Wayne D's Blog

I finally got around to updating the Opera Mini version I had installed on my Blackberry. I had installed the 4.0 version many months ago but had problems with it giving error messages when I started it up after the first use. While fiddling around with it to switch from http to socket protocol in an effoer to fix it up I was prompted to download the latest version, 4.2. The built in Blackberry browser is adequate most of the time but has trouble with sites that have a multi-column layout because it doesn't support horizontal scrolling. If the web page has a left column then you have to scroll all the way past it to see the centre column. Other more complicated layouts also don't display very well. One page that is particularly Blackberry browser unfriendly is http://www.argonauts.ca/. Opera mini renders the whole page and lets you scroll a view window over the page and read the part of the page you are interested in. Opera mini also uses your history to assist when entering the address of the page you want to navigate to, a feature that was popularized by Firefox. The one downside to Opera mini is form fields, you can't fill them in in place but instead highlight and click on them which brings up another page where you enter your text. That's OK if you only have a few fields to fill in but would probably get tedious if you have too many to fill in.

If you have a Blackberry and were coveting the web page viewing experience of your iPhone owning friends then Opera mini gives you a free alternative. You can download Opera mini for your Blackberry at mini.opera.com