Opera Browsers, saving users money

[Bugs]

Saw on click the other night that Opera Mini can save mobile users money by compressing data. I have a few questions:

How can it do this because surely it has to retrieve the data before it compresses it?

Is this available in normal opera or only mini, reason is my wife has a 3 mobile broadband stick and I think she'd be VERY interested in money saving on it.

Thanks

[localzuk]

Opera Mini uses a system where a remote server is the actual device accessing the website. This server then compresses it using Opera's technology, and then that compressed data is sent to the mobile device where Opera Mini displays it. What you see on your phone in Opera Mini is not a direct rendering from HTML.

It means that potentially, your data is going via a man in the middle/proxy.

[andy_b]

As above

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Compression is possible because Opera Mini is using Opera Servers as a proxy, which are doing the compression.

Internet->Opera Servers->Opera Mini

I believe it is only Opera Mini.

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[jinnantonnixx]

Not only that, but (in theory) it can be faster as you're only receiving the data you need (e.g. images resized to the appropriate size on the Opera servers, rather than in the browser).

I recently installed it on Android. It's very good, the multi-tab feature is very well executed. Well worth a try.

[Rydra]

from what I saw a while back, Blackberry have the same systems.

[s_tu]

The desktop Opera does have a feature that is similar to opera mini. It called turbo mode if enable it will start using the opera compression servers.

[sparkeh]

There's also Opera mobile to throw in the mix. Feature comparisons here

[CAM]

Vodafone do the same, they download a mobile safe version of the page that has been altered to fit on the phone without excess charges. Essential when PAYG has a minute 15MB cap.

[SpuffMonkey]

The desktop Opera does have a feature that is similar to opera mini. It called turbo mode if enable it will start using the opera compression servers.

My fave browser.