Another day, another mobile software release from the folks behind the Opera web browser. Yesterday the team launched Opera Mini 5.1 for Google Android. Today Opera Mobile 10.1 for Symbian Series 60 phones is ready for download.

While Opera Mini is designed to improve page load speeds by offloading some of the page rendering to Opera’s servers, Opera Mobile runs entirely on your mobile device. It features mobile versions of the rendering engine and Javascript engine used by Opera’s desktop browser.

At the same time, Opera Mobile 10.1 has some mobile-specific features including support for geolocation and touch-friendly controls for navigating through browser tabs and for zooming in and out of web sites. And if you’re experiencing slow network speeds on your phone, you can turn on “Turbo” mode which will enable Opera Mobile to use the same server-side compression as the Opera Mini browser to speed up page load times.

Symbian S60 users can download Opera Mobile 10.1 beta by visiting m.opera.com/next on their phones.

Opera has pushed out an updated version of the Opera Mini web browser for Google Android. Opera Mini 5.1 features stability improvements as well as a handful of improvements over Opera Mini 5 beta that you might actually notice, including:

• You can now set Opera Mobile as the default web browser.
• Full screen mode now actually uses the whole screen.
• The browser now has better page layout on Android handsets with large screens.
• There’s better kinetic scrolling action.
• There’s support for 96 languages.
• The browser will save your session if the app is automatically killed in the background, and will restore your session if you open the again app within 60 minutes.

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Opera Mini’s main selling point is that it uses server-side compression to speed up page load times, especially over slow network connections. Basically when you enter a URL, a request is sent to Opera’s servers, and if they can speed things up by compressing some data before sending it to your phone, they’ll do that.

I also really like the way Opera Mini handles browser tabs by showing you thumbnails at the bottom of your screen when you press a button. The browser also supports pinch or double tap to zoom, storing bookmarks and passwords, and most of the other features you’d expect from a modern web browser.

On the other hand, there are a few limitations. Some web sites, such as Gmail don’t look as good in Opera Mini as in the default Android web browser. And there are only two zoom levels: in and out. You can’t keep zooming as you can with other mobile browsers.

Opera Mini 5.1 is available as a free download from the Android Market.

You can check out a demo video after the break.

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For the last 10 years, Microsoft has been shipping its mobile operating systems with mobile versions of Internet Explorer. But as mobile web browsers go, the Internet Explorer tends to be sluggish and up until recently, the browser was hard to navigate with your fingers, instead relying on stylus input.

But Internet Explorer isn’t the only game in town. There are a number of popular third party browsers available for Windows Mobile, and the folks at xda-developers have written up a rather detailed overview of 5 Windows Mobile web browsers (including Internet Explorer).

If you’re looking for a good comparison of Skyfire, Internet Explorer, Firefox Mobile, Opera Mobile and Mini, and Dorothy, you should definitely check out the xda-developers article to see how the browsers stack up against one another in terms of page rendering speeds, user interface, and other criteria.

OK, so Opera went and did the marginally unthinkable and convinced Apple to approve the Opera Mini web browser for the iPhone App Store — even though it kind of directly competes with Apple’s Safari web browser. Now the folks at Skyfire want to follow in Opera’s footsteps and get in on the iPhone action.

Thing is… now that Opera is in Apple’s good graces, Skyfire might actually have a chance. That’s because like Opera, Skyfire uses remote compression to speed up page load speeds. Basically when you enter a URL in the mobile web browser, Skyfire sends the requests to its remote servers which compress some of the data before delivering it to your phone

One thing that Skyfire can do that Opera currently can’t is to even compress Adobe Flash content before sending it to a mobile device. Right now Skyfire offers mobile browsers for Windows Mobile and Symbian phones — but a version for iPhone and iPod touch could be particularly exciting, because right now there’s no way to view Flash video content on an iPhone. Skyfire could provide a workaround by remotely converting the video into a format the iPhone can handle.

I suspect we’ll see additional browser makers push to get onto the iPhone as well — but unless they can offer something that Safari doesn’t, I suspect they won’t have as much success as Opera has.

There’s no word on just how close Skyfire is to launching an iPhone/iPad/iPod touch version of its web browser. But in a company blog post, Skyfire’s Jeff Glueck writes that the team will “certainly accelerate our strategy on iDevices.” In the meantime, we already know that Skyfire is working on a Google Android version of its software, and a BlackBerry version is also in the works.

via CNET

As announced last night, the Opera Mini web browser is now available as a free download from the iPhone App Store. This is one of the first real alternatives to the Safari web browser that ships with the iPhone.

While there are other browsers in the App Store, they all use the same WebKit rendering engine as Safari. Opera Mini takes a different approach by offloading much of the heavy lifting to a remote server — where Opera will compress JavaScript, images, and other data and then send it to your phone. This means your phone will actually have to process fewer bits to accurately show a web page, and the end result is that Opera Mini should render pages more quickly than Safari under some conditions.

I took Opera Mini for a spin on my iPod touch this morning, and I have to say, it doesn’t really feel that much faster than Safari for most tasks. But I’m using it over a WiFi connection. I imagine if you have an iPhone 2G, that data compression could make a world of difference.

I do like the Opera Mini user interface. The tab switching mechanism is quite elegant. Just tap on the tab icon in the toolbar and a list of open tabs pops up. You can flip back and forth between those page seamlessly or hit the plus button to open a new page. I’m not sure if this is actually more efficient than the way Safari Mobile handles tab switching — but it feels faster, since you’re effectively able to switch tabs without leaving the current page to open up a tab switching screen.

By default, Opera Mini will load a full page view of most web sites. You can double-tap to zoom or use a multitouch pinch gesture. But you don’t have a lot of control over the zoom level. You’re basically either zoomed in or out. In practice, this is actually good enough for most situations. But it feels like a step back when you’re used to being able to zoom with more precision.

And some web pages just don’t render as elegantly in Opera Mini as in Safari. For instance, you don’t get the version of Gmail and Google Reader that are optimized for the iPhone and Android platforms when you use Opera Mini. Instead you get a much more clunky and outdated mobile interface for these mobile apps.

But while there are still some quirks, Opera Mini does finally offer iPhone and iPod touch users a viable alternative to Safari. And depending on your internet connection, you might find it to be significantly faster than Safari.

Opera Mini is also available for Android, Windows Mobile, Symbian, and most Java-based phones.

You can check out more screenshots and a hands-on video below.

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Wow. We knew that Opera had submitted a version of its Opera Mini web browser to the iPhone App Store for approval. But smart money was against Apple actually approving the app. After all, it’s a web browser. And the iPhone already has one of those: It’s called Safari. Apple has a long and steady history of rejecting apps duplicate the functionality of core iPhone apps… like the browser. But for some reason, Apple decided to let this one slide… probably just to mess with us or something.

Of course, Opera has its own theory. Since the Opera Mini browser uses server-side compression to render some web content much more quickly on mobile devices, Opera suggested that the browser is actually different enough from Safari to warrant its approval. At the very least, it should make surfing over a 2G connection with a first generation iPhone a whole lot more bearable.

Whatever the reason, the folks at Opera have sent out a note letting the world know that Apple has approved Opera Mini for the iPhone, and the app should be available as a free download from the App Store within the next 24 hours.

That means you can now use Opera Mini on Windows Mobile, Google Android, Symbian, the iPhone, and pretty much any Java-based phone. In addition to using remote servers to compress data and cut down on the bandwidth used by your phone, Opera Mini has some other nice features including a customizable start page with thumbnail shortcuts for your frequently visited sites, a rather elegant browser tab-switching scheme, and the ability to synchronize your preferences with the Opera Link web service — so you can share your bookmarks and other preferences with the desktop version of Opera.

You can check out a demo video of Opera Mini for the iPhone after the break.

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Opera is bringing both of its mobile web browsers out of beta. Opera Mobile 10 is available for Windows Mobile and Symbian S60 phones. This mobile browser supports tabbed browsing, Opera’s Speed Dial feature, which gives you 9 shortcut icons on your home screen, and the ability to synchronize your data with the desktop version of Opera.

Opera Mini 5 offer similar functionality. The main difference is that Opera Mini relies on data compression to reduce the amount of work your phone has to do to view a web page. Basically, Opera’s servers pre-load most images and other content, compress it, and then shoot it to your phone to save bandwidth.

The final version of Opera Mini 5 is available for Blackberry and Java-based phones. The browser is also available for Windows Mobile and Android, but both of these recently launched versions are still in beta.

You can install Opera Mobile 10 or Opera Mini 5 on most phones by visiting m.opera.com in a mobile browser.

Opera has launched an updated version of the Opera Mini web browser for Google Android. Opera Mini 5 beta has all the hallmarks of Opera Mini on other platforms, including:

• Speed Dial: A start page with quick access to 9 of your bookmarked pages
• Data compression: Opera’s servers actually compress each page before it’s sent to you, making page loads much faster on slow devices
• Opera Link: You can synchronize your bookmarks with the desktop version of Opera’s web browser

Opera Mini 5 beta also has a password manager and decent bookmark and history views.

Probably my favorite feature is the way that Opera handles tabbed browsing. Just hit the tab button in the toolbar at the bottom of the screen and Opera will bring up thumbnails of all your open windows. You can hit the plus bar to open a new tab, or hit the X over any icon to close a tab. It’s much more intuitive than the way that the default Google Android browser handles tabs, and it takes up less screen real estate than the always-visible tab bar on the Dolphin web browser for Android.

There’s no support for multitouch, which means you can’t pinch to zoom. But zooming, scrolling, and other actions are very fast and smooth using single-touch gestures.

The launch of Opera Mini 5 beta for Android comes just a week after the launch of Opera Mini 5 beta for Windows Mobile.

You can download Opera Mini 5 beta  for Android from Opera.com, or from the Android Market.

You can check out my hands-on video with Opera Mini 5 beta for Android after the break.

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Opera has released a public beta of Opera Mini 5 for Windows Mobile. Up until now, you had two choices for running an Opera browser on a Windows Mobile phone or PDA: You could purchase Opera Mobile (or use a public beta) or use the Java-based version of Opera Mini. The new software runs natively, no Java required.

Opera Mini 5 beta 2 supports devices running Windows Mobile 5 and 6. Like the Java based version of Opera Mobile, the native app supports tabbed browsing, bookmarks, a password, manager, and Opera Speed Dial — a feature that lets you tap thumbnail icons with shortcuts to your most frequently visited web sites.

One of the things that makes Opera Mini different from most mobile web browsers is the fact that you don’t need a speedy processor in order to experience fast page load times. That’s because Opera uses server-side data compression. In other words, when you enter a URL, the information is sent to Opera, they process the page remotely and send you a compressed version that opens up on your mobile browser. It sounds like it would be slow, but it’s actually faster than trying to load some full web sites using a relatively slow phone.

You can download Opera Mini 5 beta 2 by visiting m.opera.com/next from your device, or by downloading the desktop installer from Opera.com.