Opera Mini on Palm (and your desktop)

I am a bit of an Opera Lover. Which is sort of like saying the Titanic hit a bit of ice. I actually run a website about being an Opera Lover (check your local Google listings :-)

I have been an Opera user for years, and ever since I had my first Treo (a 300) I have been begging and pleading for a Palm version. Opera’s Small Screen Rendering is an amazing, innovative, and unique feature which you can’t get anywhere else (no, Firefox fans, even your attempts to copy it don’t match the original. That’s OK, both browsers have their strengths. Make love, not browser wars...unless it’s against IE, of course).

Where was I? Ah yes, begging for a Palm version of Opera. This went on for several years. When Opera Mini was announced, I very nearly wet myself. A lot. I immediately downloaded and installed a, um, how shall we say, “grey market” version for my Treo 600. I even posted directions on how to make it work on my Treo. Some of you may remember reading that. It didn’t work very well, but it was still a lot better than Blazer.

Opera Mini 2.0 is an improvement. I have had some more resets with my Sprint branded Treo, but apparently there are a lot of other folks using it on Sprint Treos and others without incident. So go ahead and install it. Oh, did we mention that you can install it directly from the web? Just point your browser to http://mini.opera.com and it should automatically detect your phone version and let you download it.

One part of the Opera Mini 2.0 announcement which got me really excited was the ability to download files. I have been frustrated by the 2MB download limit in Blazer (is that only on Sprint or is that for everyone?). However, my excitement went away pretty quickly when I tried Opera Mini 2.0 and discovered that all it does it hand off the download to Blazer, meaning that it does not improve on the 2MB limit. Rats.

That said, Opera Mini does a lot better job, especially with long pages which Blazer chokes on. It’s free (unless you use the SMS method of delivery) so check it out.

TIP: I don’t tell this to everyone, but I like you, so I’ll let you in on a little secret. Opera for Desktop (that is: Windows, Mac, Linux, FreeBSD, and most other desktop operating systems) is compatible with WAP/WML websites. That means you can visit the mobile versions of ESPN, Switchboard.com, Wunderground, MapQuest and others using your desktop browser, and save yourself some time. Of course usually not all the content is available on these “mobile friendly” sites, but when I am looking for a quick game score or phone number, they work just fine. (By the way, in case you missed that news, Opera for your desktop is now completely free and ad-free, so you can download and use it without any ads or spyware. See http://www.opera.com/download/ .)

That reminds me, don’t forget to checkout the favorite mobile content sites thread on the forum and add your favorite mobile-friendly sites!