Following on neatly from the alternate browsers thread:

Opera have released the Opera Mini onto the iPhone today.
According to some of my feeds it is only going to be free today, so grab it if you want it:
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/opera-mini-web-browser/id363729560?mt=8

What does it do that Safari doesn't?
Rachel

Fast.

No likey though.

Bit clunky wunky.

It's big feature is that it requests all the pages from a proxy at Opera, which re-compresses them on the fly. Basically this means it should be a bit faster to load pages when you're on a slow connection (i.e. away from wifi or 3G)

It also has a bunch of useful tools: speed dial, bookmark syncing, find on page, saved pages.

What makes it fast?
Edit – beat me to my own question!!

The thing is, the o2 proxy servers already compress images. Can't comment on other phone companies but maybe there is less benefit to o2 users?

Rachel

Im havubg to tap thingd multiple times brfite it actualky oprns yhr window anf thetr serms yo br a problem wuth suto coorect. Is thid in the settingd?

It's definitely faster than the O2 servers.

Bit clunky wunky.

yeah, not quite as smooooth as Safari. Scrolling seems a little jerky, though again it is much faster. The text is nice and clear though. Stick on full screen mode and it looks nicer.

avubg to tap thingd multiple times brfite it
actualky oprns yhr window anf thetr serms yo
br a problem wuth suto coorect. Is thid in the
settingd?

Hmm yeah ni sign of auti correct.

No problems with opening things tho. Single tap to zoom. Single tap on link to open. Nice and quick too.

Text selection is a bit of a faff, they should have stuck with the standard one for that.

I use opera on my mobile, works well, safari on my touch is way better though.

Ahh well, free is good. As is fast. And competition.

Might as well grab it while it is free and see if they fix the niggles after the first round of user feedback.

Might as well grab it while it is free and see if they fix the niggles after the first round of user feedback.

Indeed.
+1
Cheersh for the headshup.

indeed – just had a dl and play myself – seems OK. STW is quick to load, though noticed lack of auto correct… thought it was me being super numpty!

Played with it for a couple of hours and I really like (most of) it.

There's a nice roundup review on El Reg:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/13/opera_mini_for_iphone/

Looking good at the moment, although when I tried to log on here it wouldn't accept my password, so I'm on Safari at the moment. Can't complain for free, keeping it on the phone for the forseeable, and it'll be interesting to see how it develops.

Good Find OP – Thanks

thanks for the headsup

when I
tried to log on here it wouldn't accept my
password, so I'm on Safari at the moment.

I'm on here okay with Opera. Password accepted no problem.