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Opera tooling Android-native version of Opera Mini
by Matt Hickey on April 10, 2008

opera mini last childRegular readers will note that I’m an avid fan of Opera Mini for cellphones. Most phones’ built-in browser sucks, pure and simple. While Opera Mini isn’t as good as a desktop browser, it’s still easy enough to use on a small screen that it’s a no-brainer.

When the Goog finally introduced Android, I was impressed. It’s a step in the right direction and something someone should have done awhile ago.

Now Opera is working on an Android-native version of Opera Mini, and that gets me very excited. Two great tastes that taste great together or whatever.

What’s notable is that Opera Mini usually runs on a Java virtual machine, however the Android version will run with the OS itself, meaning it’ll be faster, slimmer, and allow for more OS interoperability. That means it will rock.

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  • That’s great news, let’s hope it is as good as it promises ^^
    I’ve been a regular user of Opera Mini for the last year or so and I just love it

    sent from: fav.or.it [FID248712]

  • Opera Mobile on my Windows Mobile 6 device (Moto Q9H) does not run on a Java virtual machine, if I am not mistaken. I imagine that Opera Mini for Android will run on the Dalvik virtual machine.

    • Correct, and the Dalvik virtual machine is a clone of Sun’s Java virtual machine (with minor changes in naming conventions, etc). The performance of this particular application will be similar to Java versions (running on comparable hardware).

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalvik_virtual_machine

      As an aside, while Opera Mini is a Java application, Opera Mobile is not - it runs as a native C/C++ application on Symbian, Windows Mobile and other platforms.

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