Opera Mini 3.0 Now Available

E IS mC(Square) writes "Opera Mini 3.0 is out of beta. The feature list includes RSS integration, a user-interface geared towards mobile devices and small screen size, and it's fast for relatively slower mobile data connections (with picture upload/sharing if you are into it). Requirement for using it: You must have a phone capable of running Java mobile applications and are using an Internet connection (officially supported devices are listed)."

Comments

What the hell is this?

[Anonymous Coward]

A third grader's essay on some new product? Because that's what it reads like.

Opera 3 on a Treo 700p is HORRIBLE

[Zelet]

Do not attempt to use this version with the Treo 700p. The previous version of Opera Mini worked fine on my Treo but this version crashes the phone repeatedly when I try to use it.

Re:Opera 3 on a Treo 700p is HORRIBLE

[pruss]

Ditto on the Palm TX. It's looking like they couldn't have tested on any Palm devices (or maybe any NVFS-based ones), because I have yet to hear of it working with some Palm device.

Re:Opera 3 on a Treo 700p is HORRIBLE

[blackmonday]

Not a troll. My Verizon 650 crashes every time I start the program. It's on the supported list, oh well...It did manage to do an initial config, but now it just causes the phone to reboot.

Possible for older low resource machines

[El Cubano]

The feature list includes RSS integration, a user-interface geared towards mobile devices and small screen size, and its fast for relatively slower mobile data connections (with picture upload/sharing if you are into it). Requirement for using it: You must have a phone capable of running Java mobile applications and are using an Internet connection

I wonder if this might be a good choice for older machines as well. Think something like an old 486 or 1st-gen Pentium with 32 or 64 MB RAM and a 13" or 14" monitor. IIRC, there are stripped down versions of Mozilla available for mobiles (I'm not sure how feature complete or mature they are). But as they say, competition is good. Seeing as web browsing is probably the single most common activity, and arguably the best use of an old computer (running a word processor or some similarly resource-intensive application is probably a no-go). You can throw something like DSL on there and use a light-weight WM. I guess the main hangup would be being able to get Java ME running on it.

Re:Possible for older low resource machines

[jb.hl.com]

You might as well just run Opera proper...or maybe an old version of it. Opera is pretty light as it is.

Re:Possible for older low resource machines

[El Cubano]

Opera is pretty light as it is.

Yes, but Opera proper is not optimized for small screens. I know that there is a bit of a difference between a handheld device and even a 13" CRT. However, most programs today look absolutely terrible on anything less than a 17" or 19" monitor. I know, because most of the computers at my church still have old 14" CRTs, and many programs are just barely functional at any resolution that is still readable on such a small screen.

Re:Possible for older low resource machines

[mr.warmth]

I never understood why people talk about old hardware like it's a retarded brother or something. You can run a hell of a lot more on a 486 than you could on your cell phone. In fact, I used to have a 468/66 that I'd browse the web on w. Win95. So why not, for example, use one of the browsers that we used back then? IE3 or Netscape 3/4? I am sure as horrid as those browsers seem compared to today's versions, they're much more complete than a cellphone browser.

And as someone else pointed out, Opera itself is very light weight and may run fine anyway.

Re:Possible for older low resource machines

[IndigoParadox]

The problem is the lack of support for even the most basic of current web technologies, such as XHTML or CSS. Try visiting even Google using an old copy of IE4 and you'll get script errors. I Pentium 75 laptop with Windows 95 and it's difficult to find a browser that does support modern web pages for such a platform.

Poor stability

[diamondsw]

While I used Opera Mini 2.0 on my Treo and found it worked very well, the new version 3.0 crashes constantly (which, thanks to the lack of memory protection on the Palm, resets it). Reinstalled the JVM, Opera Mini, etc - no better. Downgraded to 2.0 and all was fine.

Might want to wait for some bug fixes (although Opera doesn't generally push .01 updates to its "Mini" product).

Same here on Treo 650

[vio]

Same problem here, big crashes on Treo650 :-(

Might be that my JVM is old (IBM JVM 2.2.012?) guess I'll see about updating it... older Opera Mini worked ok.

Re:Same here on Treo 650

[Hijacked Public]

I don't have a Treo 650 but if I did it would probably be happening to me too.

Re:My website sucks on this browser...

[mottie]

It looks horrible in Firefox and IE7 as well, perhaps it's not the browsers fault..

Re:OTA Install?

[mottie]

If you visit http://www.operamini.com/ on your blackberry it automatically detects your device type and gives you a download option. It recommended Opera Mini - International for me, but it was easy to switch that to Opera Mini - US.

Mini vs. Mobile vs. Desktop - For the Record

[Kelson]

Since invariably someone gets these mixed up, there are three main browser types that Opera produces:

Opera Desktop - this is the full-up web browser that you can use on Widows, Mac or Linux (plus a few other Unixes)

Opera Mobile - this uses the same rendering engine, but runs on smaller devices like PDAs and some phones. The DS and Wii browsers are probably based on this version.

Opera Mini - this is the Java-based app that runs on virtually any JVM-capable phone and does a lot of the processing on a proxy server.

Java

[fimbulvetr]

I love it that java guys say java is so fast, small and lean on mobile devices, yet Mysaifu requires 11mb to install on my 6700 and ibm j9 needs 50+mb. Small, my ass. Don't get me started on speed.

For those needing the jvm for this or similiar devices, get one here:

http://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~dat/java/project/jvm/d ownload_en.html
or
search ibm.com for WebSphere Everyplace Micro Environment (You need to register to download)

Re:Java

[mritunjai]

And your point is ?

There are a LOT of large applications in C, C++, XYZ language. The size of an application as much to do with a particular computer language as size of War & Peace has to do with english language!

MySaifu (never heard of it) might be 11MB, but the application that the article talks about is 98KB ! (yep, a complete browser, photo snap/blog, RSS reader and more in 98KB!).

Regarding your comment on JVM size. Blame your provider for not bundling IBM J9 VM. BTW, that VM isn't limited "mobile JVM", but a rather large version pretty close to standard J2SE. So it's kind of strange to see you complaining.

[RANT MODE ON... SORRY!]
Oh, and the IBM J9 VM sucks. No two words about it (btw, I worked with it for about 2 years, so I know a thing or two about it! Ever since OTI and alphaworks used to do it).

I blame IBM for coming up with the idea of "personal profile" with "multile incompatible configurations" and more choices of configurations that you'd get tired and lost. There is a reason they call it J9 and NOT Java! (it's not certified!). IBM played the microsoft in those days and they haven't even opensourced any of the stuff!!

Again, it's not Java's fault. It's IBM's for messing up their implementation, not certifying it, then even after that forming alliances with OEMs (Palm etc) and offering it as add-on separate download for "Java" (when it isn't certified for that!), not opensourcing it even when we NEED an opensource Java platform for mobile devices, and finally causing so *many* pains to users and developers!
[RANT MODE OFF]

Sorry. But I think it's high time people start understanding difference between Java - the language AND Java implementations! There isn't one sinle implementation. You can get implementations from SUN, Microsoft (although unusable 1.1 version), IBM and BEA! The problems you're having are *mostly* due to *implementor's faults* not the language's.

And Fit to width mode

[Kelson]

Opera 9 also introduced Fit to width mode: CTRL+F11. It's similar, but adjusts pages to your window size rather than to ~200px across and would be more suitable for 640x480 or 800x600 screens.

Couple it with Full Screen mode (F11), and you can even hide all the toolbars, menus, borders, etc.

Re:My website sucks on this browser...

[Anonymous Coward]

I made a donation to the seeing eye dogs association for you, hopefully one will arrive soon.

I see the moderators are smoking crack again

[ncc74656]

In what bizarro world is the parent poster a troll? Once it did its setup thing on my Treo 650, it rebooted. More often than not, it reboots the phone as soon as you try to start it. If you do manage to get it running, it reboots as soon as it actually tries to display something from a website. Last time I checked, displaying stuff from websites was the primary function of a web browser.

After deleting the copy I had installed in the phone's memory, I tried running it from an SD card. It behaved the same way there. Grr.

I should've saved the previous version before installing this one, but I rarely used it. Blazer was more functional and easier to use for most things. For updating my On Tap in Vegas page when out and about, I found that Links running in an SSH session would work.

Re:Opera Mini == spyware ?

[EvilSS]

I'm guessing someone didn't read on Opera's website about how Opera Mini actually works. They do have to use a proxy:

Mini technology Opera Mini uses a remote server to pre-process Web pages before sending them to your phone. Web content is compressed to reduce the size of data transferred, enabling handling on simpler phones and creating fast browsing at low costs. http://www.operamini.com/features/

Opera Mini != spyware ?

[Nicolay77]

They have to use a proxy because they run the rendering engine in their servers in order to send a small and handheld friendly page to your device.

As most cell phone companies bill you by the kilobyte, this results in HUGE savings there. Do you see the point?

And no, Opera Mini is not spyware.

Re:Opera Mini == spyware ?

[famebait]

The whole point of opera mini is the server. It is not just a proxy, it digests the page and adapts it to small-screen viewing before sending it to you.

There are very good reasons for this:

* The transformations are done in very intelligent ways that would be way too heavy to do on most phones in a timely fashion

* The digested page has much less data to transfer, and can be compressed in proprietary ways since the client is known. (helps both speed and cost of use).

* The client need only handle content of the format the proxy produces, so the implementation can be much simpler than a normal xhtml client. This way (along with their plain talent and experience in optimizing) they manage to get a java-based browser running on a jvm running on a phone to outperform the native one that comes with the phone. Damn impressive.

Now if you want total privacy, fair enough. You don't have to use it, or you don't have to use it for everything. But it is made the way it is for specific reason that deliver very specific advantages. After getting used to Opera mini, the standard browser on my SE is close useless by comparison.

And your ISP probably wathces you anyway; why trust them any more than opera?

Re:Who's paying?

[Ilgaz]

When you have a working real life solution in hand which is run on millions (if not hundreds of millions) mobile phones, you got something to say to companies while trying to sell these:

http://www.opera.com/products/devices/

Also it seems they got deal with Google which is also effective in this product (default search engine).

Did you ever wonder why MS sunk billions of dollars in IE even while they are at court for monopoly? That was done with evil agenda, Opera supported nothing but open web standards since it was founded.

So they got "karma" enough to type mini.opera.com in my K700i J2ME 2 phone wap browser right after reading this headline.

Re:Yawn.

[Ilgaz]

It matters since

1) While MS .NET tries to rule the World, a J2ME (Java) 98 kb browser (with httpS: and RSS support) runs on billion devices potentially.

2) It uses Open Source Pike ( http://pike.ida.liu.se/ ) to serve millions of users

3) It is another barrier for MS infested device browsing (Run WinCE browser and see)

4) It is from a small company which managed to stand against AOL and Microsoft just by supporting standards and rely on customer trust.

5) It gives people even without a WAP 2.0 browser chance of surfing web, getting information without charge.

6) Server structure handling millions of users is Linux ( easy, check http://gemal.dk/ with it)

It is bad news for MSFT and .NET freaks which couldn't release anything like this and moron websites/coders managing to break every single standard. You know why? If your site is W3C compliant, it renders PERFECTLY on Opera Mini.