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I remember a time when opera was supposed to be the browser that implemented web standards the most accurately and completely. What happened? Are they now laggi

I remember a time when opera was supposed to be the browser that implemented web standards the most accurately and completely. What happened? Are they now lagging, or is it just they chose not to support some standards in opera mini for those perfs goals?

kryptiskt 11y ago
Opera Mini isn't regular Opera, it does most of the work server side and sends a highly compressed representation of the web page to the app on the phone.
systoll 11y ago
'Mini' a totally different beast to a normal browser, in order to minimise data usage. When you request a page in opera mini, that request is sent to Opera's servers. The webpage is rendered on their server [using their rendering engine], and a totally different (OBML) file is sent to your browser, to represent the end result. 'Mini' never sees HTML, Javascript or CSS -- those are handled on the server. This allows the browser to use dramatically less bandwidth... but creates some major limitations. Opera still makes 'normal' browsers -- and at least in the iOS version, the 'Mini' mode can be switched off [making it render the same as any webkit browser.]
- digi_owl 11y ago
  > When you request a page in opera mini, that request is sent to Opera's servers. The webpage is rendered on their server [using their rendering engine], and a totally different (OBML) file is sent to your browser, to represent the end result. I Think they either have plans to, or have already transitioned to using webkit/blink as the backend for Mini. Never mind that they seem to be doing their level best to kill of the presto-era browsers. This December they shut down their bookmark sync service (Opera Link) after having introduced a new one for their webkit/blink based browsers. It sometimes seems like the web is heading for yet another monoculture. Marginally better than the IE era as this time the engine is open source, but a monoculture non the less.
digi_owl 11y ago
Others seems to have explained what makes Mini special in the browser world, thought it may help to know that it started out as a J2ME feature phone "app". Yep, it will provide web access over a crappy EDGE connection using a feature phone. As for the larger Opera, what happened was Google Chrome. There was no way a small for profit like Opera could keep up. So they caved, and now their desktop and non-mini mobile offerings are Chromium based.

kryptiskt 11y ago

Opera Mini isn't regular Opera, it does most of the work server side and sends a highly compressed representation of the web page to the app on the phone.

systoll 11y ago

'Mini' a totally different beast to a normal browser, in order to minimise data usage. When you request a page in opera mini, that request is sent to Opera's servers. The webpage is rendered on their server [using their rendering engine], and a totally different (OBML) file is sent to your browser, to represent the end result. 'Mini' never sees HTML, Javascript or CSS -- those are handled on the server. This allows the browser to use dramatically less bandwidth... but creates some major limitations. Opera still makes 'normal' browsers -- and at least in the iOS version, the 'Mini' mode can be switched off [making it render the same as any webkit browser.]

digi_owl 11y ago
> When you request a page in opera mini, that request is sent to Opera's servers. The webpage is rendered on their server [using their rendering engine], and a totally different (OBML) file is sent to your browser, to represent the end result. I Think they either have plans to, or have already transitioned to using webkit/blink as the backend for Mini. Never mind that they seem to be doing their level best to kill of the presto-era browsers. This December they shut down their bookmark sync service (Opera Link) after having introduced a new one for their webkit/blink based browsers. It sometimes seems like the web is heading for yet another monoculture. Marginally better than the IE era as this time the engine is open source, but a monoculture non the less.

digi_owl 11y ago

Others seems to have explained what makes Mini special in the browser world, thought it may help to know that it started out as a J2ME feature phone "app". Yep, it will provide web access over a crappy EDGE connection using a feature phone. As for the larger Opera, what happened was Google Chrome. There was no way a small for profit like Opera could keep up. So they caved, and now their desktop and non-mini mobile offerings are Chromium based.