Here's some good news for Android phone users. Opera Software launched the newest beta version of Opera Mini 5 on the free and open source Android platform.
Opera Mini is among the leading browsers in the mobile internet segment. In January alone, Opera Mini served 23 billion pages to about 50 million users. India is the third-largest user of Opera, with Russia and Indonesia occupying the top two slots.
Shortly on the heels of a beta release for handsets using Windows Mobile, this latest release promises to improve browser experience by offering a faster and cost-efficient web experience to all handsets that are built on the Android platform. Opera Mini, with more than 50 million users worldwide, enables web browsing on almost any handset by compressing data by up to 90 percent before sending content to the phone, resulting in significantly improved page loading and speed, a press release from the company states.
With a simple, easy-to-use interface, Opera Mini offers a desktop-like Web browsing experience on a mobile phone, with favourite features such as speed dial, tabbed browsing, password manager and bookmarks. With Opera Mini optimized for Android, more people will be able to get a desktop-like browsing experience on their cellphone. “Android users should not have to compromise when it comes to surfing the Web on their phones. Opera Mini will give Android users a fast and cost-efficient access to their favourite Web sites and services,” Dag Olav Norem, Vice President of Products, Opera Software, said in a press statement. Earlier this month, a native version of Opera Mini 5 beta for Windows Mobile 5 and 6-based handsets, that provides integration of Opera Mini with the Windows Mobile platform, was rolled out.
(Download Opera Mini directly to your Android phone. To download, simply visit m.opera.com/next with the Android browser or search for Opera Mini 5 in the Android Market. For more information, visit http://www.opera.com/mini/next/.rolled out)