Yandex Browser Gets Opera’s Turbo Tech For 4X Speed Bump On Slow Web Connections

A small but neat update for Russian search giant Yandex today: it’s released a new version of its Yandex.Browser which incorporates Opera’s Turbo webpage compression technology to speed up Internet browsing on slow connections such as 3G or public Wi-Fi networks. Yandex says the Turbo mode enabled in its browser supports speeds that are up to 4x faster (for its part Opera claims Turbo can make page load times up to five times quicker than other browsers).

The Turbo tech reduces the size of web pages on the server-side by up to 75 percent without transcoding them. The implementation of the tech in the Yandex.Browser does not compress dynamic web content, such as video or audio files or flash banner ads, or reduce encrypted pages, such as online banking accounts or personal  email.

Here’s a screenshot of the browser with Turbo mode enabled

Yandex said the browser’s Turbo mode activates automatically when the upload speed drops to 128 Kbps, and deactivates when it breaks the 512 Kbps barrier — but notes that it can also be managed manually.

The Opera browser itself is popular in Russia (the primary market for the Yandex.Browser) with a roughly 20 percent share.