Opera Software has released its (second) free mobile browser product for the Android platform. Grab the app, dubbed Opera Mobile 10.1 beta, now in Android Market or here.
Yes, Opera was already available for Android, in a fairly limited way. Opera Mini, has been live on the market since July, but now you can also download the company’s full-fledged browser, Opera Mobile, from the application store.
Here’s what it’s packing:
- speedy page loading compared to other browsers, particularly on slower networks (courtesy of Opera Turbo)
- smooth scrolling, zooming and panning (rather than having to tap to zoom in, which is definitely a huge improvement)
- Visual tabs for easy tab management —>
- Built-in geolocation support
- Ability to sync bookmarks across devices
- SVG support
As I had mentioned earlier, the release of the public beta version of Opera Mobile for Android was just a matter of time, as the product already existed, albeit for the Norwegian company’s OEM partners only.
Now that it’s available for direct download for end users, you’d be wrong not to check it out.
Fellow TechCrunch writer Jason Kincaid installed a build of the app on his Android smartphone this morning and confirmed that it feels snappier than the native browser that came installed on it. Obviously, more robust side-by-side testing is welcome here.
The browser is available in Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish.
Here’s an earlier video I recorded, featuring Opera Mobile & Devices product manager Phillip Grønvold giving me a demo of the app on his Samsung Galaxy S phone:
Opera Mobile was launched in 2000 as the first mobile browser to bring the full Web to the small mobile screen. Since 2004 it has been installed on 125 million phones. Opera Mobile has pioneered and set the standard in mobile browsing, supporting the latest technologies and receiving industry acclaim. Today, Opera continues to provide the best mobile Web experience with Opera Mobile 9.7.
Norway-based Opera provides web browsers for the desktop, mobile, and other electronics such as the Wii. It also provides a service called Opera Link that lets you access bookmarks across devices. Opera is an independent Scandinavian company that’s been in the business of making web browsers since 1994. Our founders saw the internet as a way of making information free and available to everyone in the world, regardless of where they lived or how they got online. Ever since then, one...
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