OPERA MINI

'Opera Mini' is a Java ME web browser for mobile devices, which runs on most phones that support Java Midlets. The browser is available in two versions: 'Opera Mini Advanced' is the complete version using MIDP 2 for high memory phones, and 'Opera Mini Basic' is a less-featured version using MIDP 1 for low memory phones.
Unlike normal web browsers, Opera Mini fetches all content through a proxy server that runs the layout engine of the Opera desktop browser. The engine on the proxy server reformats webpages into a width that is suitable for small screens, using Opera's Small Screen Rendering^[1]. The content is compressed, then delivered to the phone in a markup language called OBML (Opera Binary Markup Language)^[2]. When the content reaches the phone it has been reduced in size by typically 70-90%.
Opera Mini has a minimal interface, and only includes the most essential features for web browsing, such as bookmarks, history and back/forward controls. The quality of images can be set to low or high resolution, where high setting approximately doubles the size of the images downloaded. The Advanced version has capabilities such as smooth scrolling, skins, and dual font sizes.

Contents

History

See also

External links

References

History

Opera Mini was launched in Norway by Opera Software in cooperation with TV 2 on August 10, 2005. A beta version was made available to Nordic countries two months later. After limited distribution releases in several European countries, the browser was made available worldwide on January 24, 2006.
On May 3, 2006 Opera Mini 2.0 was released with features such as file downloading to the phone's memory, skinning abilities, 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. On November 28, the final version of Opera Mini 3 was released. On January 8, 2007 Opera Software and Yahoo! announced partnership meaning that all new versions of Opera Mini will come with Y! search preinstalled on the built in homepage, where it previously featured Google as default search engine.
June 19, 2007 saw the release of the beta version of Opera Mini 4, nicknamed "Dimension". This release includes the ability to view webpages similar to a desktop based brower by introducing Overview and Zoom functions. In Overview mode, the user can scroll a zoomed out version of certain web pages. Using a built-in mouse cursor, 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.^[3]

See also

★ Microbrowser

★ Opera Mobile

External links

★ Official Opera Mini website

References

1. Opera's Small-Screen Rendering
2. Opera 3Q05 Results
3. Calore, Micheal "Opera 4 Beta Released", Wired News, June 19, 2007