Opera Mini shrinks the Web for your Treo or BlackBerry

Up, up, down, down, left, right, left--no, this isn't a cheat code for a Nintendo game, but rather the motions you may go through while trying to view a Web page on your mobile phone. Come on, you know what I'm talking about--surfing the Web on a smart phone is like driving in L.A.; not fun and excruciatingly slow. But Opera Software is hoping to change all that with its Opera Mini Web browser, which compresses Web pages for faster delivery and better viewing on handsets. Starting today, it's available for BlackBerry and Treo owners. The best part? It's free! Simply go to mini.opera.com from your mobile and download the app. But there are a couple of caveats: you'll need a data plan from your carrier, Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) support is required for Treos, and Verizon Wireless handsets currently are not supported.

(Photo: Opera Software)

[tedrheingold]

Many mnay more phones supported

Opera mini can run on many many more J2ME phones. It's an excellent browser. Stunning in fact. I've been using for about 5 months on my SE Walkman phone.

[tedrheingold]

Note your registration form is buggy

When registering to leave a comment I found that the form would not submit unless I entered a zipcode. No error message was shown however, and zipcode is not indicated as required

[hussainshah]

CNET get your facts straight.

I cannot beleive that a site as high profile as you does not know that opera mini has been available for treo for over a year now.

[robstak]

Opera Mobile: nominee for biggest letdown of da yr

I was really upset when I installed opera on my XV6700. Not only did it run slow as molases, it crashed almost everytime I used it.

It's a shame, because tabbed browsing on your phone is absolutely VITAL for any true mobile web user, but only if it doesn't crash every time they used it.

Um, also, it rendered pages better than IE (looked more like regular pages), but on the same side, websites don't recognize it as a mobile browser. This is another huge PITA. For example: google, espn render as regular pages instead of the nicely scaled down mobile versions. biiiiig disappointment.

Sorry Folks.

How about a pocket firefox?

-karl :)

[avbip]

Mobile FireFox?

How about Mini Mozilla as a better name? ;)
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/minimo/

Its Gecko powered for your surfing pleasure (still in beta but,) it works and is the only browser my xv6700 allows to run meebo. (huge) Memory consumption is not the best yet.