed in phones, and other sources of revenue such as search advertising deals, licensing and paid bookmarks and Speed Dial placement.

Opera Mini was derived from the Opera web browser for personal computers, which has been publicly available since 1996. Opera Mini began as a pilot project in 2005. After limited releases in Europe, it was officially launched worldwide on January 24, 2006.

Opera Mini requests web pages through Opera Software's servers, which process and compress them before sending them to the mobile phone, speeding up transfer by two to three times and dramatically reducing the amount of data transferred, chargeable on many mobile phone data plans. The pre-processing increases compatibility with web pages not designed for mobile phones.

In March 2012, it was reported that Opera Mini had 168.8 million users. In February 2013, Opera reported 300 million unique Opera Mini active users and 150 billion page views served during that month. This represented an increase of 25 million from September 2012. In January Opera announced that it is working on a new browser dubbed Opera "ICE".

History

Opera Mini was derived from the Opera web browser for personal computers, which has been publicly available since 1996. Opera Mini was originally intended for use on mobile phones not capable of running a conventional Web browser. It was introduced on August 10, 2005 as a pilot project in cooperation with the Norwegian television station TV 2, and only available to TV 2 customers.

A beta version was made available in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland on October 20, 2005. After the final version was launched in Germany on November 10, 2005, and quietly released to all countries through the Opera Mini website in December, the browser was officially launched worldwide on January 24, 2006.

On May 3, 2006, Opera Mini 2.0 was released. It included new features such as the ability to download files, new custom skins, more search engine options on the built-in search bar, a speed dial option, new search engines, and improved navigation.

On November 1, 2006, Opera Mini 3 beta introduced secure browsing, RSS feeds, photo uploading and content folding into its list of features and capabilities. Content folding works by folding long lists such as navigation bars into a single line that can be expanded as needed. A second beta was released on November 22, and on November 28, the final version of Opera Mini 3 was released.

On November 7, 2007 Opera Mini 4 was released. According to Johan Schön, technical lead of Opera Mini development, the entire code was rewritten. Opera Mini 4 includes the ability to view web pages similarly to a desktop based browser by introducing Overview and Zoom functions, and a landscape view setting. In Overview mode, the user can scroll a zoomed-out version of certain web pages. Using a built-in pointer, the user can zoom into a portion of the page to provide a clearer view; this is similar to the functionality of Opera's Nintendo-based web browsers. This version also includes the ability to synchronise with Opera on a personal computer.

Prior to Opera Mini 4, the browser was offered in two editions: Opera Mini Advanced for high-memory MIDP 2 phones, and Opera Mini Basic for low-memory MIDP 1 phones. Opera Mini 4 replaced Opera Mini Advanced. The older Opera Mini 3 Basic was still available for low-memory phones as of 2012.

Originally, Google was the default search engine on Opera Mini. On January 8, 2007, Opera Software and Yahoo! announced a partnership to make Yahoo! search the default instead. On February 27, 2008, Opera Software announced that Google would henceforth be the default search engine for Opera Mini and Opera Mobile.

It was reported in the New York Times on October 27, 2008 that an iPhone client had been developed. Opera submitted the App to the App Store on March 23, 2010, and it was approved on April 13, 2010.

A version for the Android operating system was announced on April 10, 2008. Rather than port the code to Android, a wrapper was created to translate Java ME API calls to Android API calls.

On August 16, 2009, Opera Software released Opera Mini 5.0 beta, which included tabbed browsing, a password manager, improved touch screen support, and a new interface, with a visual Speed Dial similar to the one introduced by Opera Software in their desktop browser.

Since November 20, 2009, there have been reports from Chinese users that when they use Opera Mini, they are redirected to an error page leading them to download Opera Mini China Version. This is almost certainly due to the Chinese government being concerned that users are using Opera Mini to bypass the Great Firewall in China. Opera agreed to route all of their traffic through government servers.

2009–2010: A press release announcing that Indonesia's Smart Telecom had chosen Opera Mini for their devices said that Opera Mini was the world's most popular mobile browser, and that Russia and Indonesia were the largest users.

Functionality

Unlike straightforward web browsers, Opera Mini fetches all content through a proxy server and reformats web pages into a format more suitable for small screens. A page is compressed, then delivered to the phone in a markup language called OBML (Opera Binary Markup Language), which Opera Mini can interpret. The data compression makes transfer time about two to three times faster, and the pre-processing improves the display of web pages not designed for small screens.

When a user browses the web using Opera Mini, the request is sent via the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) to one of the Opera Software company's proxy servers, which retrieves the web page, processes and compresses it, and sends it back to the client (user's mobile phone).

By default, Opera Mini opens one connection to the proxy servers, which it keeps open and re-uses as required. This improves transfer speed and enables the servers to quickly synchronize changes to bookmarks stored in Opera Link.

The Opera Software company maintains over 100 proxy servers to handle Opera Mini traffic. They run Linux and "are massively parallel and massively redundant."

Small-Screen Rendering

For devices with screens 128 pixels wide or smaller, the default rendering mode is Small-Screen Rendering (SSR). In this mode, the page is reformatted into a single vertical column so that it need only be scrolled vertically. Long lists and navigation bars are automatically collapsed (hiding most of the list or bar) by a feature known as "content folding". A plus (+) sign is displayed next to the collapsed content; when clicked, it toggles content folding.

Web developers can turn on SSR on the desktop edition of Opera to see how their websites will be displayed on mobile editions of Opera.

In SSR mode images are scaled down to no more than 70% of the screen size in either direction.

Complex script rendering

Opera Mini can send content in bitmap image form if a font required is not available on the device, which is useful for indic scripts. Hindi and a few other non-Latin character sets are supported.

JavaScript support

When browsing the Web with Opera Mini, JavaScript is processed by the proxy server, and is merely rendered on the device. This limits interactivity. Scripts cannot be run in the background on the device. If a script is paused (on the server), the browser must communicate with the server to unpause it. JavaScript will only run for a couple of seconds on the Mini server before pausing, due to resource constraints.

According to the documentation for Opera Mini 4, before the page is sent to the mobile device, its onLoad events are fired and all scripts are allowed a maximum of two seconds to execute. The setInterval and setTimeout functions are disabled, so scripts designed to wait a certain amount of time before executing will not execute at all. After the scripts have finished or the timeout is reached, all scripts are stopped and the page is compressed and sent to the mobile device. Once on the device, only a handful of events are allowed to trigger scripts:

onUnload: Fires when the user navigates away from a page onSubmit: Fires when a form is submitted onChange: Fires when the value of an input control is changed onClick: Fires when an element is clicked

When one of these events is triggered, Opera Mini sends a request to the proxy server to process the event. The proxy server then executes the JavaScript and returns the revised page to the mobile device.

Pop-ups, if not blocked by the JavaScript restrictions, replace the web page being viewed.

Opera has published Web content authoring guidelines to assist authors.

Features

Scrolling is carried out by using the device's arrow keys, its number keys, or a stylus.

Opera Mini may be set to landscape mode, where it will rotate the page 90 degrees. This is useful for screens that are significantly taller than they are wide. However, this feature was not available as of 2012 on BlackBerrys without a gyroscope and some other devices.

The image quality may be set to "Low", "Medium", or "High". Page load times are affected by the chosen image quality setting.

Opera Mini supports only one font, which can be set to "Small", "Medium", "Large", or "Extra large" size. If a web page uses Courier or a generic monospaced font, the one font is still used, but the characters are spaced out so that each character takes up the same amount of space.

Browsing tools

Opera Mini has a search bar capable of using several pre-configured search engines; the user can add more search engines. The default search engines are Google and Wikipedia.

Opera Mini supports shortcut keys, skins, and a web feed aggregator. It can save bookmarks, download files, and it remembers the user's browsing history.

Since the launch of Opera Mobile Store in March 2011 Speed Dial of Opera Mini displays a shortcut to Opera's own mobile applications store.

Privacy and security Main article: Browser security

Opera Mini, since 3.0 Advanced, encrypts the connection between the mobile device and the proxy server for privacy and security. The encryption key is obtained on the first start by requesting that the user press random keys a certain number of times. Opera Mini 3.0 Basic does not support encryption. Opera Mini has been criticised because it does not offer true, end-to-end security when visiting encrypted sites such as paypal.com: when visiting an encrypted web page, the Opera Software company's servers decrypt the page, then re-encrypt it themselves, breaking end-to-end security.

This reduces security, and is relevant to applications such as Internet banking.

Standards support

As of version 4, Opera Mini uses the same layout engine that is included in Opera 9.5. Consequently Opera Mini supports most of the web standards supported in Opera 9.5. However, unlike the desktop edition of Opera, Opera Mini includes no support for Web Forms 2.0. Also, frames are flattened because of client limitations, and dotted and dashes borders are displayed as solid borders due to bandwidth and memory issues. As Opera Mini reformats web pages, it does not pass the Acid2 standards compliance test.

Opera Mini supports bi-directional text, meaning that it can correctly display right-to-left scripts such as Arabic and Hebrew in addition to languages written left-to-right. However, it will not display right-to-left text if the font size is set to small or very small. Indic and Chinese scripts are supported only if an appropriate font is installed on the device as the default system font. Opera Mini does not display text in italic or other formatting besides boldface.

Low-memory device support

For MIDP 1, low-memory devices, the older Opera Mini 3 Basic is still available. Its features include an option to increase the text size, as the default text size is too small for some web sites. Opera Mini 3 Basic uses less advanced compression, does not support full page view, does not include support for favicons, does not scroll as smoothly, does not feature a built-in clock, and does not support encryption. When browsing an encrypted web page with Opera Mini 3 Basic, the page is decrypted before being sent to the mobile phone.

Opera Mini 3 Basic using the default, "medium" font size

Opera Mini 3 Basic using the "large" font size

Opera Link

Bookmarks, Speed Dials, and search engines can be backed-up to My Opera, and kept synchronized between different phones or with the Opera browser on computers, using the Opera Link service.

Data centers Total data consumed by Opera Mini users worldwide from 2006 to mid-2008 in TB

Opera Mini relies on data centers processing the Web page before sending it back to the phone in a compressed binary form.

Data center in Japan Data center in USA June 30, 2009 - TeliaSonera International Carrier will provide Opera with co-location for establishing a new data center in Poland Data center in Iceland

Market adoption

The overall share of the Opera family in the mobile Web browser market was about 26.92% in October 2009. Figures for Opera Mini within this were not available. Most of users come from India, Indonesia, Russia, China and Brazil.

Network operators

Several mobile network companies pre-install Opera Mini on their mobile phones, including AT&T, Vodafone, T-Mobile, KDDI, Omnitel, Pannon GSM, Telefónica Móviles de España, TMN, Airtel, and Tata DoCoMo.

Devices

The following devices came pre-installed with Opera Mini as of August 2007. Some listed devices only included Opera Mini when bought from certain network operators.

Motorola V980, E2, L7, i1 Nokia 2610,3120c, 2700 Classic, 2730 Classic, 3500c, 3600, 3600 slide, 3710 fold, 3720, 6085, 5130, 5230, 5500, 5310, 5610, 3110, 7373, 6131, 6233, 6600 slide, 5070, E65, N95, N71, N73, 5000, 3110c, 6288, 6103, 6080, 6303, 6300, Nokia C3 and 8800 Arte Sony Ericsson K310i, K530i, K550, W200i, W760i, Z530i, Z550i, Z780i, W910i Samsung X160, E570, E420, F480, X510, X650, E900, E250, U700, ZV60, D900i LG K880, KU250, KE970, and KU311 SAGEM My411x and P9521 BenQ-Siemens EL71 and EF81 BenQ E71 fight Orange Rio (ZTE-G X991) Distribution partners

The following Internet service providers, web portals, and other companies distribute Opera Mini to their customers:

Buzznet debitel (Germany) eBay (Germany) Grameenphone (Bangladesh) Helio (USA) HT Telecom (Europe) Jajah MegaFon (Russia) Meteor Communications Ltd. (Ireland) Mobileplay Mobile Weaver (Unwirepark) mobilkom Austria (Austria) Onet.pl (Poland) Optimus (Portugal) Pannon (Hungary) PriceRunner Safaricom (Kenya) Small Planet Smart Communications (Philippines) Smart Telecom (Indonesia) TDC A/S (Denmark) TIM (Brazil) tribe.net UTV Indiagames (India) Virgin Mobile (USA and UK, following their acquisition of Helio) Vodafone Romania (Romania) Vodafone Czech Republic (Czech Republic) Wind Hellas (Greece) MTN (Nigeria)

Critical reception

Reaction to Opera Mini has been largely favourable. Opera Mini competed against its sister product, Opera Mobile, for the 2007 Smartphone and PocketPC Magazine award for the "best mobile browser for both Windows-based Pocket PC and Smartphones" award. Opera Mobile is a more powerful web browser that runs directly, not through a proxy, on smartphones and personal digital assistants. Opera Mini lost the award to Opera Mobile because at the time Opera Mobile supported Flash and tabbed browsing while Opera Mini did not.

Awards

Laptop Magazine Editors' Choice Award Sony Ericsson Content Award for "Productive Mobility" 2007 Getjar "Mobile Application of the Year Award" 2007 Mobile Gala "Best program for mobile phones" 2005 and 2006 CHIP.de Digital Lifestyle Award 2006 NDTV Gadget Guru Awards 2010, Best application of the Year

As of late March, Opera Mini has had a text issue which has affected many people using Samsung's Bada operating system. The company has had nothing to say on the issue.