Opera Browser Now on Android
Opera releases their full browser on Google Play, featuring Discover Mode, Full Screen Support and Off-Road Mode.
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Opera has been around for longer than either Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox, yet despite its low market share, it's still here. The reason for this is that Opera has been the silent innovation driving all major web-browsers for years, being the original source of many ideas in web browsing that most people take for granted. Despite the browser's inherent problems with webpage compatibility, the company has decided to now release the full working version of the browser on Google Play for Android Devices.
The beta version has been available since March 2013, having been unveiled at the Mobile World Congress. Back then, we already saw the exciting features that this new addition to the market brought with it. Featuring a new user interface, the browser brought us a discover mode, which shows all of the interesting news articles that you might have missed, curated by the company (not automatically generated). Other features include a relocatable navigation bar, full screen mode and text wrapping. For those with limited mobile Internet usage, the browser also brings a new idea to the industry called off-road mode, which compresses websites for data saving when needed, meaning you don't always have to sacrifice your bandwidth to read a news article. Have a look on Google Play, and tell us what you think of the app and the company in the shadows.
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Cy-Kill You people at Tom's are extremely stupid, Opera has been available on Android for at least 2 years, what was in Beta was Opera 14...do your damn homework!Reply -
Cy-Kill You people at Tom's are extremely stupid, Opera has been available on Android for at least 2 years, what was in Beta was Opera 14...do your damn homework!Reply -
tenshin111 Exactly, this is the first Opera browser build on WebKit/Chromium code. But the Presto versions have been available on Android for several years.Reply -
_deXter_ I agree with Cy-Kill. This article basically misinterpreted the one at Phone Arena, although Phone Arena's title was a bit misleading as well.Reply
In any case, Opera (in general) has been available on the Android since the beginning, and was one of the first third-party browsers. Not surprising, since their existing Opera Mini browser was already written in Java, and it didn't take much to port it over to Android. Opera Mobile came over a bit later and both browsers were doing quite well. This particular "Opera browser" is a completely different browser based on the new Webkit engine. The article at Phone Arena was basically saying that its finally out of beta and is now in the Market as a proper app.
To be fair to Nicolaas Du Plessis, for new users it can be a bit confusing with three different "Opera" browsers on the market all made by the same company, all with a similar interface but different engines underneath.
My guess is that after a few releases of the new "Opera browser", they will retire the "Opera Mobile" and "Opera Mini" versions, seeing as how they essentially combined the features of both. Also, I don't think Adobe Flash support is a big concern for them, since Adobe have officially quit the mobile space, so they won't be wasting any resources on it.
It's time for people to move on - leave behind the websites and browsers that still rely on Flash. Unless we users don't move on, web admins will be sitting on their arses laughing all the way to the e-bank while watching their users suffer due to the piece of shit Flash that is flash. -
k1664 Cy-Kill, are you sure that isn't Opera Mini you're referring to?Reply
You seem very upset for what is likely to be your homework mix-up. -
Zeta OK so Opera has been in Android for a while, still not everyone has heard about in... does this mean the people behind Opera is going to sue Google like they did to Microsoft about IE domination or something long time ago when Windows was the only OS average joys knew about ???Reply -
prakalejas Returned to 12.10 version and many people I know did the same. UI upgraded, but only visually, but functionaly it's crap. Tabs navigation was better, performance was better, older version didn't have discovery nonsense (you have pulse, currents and so on, no point to load it every time you check web page), start page was unique and now it's loaded with every new tab, exit button is hidden and visible only when you load some page, no flash player support (at least give us the option). Oh and stability issues came back.Reply
Sorry, but overall this update sucks :-( (and this comes from die hard fan of opera mobile browser) -
assasin32 Wow this is quite old news I've been using Opera on Android for well over a year probably closer to 2.Reply
I guess I have to wait another 2 years for a report that Chrome is on Android now, and same with Firefox huh.