Opera Mini slims smartphone data streams

As the popularity of smartphones and tablets continues to surge and telecom carriers shy away from all-you-can-eat wireless data plans, Opera is wooing users with technology that minimizes bytes of data streamed over the air.

Opera Mini was the world’s most popular mobile phone browser program in June with just shy of 23 per cent of the market, according to figures from industry tracker StatCounter.

Nokia and Android browsers were nearly tied for second place, with 17.66 per cent and 17.25 per cent respectively, StatCounter reported.

Opera Mini, made by Norway-based Opera Software, boasted more than 120 million users with devices ranging from simple feature phones to sophisticated table computers.

“We actually minimize the amount of over the air network usage,” Opera executive vice president of consumer mobile Mahi de Silva told AFP. “We definitely think we can get more mileage for the user,” he added.

Opera Mini technology shrinks the amount of data necessary to stream to wireless gadgets and then compresses the information it does send to economize on time and bandwidth, explained de Silva.

Opera Mini claimed to cut the amount of data streamed by as much as 90 per cent while delivering the information being sought by wireless gadget users… Read More [via dawn]