Opera Mini 5 for iPhone Video

Opera Mini 5 for iPhone Video Transcript

>>Jessica Dolcourt: There aren't a lot of browser options when it comes to the iPhone but Opera has managed to break through Apple's restrictive software rules with Opera Mini 5. I'm Jessica Dolcourt with CNET bringing you a closer look. In terms of features and functionality, Opera Mini is almost identical on the iPhone and on other mobile platforms. There's the home screen that let's you program your favorite sites into speed dial and there's support for multiple browser taps. You can do things like search for words on a page, select text, store images and save your passwords. There's also support for Opera link which will sync your speed dial typed browser history and bookmarks across all your Opera browsers. There is one feature that's unique to the iPhone and that's having Opera Mini save your place between sessions. So if you close the app, it will pickup where you left off when you open it up again. Although Opera Mini may look like your average iPhone web browser, it's actually using Opera servers to deliver web pages. It isn't fetching those pages from the browser itself. This is a sort of loop hole that got Opera Mini around Apple's rules against competing browsers and there are pros and cons to this approach. The biggest benefit is speed since Opera servers can compress web pages to send them faster but because Opera Mini isn't a fully functional web browser, there are noticeable negatives like a lack of multi-touch support, which means no pinch and zoom and no iPhone copy/paste. Also, Opera Mini doesn't do a very good job picking up iPhone optimized sites when you're in the mobile view and since it's not a stand alone browser, it doesn't recognize when you need to sign into a wireless network. You'll probably need to sign in from a different browser first if it comes to Wi-Fi sign in screens. Well, it certainly isn't perfect, we overall enjoyed the Opera Mini browser experience, especially the attractive, dark themes interface, the nine speed dial icons and the way the applets who easily switch tasks. So with that, I'm Jessica Dolcourt and this has been Opera Mini 5 for iPhone.