Tim Almond

I’m surprised at how little attention has been paid to Opera Mini. I think it’s about the most innovative product of last year, a radical way of browsing on a phone.

Because as well as having a great browser, Opera Mini has another trick up its sleeve called a transcoder server.

What happens is that when you ask for a page, Opera Mini goes off to this transcoder server and asks for it. The transcoder server receives it but before sending it to the phone, it shrinks it. It does all sorts of things to the content so that you can get it quicker. So, instead of sending a fullsize image that’s just going to get shrunk by your phone, it sends a preshrunk image. Compared to the standard Nokia browser, it’s much faster.

It can be downloaded for free. 

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Tags: Technology, Internet //