Microsoft ropes in Opera Mini as default Nokia dumbphone browser Opera will provide the browser for Microsoft's last dumbphones, under a new agreement between the two companies. Nokia's low-cost Asha devices and its feature phones currently use a proxy-based browser, Nokia Xpress, using Nokia's own servers. This will continue to work, but new devices will ship with Opera Mini, which uses …
It's not that MS doesn't have direction for the mobile market, it's simple logic. Since they are canning 12000 employees, there goes support for the currently installed Nokia browser. Since they are doing away with these phones anyway, no need to try and "port" IE to them, more time and money wasted in the process and again, in support.
Opera Mini fits the bill perfectly and has for a while. Put it on, let them support, hands washed, done.
I left Nokia Mobile Phones' proxy browser organization 2 weeks after the Microsoft purchase closed. It was becoming clear that MS was going to gut the organization totally, and sure enough it is doing that. They have already stopped all new development and are into "maintenance mode". All of my old colleagues (those still there) have dusted off their resumes and are looking for new positions. Sad. It was a great group of people to work with, and we were doing some good work.
The sites I visit aren't subject to blocking orders. I've had filters block me from humour websites because they're "adult", a History channel link about Nostradamus (said it was "occult") and other assorted examples of stupid filtering. It's simply a useful tool to have around to circumvent this sort of thing.
Besides, it's not me running the proxy, it's Opera. These filters could block access to Opera's servers if they're paranoid of people doing an end run around their restrictions. And every other VPN for that matter. And Tor / Orbot. And all open proxies. And open DNS etc. And any and all forms of tunnelling invented or yet to be invented.
I had a dumb phone with a tiny screen some years ago. Opera Mini really provided an excellent experience compared to the bundled browser. The bundled browser frequently had memory rendering pages with the limited resources available. Opera Mini was much better.
The proper comparison here is with other dumb phone options.
IIRC, No, they weren't. Indeed this was the whole premise of WAP proxies. They just stuck at it long enough for it to fly.
My memory of those days is hazy at best, but ISTR at least two, non-WAP, companies offering a similar solution, before Opera-mini was launched. Names escape me though.
I have it on my iPad and even specifically gotten it for my Blackberry Q5.
If you live in a country where the mobile providers give you an unbelievably low quota (2GB a month for RM50) despite the package being advertised as "unlimited" and the throttled cap speed after the quota has run out is a paltry 64kbps, Opera Mini is a lifesaver.
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