Mobile Browsers News & Articles

It's a mobile epidemic! And trust us, "epidemic" is in no way too strong a word. Opera's mobile browser, Opera Mini, proves it with recent numbers: for the first time ever, users viewed more than 10 billion pages in one month according to the State of the Mobile Web report by Opera.

Opera (news, site) got on the mobile hype way back in 1998 when they developed their first mobile browser. Since then (especially in recent times), they've done a pretty good job at staying in the spotlight. The mobile browser has seen a growth in user base of over 4.2% globally since May 2009, and over 143% over the past year. Their page views have increased by over 8 percent over the figures for the month of May and for the first time, breached the 10 billion mark in June.

Opera's numbers reflect a quickly growing trend: “More than 10 billion page views in one month underscore that the Web is already the platform of choice for mobile devices," explained Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera. "Web standards provide a more efficient way to create flawless sites across all devices."

If you're ready to join the movement, it looks like Opera's a good place to start. The self-proclaimed "most popular mobile Web browser" is currently available as version 4.2 and features personalized skins, better video support and synced notes. Check it out here.

Mobile browsing is one of the few boom areas for telcos, but browser competition is stifled as owners traditionally stick with whatever comes with their phone -- Safari on the iPhone, IE for Windows Mobile, Chrome for Android, Opera on everything else and so on.

Attempting to stir up some competition is Fennec, the cunning little fox from Mozilla that has had an extensive Alpha, going back to last October and is now available in beta, hopefully having recovered from last month's abortive pre-beta test.

The mobile browser war has been waging on with recent releases from the likes of Mozilla, Opera and Skyfire. And while each has been keeping up with functionality and developments in their own right, last week the contender likeliest to come out on top stepped onto the battle field and got blown to bits.

What we’re referring to, of course, is Mozilla’s pre-alpha release of Firefox Mobile, a.k.a. Fennec. The early test version was made available to HTC Touch Pro, but to the dismay of many an excited mobile enthusiast, wouldn’t load any Web pages.

As the ever popular browser battle wages on all over computers around the world, a mini version, equal to its predecessor in casualties and bloodshed, is going on somewhere just as close to us — our cell phones.