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)."

What the hell is this?

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

Opera 3 on a Treo 700p is HORRIBLE

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:Same here on Treo 650

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

I see the moderators are smoking crack again

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 [nevadabrew.com] page when out and about, I found that Links running in an SSH [sealiesoftware.com] session would work.

Possible for older low resource machines

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

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

Yawn.

Downloaded yesterday. Big news day!

Re:Yawn.

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/ [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/ [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.

Palm JVM

Here's where to download the JVM for Palm [palm.com] if you don't already have it.

Poor stability

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).

Out of memory

My phone is too old, I kept running out of memory when trying this out. I need a newer phone.

Very impressive...

This is an awesome little app. I was never able to load myphonefiles.com on any of the phones and this Opera applet displays it without a problem, even the most complicated pages with inner frames. Very impressive...

Seems to work fine on my N80.

Not bad..I like the "folding" and the varied image quality..nice.. I'll have to play with it a little more.. But at this point I still like the built in browser better..

SGH-A707

Works great on my Samsung SGH-A707

OTA Install?

I never sync my Blackberry in the cradle, if fact I don't think I have the Desktop Manager software installed on my new work laptop. Ever since BES 4 came out there has been little need for it other than stupid apps which don't have an Over The Air install option, and I now just avoid those. So I guess the question is, does anyone have an OTA URL for this?

Re:OTA Install?

If you visit http://www.operamini.com/ [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.

BTW, downloading it is done great

The 3-step system download system is actually worth noting. I managed to find every single phone model I (or someone in my family) own and get a detailed message about whether it supports the Basic or Advanced version, possible issues (and this is actually a per model piece of information), they even have versions in my native language. It's great. It's a bit of a contrast to the annoying "suit yourself" release systems often found in other J2ME software websites.

Crashes on Palm Tungsten C

I had to get back to the 2.0 version, since the new one kept crashing and freezing the computer. Shouldn't this have been checked more thoroughly? About half of the postings up right now seem to be about it not working correctly...

Really?

It makes my slow connection faster? It's (Note the apostrophe there. You should give 'em a shot. They're useful all over.) a miracle!

Mini vs. Mobile vs. Desktop - For the Record

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.

Re:Who's paying?

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/ [opera.com]

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.

Java

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 [biglobe.ne.jp]
or
search ibm.com for WebSphere Everyplace Micro Environment (You need to register to download)

Anyone tried this on a Nokia 6600?

Yeah, I know this phone is a dinosaur at this point but it's the on the "supported devices" list. Mine gets stuck at the "loading" screen. The phone itself isn't frozen, just Opera doesn't seem to finish loading.

Anyone had any luck on this phone?

Mobile Webphone?

How about a GPL Java applet that implements an IAX2 client (Asterisk softphone), without any of the proprietary requirements of the few I've seen?

Web browsers are old hat for programmers, and not very sexy for generating corporate action. Softphones are to 2006 what browsers were to 1995. Opera does a good job with lightweight browsers, and wants the mobile/embedded market. Where's it's HTTP/IAX client, that could put it ahead, instead of forever catching up?

Aww... And I thought it said,

Opera Mini 3.0 Not Available *YAY*

Works on T-Mobile T-610

My Sony-Ericsson T610 phone with the lousy R1S001 firmware runs this one ... finally. Opera Mini 2.0 wouldn't function. The integrated "browser" can only handle nearly empty sites a-la 1995 -- I'm looking forward to being able to actually Google for phone numbers et cetera.

--
Slashcode bug # 497457 - unfixed since December 2001 - Go look it up [sourceforge.net]!

Ok for my phone

Motorola A1200 Ming. Now to figure out how to remove the default browser from the home screen.

WFM on Nokia 6682

To present a success story, it installed and worked fine for me on a Nokia 6682. It can use the camera and everything. Pretty neat. I haven't tried the RSS reader yet. Otherwise it doesn't really seem very different than 2.0 on the surface.

I don't love it

I updated Opera on my *Sanyo 4920 last night and I have to say I don't love the new version one bit.

While I've not had a chance to check out the new features, the thing that sticks out is that after any page load, Opera now displays an error screen saying 'The server has closed a connection' or something like that. If I cancel out of the error screen I actually do see the new page loaded. It's weird and annoying and I don't see any reason for such a thing to happen, nor what I can do about it.

I haven't tried the RSS features yet - they may remove the need for most of the browsing in my case - so I am not about to download back to Opera 2.0, but the browsing piece of it definately is flaky. Luckily I have another browser on the phone (the built-in one) so I can experiment.

* Awesome phone

Works on my Blackberry 8700r

Seems to work just fine. I'm at home so bandwidth is poor (in the country) but in the city I am sure it will be fast. Will it slow down during peaks due to use of pre-processing servers? We shall see. Experience is good although takes more clicks then current BB browser to enter new urls, page back, exit application. Has more features though so I suppose this is acceptable.

Opera Mini == spyware ?

I had a previous version of Opera Mini on my Palm TX (I was looking for something better than Blazer) a while back. When I fired it up for the first time it made me agree to their license agreement. I've never been one to blindly accept a license agreement. Now while I normally don't read the whole thing in detail, I'll usually skim a license if it isn't GPL, MPL, etc. I noticed something peculiar in their license (and I forget the details as it has been some time now), regarding the connection. I think something to the effect of they were monitoring some type of statistics. Being curious at this point, I browsed over to my website (using Opera Mini) and then viewed the logs to see if the connection came from my IP or another... It came from another IP! DNS lookup showed that this connection came from and opera IP address. I promptly removed the browser from my Palm and haven't touched it since.

Re:Opera Mini == spyware ?

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/ [operamini.com]

Re:Opera Mini == spyware ?

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?

Tmobileweb!

Posting from OM3 right now! Finally, it correctly detects and works with the US tmobileweb service. WooHoo!

Nokia N80 built-in browser is better

Tried out opera mini this morning on my N80. I recommend sticking with the N80's built in browser as it is fairly capable as rendering full website. Maybe use opera mini if you are have to use a GPRS connection.

Re:works fine on my phone

Do a bunch of little nerdlings follow you around and worship the ground you walk on?

Re:My website sucks on this browser...

The browser is intended to get large-format pages onto a 170x200 pixel screen. In that case, it does admirably. You will certainly get a bill for usage if you don't have a plan.

Re:My website sucks on this browser...

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

Re:My website sucks on this browser...

First of all, you can't expect it to display every website nicely. If you plan on viewing it more often on your cell phone, you should consider designing it for that platform. I think keeping it simple is the best way to go if you want to have it look nice on any mobile device. My San Diego Traffic [sdroads.com] website looks just fine, but then again there's very litte to fuck up.