subject: Opera for Android and Its Updates [print this page] Opera for Android and Its Updates Opera for Android and Its Updates
Competing against large browsers such as Firefox has been a challenge for the software company Opera but they are up for the challenge. With the growth and popularity of Android, Opera is finding its ground.
Opera has now announced the release of Opera Mobile 10.1 beta, which follows its launch of Opera Mini on Android, from July. Opera Mobile is expected to bring more speed through Opera Turbo. It also offers pinch-to-zoom, speed dialing, geo-location support, bookmarking syncing on multiple devices, tabbed bookmarks and long-click menus.
For those of you who have never heard of Opera, it is a web browser and Internet suite developed by Opera Software. It has become a forerunner for those needing browsers for their mobile phones, smart phones and personal digital assistants - but it is available on computers as well. Like other browsers, it includes tabbed browsing, page zooming, mouse gestures and an integrated download manager. It also has security features like built-in phishing and malware protection, encryption when browsing secure sights and the ability to delete private data.
Even though Opera is popular on Android, it will run across many platforms for personal computers such as the Mac OS X.
Opera is also notorious for originating features that were later adopted by other web browsers. Despite this, the company hasn't grabbed up a huge share of the market for personal computers. But, with the growth of smartphones, Opera is being used by over 120 million mobile phone users. Opera is also the only commercial web browser available for the Nintendo DS and Wii gaming systems. Even the company Adobe Systems has licensed Opera technology for the use in Adobe Creative Suite.
Opera Software began in 1994 primarily as a research project at Telenor, the largest Norwegian telecommunications company. The company branched out the following year and began calling itself Opera Software ASA. The company released its first version 2.0 in 1996. The software only ran on Microsoft Windows. In 1998, the company started putting its focus on Internet-connected handheld devices. Opera 4.0 was released in 2000 and included a new cross-platform core.
Opera originally was released as trialware and had to be purchased after a trial period. If one didn't purchase it, they had to see banner ads or targeted text advertisements. With the release of 8.5 in 2005, advertisements were dropped and Google ads were displayed. Google revenues helped the company financially and they no longer had to charge for the software or put up other advertisements for users.
In 2006, version 9.1 was released. This version included fraud protection from GeoTrust and PhishTank. Later, malware protection was added from Haute Secure. In 2006, versions were released for Nintendo DS and Wii.
Then there was version 10.50 which included a new JavaScript engine called Carakan. It would run faster than SunSpider. Opera also introduced a vector graphics library called Vega which would handle all of the browser's renderings. Opera 10.50 was for Windows only. A Mac version was later released as 10.52 and then Opera 10.60 was created for Windows, Mac, Linux and FreeBSD.
Opera Mini was released as a pilot project in 2005 and launched worldwide in 2006. Opera Mini would request web pages through Opera Software's servers, which compresses them before sending them to mobile phones, thus speeding up transfer speed. Opera Mini was designed primarily for mobile phones, smart phones and PDAs. Opera Mini has released versions 2.0, 3, 4 and 5.0.
Opera Mobile has released versions since 2000. It released 6.0, then 6.10, 8.5, 8.6, 8.65, 9.0 and then 9.5 in 2008. This was followed by 9.7, 10 and now 10.1 beta.
