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Opera Mini

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Opera Mini

Opera Mini is a mobile web browser made by Opera. It was primarily designed for the Java ME platform, as a low-end sibling for Opera Mobile, but as of January 2025 only the Android port is still under active development. A 2021 build of Opera Mini 4.4 for the MAUI Runtime Environment is included with current feature phones manufactured by HMD Global. It had previously been developed for iOS, Windows 10 Mobile, Windows Phone 8.1, BlackBerry, Symbian, and Bada.

Opera Mini requests web pages through Opera Software's compression proxy server. The compression server processes and compresses requested web pages before sending them to the mobile phone. The compression ratio is 90% and the transfer speed is increased by two to three times as a result. The pre-processing increases compatibility with web pages not designed for mobile phones. However, interactive sites which depend upon the device processing JavaScript do not work properly.

In July 2012, Opera Software reported that Opera Mini had 168.8 million users as of March 2012. 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 users from September 2012.

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 10 August 2005, as a pilot project in cooperation with the Norwegian television station TV 2, and only available to TV 2 customers. The beta version was made available in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland on 20 October 2005. After the final version was launched in Germany on 10 November 2005, and quietly released to all countries through the Opera Mini website in December, the browser was officially launched worldwide on 24 January 2006. On 3 May 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 1 November 2006, Opera Mini 3 beta introduced secure browsing, RSS feeds, photo uploading and content folding. 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 22 November, and on 28 November, the final version of Opera Mini 3 was released.

On 7 November 2007, Opera Mini 4 was released. According to Johan Schön, technical lead of Opera Mini development, the entire code had been 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. Originally, Google was the default search engine on Opera Mini. On 8 January 2007, Opera Software and Yahoo! announced a partnership to make Yahoo! search the default instead. On 27 February 2008, Opera Software announced that Google would henceforth be the default search engine for Opera Mini and Opera Mobile. A version for the Android operating system was announced on 10 April 2008. Rather than port the code to Android, a wrapper was created to translate Java ME API calls to Android API calls.

On 16 August 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. The browser's use of compression and encrypted proxy-based technology to reduce traffic and speed page display has the side effect of allowing it to circumvent several approaches to Internet censorship. Since 20 November 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 of China. Opera agreed to route all of their traffic through government servers. In 2009–10: 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. An iPhone version was approved for distribution by the Apple App Store on 13 April 2010.

On 3 September 2014, Opera started taking registrations for the beta version of Opera Mini for Windows Phone. The browser was released for Windows Phone on 9 September 2014, as a public beta, the first Opera version for Microsoft's mobile platform since the discontinuation of Windows Mobile.

Opera Mini uses a server to translate HTML, CSS and JavaScript into a more compact format. It can also shrink any images to fit as the handset screen. This step makes Opera Mini fast.

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