Frequently asked questions for Opera Mini

General

What is Opera Mini?

Opera Mini is a free, fast and compact web browser that allows you to access the Internet on your phone. By downloading Opera Mini, you can use your cell phone to access websites and content, including your mail, community sites, news, blogs and more.

Can I use Opera Mini on my phone?

You must have a compatible phone with an Internet connection. When you download Opera Mini, you will be told if your phone is known to work.

Do I have to pay for Opera Mini?

No, Opera Mini is free. Depending on how you get Opera Mini, your service provider may charge you for the actual download. Your service provider may also charge for the data you use when surfing with Opera Mini. When using Opera Mini, webpages are optimized and compressed before being sent to your phone. Therefore, the data transferred to your phone is significantly reduced, making mobile surfing cheaper.

Opera Mini is not available in my language. Will it ever be translated?

Opera Mini is currently available in more than 100 different languages. We hope to offer Opera Mini in even more languages in the future.

How can I make my webpages look good in Opera Mini?

To make pages look their best in Opera Mini, you can visit our Opera Mini development guidelines at Dev.Opera.

What is the difference between Opera Mini and Opera Mobile?

Opera Mini and Opera Mobile look the same, so what’s the difference? Opera Mini, Opera Mobile and Opera for desktop all share the same rendering engine, Opera Presto. With Opera Mini, this is located on a server. In Opera Mobile, it is installed on your phone.

In more detail: When you request a page in Opera Mini, the request is sent to the Opera Mini server that then downloads the page from the Internet. The server then wraps up your page up in a neat little compressed package (we call the format OBML), ready to send back to your phone at the speed of ninjas with jetpacks.

When you request a page in Opera Mobile, the page is sent directly to your phone from the place from which you requested it, meaning you do not rely on the Opera Mini server. This means that the page is displayed just as it would in Opera for desktop. Your phone has to do a bit of work here, meaning that older phones might struggle.

By using Opera Mini, our servers do most of the work, so it works well with less- capable phones. Pages are often smaller (saving you money) and faster to load due our server-side compression. Opera Mobile can compress pages also, by enabling Opera Turbo.

Opera Mobile is only available if you have a Windows Mobile, Symbian/S60 or Android phone. Opera Mini is available for a much wider range of handsets.

What is the Smart Page?

The Smart Page, available from Opera Mini version 7.0 on J2ME, BB and S60 and version 7.5 on Android, connects you to your social networks, news, weather, sports, and entertainment sites and more. You can easily switch between the Smart Page and your Speed Dial by selecting a tab at the top of your screen.

Note: The Smart Page is not available in Opera Mobile.

Top

Installation and compatibility

Do I need some kind of Internet service from my mobile provider?

Unless you use a wi-fi connection to access the Internet, in general you will need to have some level of Internet access in your phone service agreement. Check with your mobile provider if this is included in your services.

How do I install Opera Mini on my phone?

There are two ways to install Opera Mini to your phone:

Where in my phone can I find Opera Mini after installing it?

Opera Mini can usually be found under Applications, Java Applications, File Manager or a similarly named folder that can be reached from the main menu of your phone. Occasionally, it can be found under Games. If you can’t find Opera Mini anywhere on your phone (and you are sure that you installed it correctly), please consult your mobile phone manual or your phone manufacturer’s website.

What are the differences between each Opera Mini version?

The features of, and requirements for, running Opera Mini change with each version. To see the history of Opera Mini, follow the Opera Mini blog.

What is the purpose of the screen where you need to press keys until the indicator is full? To protect your communication with the Opera Mini server, the client needs to create a secret key. The key needs to be long enough so that it cannot be easily guessed or predicted. The best way to ensure that the key is not predictable is to use a random key. Opera Mini generates a random key for this purpose when you randomly press keys on the keypad until the indicator is full.

How to set permissions in signed versions of Opera Mini

Opera Mini 4.1 and later can be installed as both signed and unsigned versions. The advantage of the signed version is that you can have better control over how Opera Mini can access your device files, folders and connection settings. The end result is that you will get fewer permission dialogs for file and network access. Our download servers try to recommend the right signature for your phone. Not all phones can install signed versions of Opera Mini. If you find this recommendation is incorrect, please let us know.

How to set permissions for Opera Mini varies a lot depending on the phone you have. In general, you have to locate the folder where Opera Mini is. Then you have to highlight Opera Mini and press an options/menu button to find the application permission settings. Opera Mini uses settings to read and write user data, as well as Internet connectivity settings. If you cannot find these settings, please consult your mobile phone manual or your phone manufacturer’s website.

Please note that we do not offer signed versions for Palm and BlackBerry (with a few exceptions).

Does Opera Mini work with my Palm device?

Opera Mini works with a number of Palm devices. However, you may need to install a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) before downloading Opera Mini.

Does Opera Mini work with my BlackBerry device?

Yes, Opera Mini works well with BlackBerry devices. BlackBerry devices with firmware older than 4.2 don’t have JSR-75 support required for some advanced features in Opera Mini. The firmware version can be found under Options > About (third line).

What is JSR-75?


JSR-75 is a specification for Java applications such as Opera Mini that allows access to device internal functionality and storage. Some of Opera Mini’s features such as “Save Pages” and “Download/Upload Files” vary on how much JSR-75 that is supported by the phone. For more information on JSR, please see the Wikipedia entry.

Top

Using Opera Mini

Also see the Guide to Opera for phones.

How do I edit or delete a Speed Dial in Opera Mini?

To edit or remove an entry from Speed Dial on a keypad device, select the entry, and press and hold your "Select" button. On a touch device, press and hold the entry using your finger. A menu will appear providing options to edit or remove the entry.

Can Opera Mini display webpages as one vertical column?

Yes. Go to Menu > Settings and choose Mobile View.

How do I scroll quickly in Opera Mini or when I use the “Mobile View” setting?

To scroll quickly, you can use the 2, 4, 6 and 8 keys. In Opera Mini 4.x and older you can also use the left and right keys in mobile view, or when the page width does not exceed the width of your screen. To highlight links or to scroll quickly, use the up and down keys.

When using “small font”, I can’t see special characters

In some languages, small fonts may not appear correctly. The character selection offered when using the small font setting is limited due to the application’s size concerns. This has been improved in Opera Mini 4.2 and later versions, so if you are using an earlier version, we recommend that you download the latest version.

Some letters look like squares, and I am not using small fonts

Opera Mini uses the phone’s default font. If your phone does not support certain characters, such as Chinese characters, then Opera Mini cannot display them.

What is the difference between “HTTP connection” and “Socket connection”?

If you choose to use a “Socket connection”, Opera Mini will keep an open connection to the Opera Mini servers. This means that pages will load quicker, and the Opera Mini servers can push updates (for example new bookmarks through Opera Link) directly to Opera Mini on your phone.

If you choose “HTTP connection”, Opera Mini has to establish a connection to the Opera Mini servers every time you load a page. New updates to Opera Mini will also not be pushed to the phone until a new page is loaded. Note: Not all phone models and mobile networks allow socket connections. If you have problems with your connection, try using “HTTP connection” instead.

Top

Settings

To be able to connect Opera Mini to the Internet, your phone needs the correct settings. In general, there are two different settings:

Opera Mini usually requires the Internet setting, and to use the Internet APN. (What is an APN? Have a look on Wikipedia.)

Make sure you download and activate the correct settings for your phone.

How do I manually enter APN Internet settings on my phone?

Please consult your mobile phone manual or your phone manufacturer’s website.

How do I enter APN Internet settings on my Nokia Series 40 phone?

Starting from the point where you have already downloaded and installed Opera Mini, but you are unable to load pages:

  1. Go to Settings.
  2. Go to Configuration.
  3. Go to Personal Configuration Settings.
  4. Now, press Add New (visible if you do not have a previous Personal Setting created) or press the Options button.
  5. Choose Add new. A new menu displays, providing several options to choose from.
  6. Scroll down and choose the Access Point and press Select. (Please note that this option is not available on the Nokia 3220 model and maybe on some more models, you can instead use the Services option instead of the Access Point option on the Nokia 3220.) Do not choose the Web option, as this will not work with Opera Mini.
  7. Now, go to Access Point Settings.
  8. Go to Bearer Settings.
  9. Go to Packet Data Access Point.
  10. Enter your APN address that corresponds to your provider, then press OK.
  11. Go back to the Personal Configurations Settings menu, where you now should be able to see an Access Point selected.
  12. Press the Options button, and then choose to activate this Access Point.
  13. Now you should be able to start Opera Mini, and try to load a link on your phone.
  14. If you are still having problems with your Nokia S40 2.0 model of phone, please make sure that you have entered all the required information into the APN setting concerning proxy, user name, password, port and so on.

I have the right settings, but Opera Mini still does not work

There are devices that require a special configuration in addition to the right settings. Some Nokia phones require you to activate the settings as default in all applications. In addition, some Sony Ericsson phones require you to set the Settings for Java.

If that does not help, please contact your service provider.

Top

Security

Can I browse securely with Opera Mini?

Yes. Opera Mini uses secure connections.

Does Opera Mini use encrypted connections?

Yes. Information sent between your handset and the website is encrypted in all recent versions of Opera Mini.

Is there any end-to-end security between my handset and — for example — paypal.com or my bank?

Opera Mini uses a transcoder server to translate HTML/CSS/JavaScript into a more compact format. It will also shrink any images to fit the screen of your handset. This translation step makes Opera Mini fast, small, and also very cheap to use. To be able to do this translation, the Opera Mini server needs to have access to the unencrypted version of the webpage. Therefore no end-to-end encryption between the client and the remote web server is possible.

If you need full end-to-end encryption, you should use a full web browser such as Opera Mobile.

What is the encryption good for then?

The encryption is introduced to protect the communication from any third party between the client (the browser on your handset) and the Opera Mini transcoder server. If you do not trust Opera Software, make sure you do not use Opera Mini to enter any kind of sensitive information.

What cryptographic algorithms are used to protect the communication?

The communication is protected by 256-bit RC4 and the key exchange is done by 1280-bit RSA. All hashes are created using SHA-256. These are the algorithms used by most SSL sites today.

What do the different padlock icons mean?

padlock1

The page is secure.
padlock2

Parts of the page are secure, but some items contained within the page are not secure.

How does encryption work in Opera Mini?

In Opera Mini, each connection between your mobile phone and the website you request is secure.

mini_route
  1. The connection between your phone and the Internet Access Point may be encrypted by GSM, AMPS, TDMA, or CDMA.
  2. The connection between the access point and your provider’s internal network is not a public network.
  3. The traffic between your provider and the Opera Mini server is secure.
  4. The connection between the Opera Mini server and the remote web server is SSL-encrypted.

Note that in Opera Mini 3 basic and earlier versions, the connection between the Opera Mini client and the Opera Mini transcoder server are unencrypted. Parts of the connection may, however, still be encrypted depending on your provider and wireless protocol.

MIDP already supports secure sockets and HTTPS. Why invent your own solution instead of using the existing support?

Opera Mini runs on hundreds of different handset models. During development we found out that certificates and implementations of secure sockets/SSL is an area where there is little standardization, with many bugs and big differences between different handsets and manufacturers. This is the current state of J2ME/MIDP, so we found developing our own solution to be the only viable option.

How secure is the password manager?

Opera Mini’s password-manager security is dependent your phone’s physical security, password and locking protection. Like any other personal information stored on your phone, there is potential for information to be compromised without adequate security set on your phone. You can reduce any potential security risks of using the password manager by increasing the security level of your phone. For more information on how to do this, consult the phone manufacturer’s documentation.

The password manager is available in Opera Mini 5.

To toggle password manager off or on, go to Menu > Settings > Privacy > Remember passwords

To clear your stored passwords, go to Menu > Settings > Privacy > Clear passwords

Top

Privacy

How does Opera protect my privacy?

Opera does not store any users’ private information. Opera generates statistics of the usage of Opera Mini, but these are aggregated numbers and no information can be linked to a single user.

All information gathered by Opera Mini is subject to Norwegian laws regarding personal data. More information about the Norwegian Personal Data Act and Regulations can be found here.

What kind of data does Opera store on the server?

Is filled-in data like credit card numbers be stored, or possibly cached? No, the servers do not store any such data.

Why am I still logged into my web mail even after turning off Opera Mini?

Opera Mini will never store your password on the servers. However, the Opera Mini server will keep track of any HTTP cookies that are set by any remote web server. If you return to a webpage that has set a cookie to keep track of who you are, the Opera Mini server will submit it again.

How do I erase the cookies?

Choose Menu > Settings > Privacy > Clear cookies.

How do I erase my browsing history?

Choose Menu > Settings > Privacy > Clear history.

Top

Troubleshooting

I have found a bug in Opera Mini, what should I do?

The first thing you could do is check the Opera Mini forum for help. If you are sure it is a bug, please go to the Opera Mini bug report wizard to tell us about it, and make sure you write it in simple and clear English.

My problem is not covered by this FAQ

If your question is not answered here, please either consult the online help files, the Guide for Opera for phones, or ask your question at the Opera Mini forum, which is frequented by Opera employees and users alike.

Top