Submitted by Opera Mini 3.0 was released today (get it here). Major new features include camera support, RSS feed reader, SSL and https support, content folding, and speed improvements. Screenshot here. Today we also celebrate here at OSNews the first hits of the Opera-based Wii browser (via a proxy hack to allow generic web browsing) and the Sony PS3 browser. We would be grateful if you could snap a picture of your TV with your gaming console rendering OSNews and send us an email with it or post a link below.
Opera Mini 3.0 Released
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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User agents of the browsers discussed in the article:
Opera/8.01 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/3.0.6306/1528; es; U; ssr) (the build numbers are changing a lot, as Opera Software is releasing new sub-versions frequently)
Opera/9.00 (Nintendo Wii; U; ; 1038-58; Wii Shop Channel/1.0; en)
Mozilla/5.0 (PLAYSTATION 3; 1.00)
If you want to autodetect these browsers, you just try to detect only some keywords, in this case: “Opera Mini”, “Nintendo” and “Playstation”.
Let me know if anyone has handy the user agents of the Opera-based gadgets Sony Mylo and Archos 604-Wifi browsers too. I can’t get an answer from Opera Software’s marketing dpt for those and I need them in order to autodetect them for osnews.com.
Edited 2006-11-28 19:45
Has Opera for the Wii been released to the public anywhere? I know it’s still not available in the States. I just did a system update on my Wii and checked the Shopping Channel, no dice.
Edited 2006-11-28 21:27
No. It will be released when you see it on the shopping channel.
You would have the answer if you had read my news item closely.
The current browser for the “Shop Channel” of Wii is Opera-based, but it’s a wall garden. It does not allow generic web browsing. To enable this you have to setup a proxy on a Linux machine somewhere at your local network, and tell Wii to use that proxy. When the Wii is trying to connect to the Nitendo Shop Channel, you would have setup the proxy to actually serve a different page, in this case a portal page you created, or google.com. Then, via either google or your local portal page you can visit other web pages except nintendo’s. There are 2-3 videos about this on YouTube showing how-to.
The full Opera browser for the Wii that will allow you to browse any page will come out in December.
Edited 2006-11-28 21:31
Mozilla/5.0 (PLAYSTATION 3; 1.00)
The PS3’s user agent string is cloaked. The PS3 really uses a version of NetFront.
Edited 2006-11-28 23:02
I know that it uses Netfront. So it’s the PSP. But that’s the user agent they have configured Netfront to use.
I found Mylo’s user agent:
Opera/8.02 (Qt embedded; Linux armv4ll; U) [ja] SONY/COM1
As far as autodetection is concerned, the keywords here are “Qt Embedded” and “armv”.
Now I only need to find Archos’ 604-Wifi.
Edited 2006-11-29 00:49
Is it palm compatible?
Aparently there are a few problems with SOME Palm Treo models (it requires an updated Java stack you see). More info here: http://my.opera.com/community/forums/forum.dml?id=111
Edited 2006-11-28 20:12
I thought that Opera was originally based on IE. And if so, is it still, for the full featured version at least?
Opera is not based on IE.
Opera was never based on IE.
No it has never been based on IE. It is its own, closed source, animal
I think I remember what you are talking about. When I tried Opera back in the 90’s I remember sites recognizing my browser as IE. I think the answer to that is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_%28Internet_suite%29
Here is an excerpt:
“…Opera came preconfigured to partially “cloak” itself as Internet Explorer…”
That’s because Opera USED TO report its user agent as IE. Too many sites sniffed the agent and displayed crappy sub-functional pages to non-IE browsers back then. Thins have changed quite a bit, thanks in large part to Firefox.
Subsequently, a year or two ago, the default user agent string was changed to properly report itself as Opera.
Edited 2006-11-28 21:20
You’re thinking about NeoPlanet, which is (or was) actually a shell for IE.
Can it render this or does it fall on it’s ass like it’s big brother?
<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?>
<?xml-stylesheet href=”style/index.xsl” type=”text/xsl”?>
<?cocoon-process type=”xslt”?>
<html>
<body>
hello
</body>
</html>
You better upload this somewhere and give us the link so we can try it. By posting the source code like this it’s impossible for us to try it locally, as Opera Mini can’t render local pages.
Try http://gp2x.fullsack.com
Looks like it reads the processor directives and thinks the browser has to perform the server side xsl transformation.
It does not work. It doesn’t give an XSLT error as Opera Desktop does, but the kind of rendering Mini does is equally useless. The error says that this page uses Ajax and JS and therefore it can’t work on this browser.
I also tried your page with Openwave’s mobile browser and that also failed in a similar way Opera Desktop did. It gave a full screen error of “unsupported content type”.
Maybe you want to code your pages using more conventional methods so all browsers are compatible.
Thanks but I think it’s better to wait for browsers to catch up. Dumbing down sites rips the fun right out of building them. Haven’t you ever heard, “If you build it they will come.”? Hey somebody has to build it.
No commercial interest and way more than a bit on the experimental side anyway, still evolving.
Well, it depends. If you build sites for your own fun, sure. But if you build sites so you can connect to as many people as possible, then no. At OSNews we use very standard tags and old-style HTML because it’s in our best interest to be as compatible as possible with older and mobile browsers.
Well, the W3C reports “This page is not Valid XML!”. So don’t be surprised when it doesn’t work in all browsers. Follow the standards.
Actually if you look at that page’s code, it’s totally correct.
The W3C validator has a lots of bugs so you shouldn’t rely on it to determine if sites are standards-compliant or not.
Thanks, I actually fret over the things that w3c validator says sometimes.
Also does not work in Konqueror. I don’t think Konq. supports XSLT at all yet.
It slightly works in Safari (but the content says it uses AJAX and JS and doesn’t show) however the latest build of WebKit does work. As long as people are merging changes back to Konquerer, it should work soon.
Even if your site works in Firefox 2, it still breaks basic user expectations about the interface.
For example pages on a site should be linkable. Usually the trick is to modify location.hash and check it on load.
I will play around with that, was just thinking on how to make that work last night, thanks again.
Then there will still be a problem with search engines linking to the front page which might not contain anything the user searched for or even seen in the little paragraph in the search results.
But I hope crawlers will be modified to follow #anchor links, but then your site will need to load pages with an onClick attribute instead of the href..
Does this effect the Nokia 770? Will it be getting better Flash support?
*Edit* Oh, this looks like an even smaller embedded browser.
Edited 2006-11-28 21:13
You are talking about Opera Mobile, not Opera Mini.
Mini 2.0 worked, but now 3.0 doesn’t.
I’ve installed it, by keeping the old settings (pages, etc.). Then I’ve started it, and it asked me to press different keys, move the cursor, just to generate random sequence. Then it exited out, and now when I start it, it doesn’t work at all.
Obviously a bug on Opera Mini’s migration or something. Uninstall both apps from your phone and re-install. If that doesn’t work, make a post on Mini’s forum linked earlier.
Hurray for RSS support. I’ve been wanting that badly. Gotta try it out
Is due out on the 8th via software update / shopping channel. It will be gratis until the end of January.
BTW don’t celebrate Opera/Wii hits just yet. I (and I’m sure others) have been setting their useragents to Opera/Wii’s useragent to examine the Wii shopping channel from the comfort of their desks. I hot OSNews a few times and realized my mistake.
OT but here is the WSDL:
http://ecs.shop.wii.com/ecs/services/ECommerceSOAP?wsdl
Edited 2006-11-29 03:58
This version of opera mini doesn’t work on this phone(se k300), neither did the betas. Luckly there is a hacked up version from dg-sc. It is the only version which has readable russian fonts, has tabs/”new windows” too. IMHO this version is even better than the original. It has an english gui, so you should give it a try (i think it’s somewhat ilegal, but i don’t see any complains from opera), you should try finding it on google. Tip: *.wen.ru
Browser: Opera/8.01 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/1.2.3214/1378; en; U; ssr)
crashes on my tx. using universe beta.
Browser: Universe/3.0.1 (PalmOS; N; X-Scale; en) MobileToken/20061025 (WAP 1.3/2.0, XHTML; OpenMobl)
Maybe theres an updated WebSphere Java JRE. I haven’t tried Opera Mini 3 on my T|X yet though.
Says it is supported on the Opera website. I dont understand…my 990i already has an Opera browser in it and it says version 8.6. And I have a separate app for my RSS feeds…I dont quite understand the point of this Opera Mini 3.0 when someone already has Opera 8.6. Can someone explain?
I don’t know why you would run it on a P990i smartphone, but I currently have a Samsung MM-A900 dumbphone and Opera Mini is the only decent web browsing solution I have found for it.
Since it’s a J2ME application, I can run it on the dumbphone without any problems, and it’s almost as good as the Opera Mobile I had for my old Series 60 device.
I agree with you. I just thought I was missing something on this whole Opera mini vs the Opera 8.6 on my phone.
Is nice, I like!
Feels a bit out of place in my brand new and awesome Blackberry Pearl, interface wise, but other than that it’s ten times better than the default browser. And it supports RSS!!! Wow wow wee wa!!
Edited 2006-11-29 15:13