How to convince Opera to bring Opera Mini to WP8?

[Rowan2013]

A lot of us have limited data allowances for each month however with Internet Explorer being the only available browser it can be difficult to make sure we don't go over our limit.

Now, I feel that we need to convince Opera to bring their Mini browser to WP8. The reason why is because Opera claims it compresses the size of the image and site so that it loads quicker on mobiles and does not waste data.

Case in point: I have had Opera Mini on my iPod Touch for 11 months, it is my main choice of web browser and I use it for primarily forums and mobile sites.

In 11 months I've only used 172MB of data in the mini browser which in a traditional browser would have taken over 1GB!

So how do we get Opera to bring Mini to Windows Phone 8?

 

[Daniel Ratcliffe]

Unfortunately the Opera rendering engine isn't available on WP8, all browsers have to use Trident so I doubt they will bring it over.

 

[Mark Everingham]

Firstly Microsoft would have to allow browsers not based on IE.
Secondly this compression feature does exist, its called Data sense, its just that hardly any carrier supports it.
A Look at Data Sense on Windows Phone 8 | Pocketnow
You would probably be better asking your provider to support that.

 

[Martsicky]

Just forget about it. Try Nokia Xpress or UC Browser.

First one limits data usage, but it uses nokia's servers to compress data, so people are afraid if it's safety and trustworthy... + it works soooo slow.
http://www.windowsphone.com/s?appid=cbf5f827-aa0a-4670-8ba6-775676f275b0

Second one provides an option 'only text-browsing'
http://www.windowsphone.com/s?appid=6cda5651-56b9-48b0-8771-91dbc188f873

Maybe that's what you're looking for??

 

[JamesDax]

No thanks

 

[danj210]

I don't want opera at all. Internet explorer has data usage options and like mentioned above Nokia has a browser and there is UC browser.

 

[Haigs]

I definately want Opera mini in mp8. Its my most used browser for 3-4 years now on all platforms. Its the only app i miss.
Nokia xpress is slow and bad, ucbrowser is good but crashes when browsing large sites in desktop mode.
Internet explorer is very fast and good overall but nothing compares to Opera Mini.

Why MS doesnt allow other browsers?

 

[awilliams1701]

The facts as I know of them are that there is nothing preventing you from making a browser, BUT the needed API's to actually make it useful are blocked. If on the other hand you just want to reskin IE10, there is nothing preventing you from doing that either and it will work fine. The key problem here is that to make a useful alternative to IE10, you would need Microsoft to unblock the APIs.

 

[awilliams1701]

Oh and for the record, according to caniuse.com, opera mini is a piece of crap. Its missing a HUGE amount of CSS3 features. This is just not acceptable. It shows support somewhere between IE8 and IE9. PLEASE JUST SAY NO!!!!!!!!!!! We web developers HATE this crap.

 

[awilliams1701]

Opera Mobile looks at least halfway decent though. Just not Opera Mini.

 

[James8561]

don't. opera is crap anyway. use IE

 

[Xpider_MX]

I definately want Opera mini in mp8. Its my most used browser for 3-4 years now on all platforms. Its the only app i miss.
Nokia xpress is slow and bad, ucbrowser is good but crashes when browsing large sites in desktop mode.
Internet explorer is very fast and good overall but nothing compares to Opera Mini.

Why MS doesnt allow other browsers?

Why you ask for Opera Mobile if you are browsing in desktop mode? For Desktop mode you can use Internet Explorer, for low data usage you can use UC Browser in text only.

 

[Haigs]

Why you ask for Opera Mobile if you are browsing in desktop mode? For Desktop mode you can use Internet Explorer, for low data usage you can use UC Browser in text only.

Because some times the comments are disabled in a mobile site so i quickly switch to desktop to see them.

 

[emagius]

Why you ask for Opera Mobile if you are browsing in desktop mode? For Desktop mode you can use Internet Explorer, for low data usage you can use UC Browser in text only.

Opera Mini (not Mobile -- that's entirely different) delivers a much better experience than UC Browser's text-only/speed setting. It's night and day between the two.

don't. opera is crap anyway. use IE

Many, many websites simply will not function on UC Browser/IE on 512 MB Windows Phone 8 devices. Even opening a couple of mobile forum tabs with no other apps running will cause a crash to the start menu. On the other hand, in Opera Mini you can have half a dozen tabs open on a 512 MB device (albeit one running iOS) and have music playing, etc., without any issues.

 

[awilliams1701]

Yes opera mini is not mobile. Mini is outdated horrible crap. Mobile looks (at least according to caniuse.com) halfway decent. Please don't use outdated browsers. Us web developers hate them. If IE9 is better than your browser then there is a serious problem. At least it isn't as bad as IE8. Personally I would rather someone release an IE skin that does the compression you like. Or even better some way some how firefox gets a proper port and we use that instead. I don't like webkit browsers. Webkit is to the internet now as IE6 was about 4-5 years ago. To make it worse chrome actually spys on you in addition to promoting proprietary web standards.

 

[emagius]

Yes opera mini is not mobile. Mini is outdated horrible crap. Mobile looks (at least according to caniuse.com) halfway decent. Please don't use outdated browsers. Us web developers hate them. If IE9 is better than your browser then there is a serious problem. At least it isn't as bad as IE8. Personally I would rather someone release an IE skin that does the compression you like. Or even better some way some how firefox gets a proper port and we use that instead. I don't like webkit browsers. Webkit is to the internet now as IE6 was about 4-5 years ago. To make it worse chrome actually spys on you in addition to promoting proprietary web standards.

Opera Mini functions by having webpages rendered at the server and sent in a compressed proprietary form to the client display software. It's more like VNC or remote desktop than an actual web browser. That's what lets users view sites like WPCentral on minimal phones (even old Windows Mobile and bottom-dollar Android 2.x devices!).

Data compression of the Opera Mini sort can't be done with an IE skin. Even if Microsoft allowed alternative browser engines on WP8 (which they do not), neither Firefox nor Webkit would remedy the situation of trying to open multiple tabs on phone with only 512 MB of RAM or limiting data usage on capped data plans. The only viable solution would be something along the lines of Opera Mini (or UC Browser's speed mode, which is far, far less compatible with web standards).

 

[Xpider_MX]

UC Browser has "pages preload", it is called "Webpage preload" in settings, and it has "Speed mode" too.

Because some times the comments are disabled in a mobile site so i quickly switch to desktop to see them.

Then, use Internet Explorer for those pages.

 

[emagius]

UC Browser has "pages preload", it is called "Webpage preload" in settings, and it has "Speed mode" too.

I'm not sure what this is in response to. UC Browser's preload feature actually pre-fetches and pre-loads an additional predicted webpage in memory while you're browsing -- it uses up more data and more memory. (The benefit is that if you browse to the predicted webpage, the data has already been downloaded to your device.)

Speed mode is relevant as it does cut down on data usage, but it totally destroys web pages -- much worse than what you'd get using Opera Mini. You should definitely try it and see for yourself.

 

[awilliams1701]

Problem is that whatever is rendering the page is doing a terrible job. I also find it hard to believe that sending pictures of a website uses less data than going to an actual website. At the end of the day I would rather people not have access to the web than using a browser that doesn't have decent support for web standards. At least IE10 on WP is decent. Its actually ahead of the native android browser in many ways. Opera Mini's trash would be taking us in the wrong direction. If you want to update opera mini to actually do a decent rendering then I would support it. However I don't even think Opera has any intentions in updating that trash anymore. Ironically this method of rendering could actually work and is the only feasible way to "replace" IE's Trident renderer on WP in its current state.

Opera Mini functions by having webpages rendered at the server and sent in a compressed proprietary form to the client display software. It's more like VNC or remote desktop than an actual web browser. That's what lets users view sites like WPCentral on minimal phones (even old Windows Mobile and bottom-dollar Android 2.x devices!).

Data compression of the Opera Mini sort can't be done with an IE skin. Even if Microsoft allowed alternative browser engines on WP8 (which they do not), neither Firefox nor Webkit would remedy the situation of trying to open multiple tabs on phone with only 512 MB of RAM or limiting data usage on capped data plans. The only viable solution would be something along the lines of Opera Mini (or UC Browser's speed mode, which is far, far less compatible with web standards).

 

[emagius]

I also find it hard to believe that sending pictures of a website uses less data than going to an actual website.

They aren't big fat BMPs being sent, but rather intelligently crafted OBML documents. Regardless of your difficulty in believing it, they're significantly smaller than the webpages they represent while retaining most of the visible appearance (not post-rendering AJAX elements, however) -- sometimes on the order of 1:100 (e.g., The Verge homepage). Opera Mini's continually being improved, but bringing in the full HTML5 featureset is impossible while retaining the benefits Opera Mini provides.

At the end of the day I would rather people not have access to the web than using a browser that doesn't have decent support for web standards.

Wow.