Today, Opera released a new version of their mobile web browser, Opera Mini. This latest version, Opera Mini 4.1 beta preview, offers some new features, but most notably, it claims to be 50% faster than Opera Mini 4.0 when it first launched in November of 2007. For the 40 million users who are currently using the mobile browser, this is welcome news, since one of Opera Mini's previous weaknesses was speed. ]]>
The Opera Mini browser is an alternative web browser for any cell phone. (Opera Mobile, on the other hand, was made specifically for smartphone OS's like Windows Mobile and Symbian).
What's New
The biggest news coming out of this latest release is Opera Mini's huge speed increase. A server side upgrade allowed for this and based on the initial responses on the Opera Mini forum, users are noticing a difference. This feature alone could make Opera the must-have browser for mobile web surfers, especially since Firefox Mobile has yet to materialize.
Another useful, time-saving feature in 4.1 is its ability to autocomplete your URLs. The new browser will suggest URL completions based on your bookmarking and browsing history, simplifying the process of inputting text.
Like big brother Opera Mobile, Opera Mini will now also offer offline access to the web. If you think you're about to lose your signal, you can save your web page to your phone so you can browse it anytime, no matter your connection strength.
On small screens, it can be hard to find the content you want on a web site, so Opera Mini has introduced a search feature that lets you search for text within a web page.
Opera Mini will also now let you download and upload files if your phone supports JSR-75, a a specification for Java applications that allow them to access the device's internal storage. For supported phones, this means that you'll be able to use Opera instead of the phone's native browser to download images, ringtones, and more as well as add attachments to email messages.
A definitive list of phones supporting JSR-75 was not available, but sites like this or this thread on the Sun Java forum might help you determine if your phone will work. However, the best way to find out if the feature works on your phone may be to just try it out.
In addition to the download/upload ability, be aware that JSR-75 support can also affect your phone's ability to save web pages for offline viewing.
Try It Out
To get started with the beta, you can download Opera Mini from http://www.operamini.com/beta. After trying out the beta, issues, bugs, and suggestions can be reported in the Opera Mini 4.1 section of the Opera forums: http://my.opera.com/community/forums/forum.dml?id=111.