Opera Software (News - Alert) has announced that the Opera Mini browser for mobile phones is available for the Android platform. The technical preview release is available at labs.opera.com, inviting the Android (News - Alert) development community to test the fresh build and share feedback with Opera for the forthcoming beta.

 

Opera Mini for Android makes the company's Web experience available to any range of handset built on Android.

 

"We're glad to deliver our mass-market mobile browser to the Android development groups," says Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software.

 

Opera Mini claims more than 40 million users worldwide across mobile platforms. Company officials say it enables Web browsing from low-to-high resource handsets by compressing data at a remote server before sending content to the phone applet for rendering.

 

A week ago Opera released the beta preview of Opera Mini, the newest version of the browser that made for "almost every mobile phone," according to company officials.

 

Opera Mini 4.1 "improves the way Opera Mini interacts with the phone," Opera officials say, and is available to download for beta testing at http://www.operamini.com/beta/.

 

Company officials say Opera Mini 4.1 features speed improvements and is up to 50 percent faster than Opera Mini 4. It can automatically suggest URL completions, and save Web pages for later viewing.

 

There's also a "Find content in the page" feature searching words and phrases, and the browser can download images, ringtones and other content, or add attachments to e-mail.

 

Opera Mini now also includes Opera Link, a free service that synchronizes bookmarks, Speed Dial and personal bar between all Web browsers. Not all features may work on all phones or in all regions.

 

In March Opera, together with Helio (News - Alert), announced the first deployment of Opera Mini on a mobile service provider in the United States. Helio members can surf the Web with Opera Mini on their Ocean device with a specially-tailored version of the browser designed specifically for the handset.

 

Available as a downloadable application from Helio's Web portal, Opera Mini provides what the Operians describe as a "desktop-like experience that lets the user dive into the page to access the content they want."