Users of the commonly access social network sites such as MySpace, Blogger, Flickr, and My Opera will be able to interact more easily with the latest installment from Opera Mini.

 

As a Web browsing software for PCs, mobile phones and other networked devices, Opera Mini 3.0, which became available on Tuesday, includes new features like an RSS reader, photo sharing and secure shopping and banking. Available for most any mobile phone, Opera Mini 3.0 is optimized to reduce the size of data, making browsing more cost effective for users who pay per transferred kilobyte.

 

The updated software can now access social networking sites and use their camera phones to easily upload to a personal blog or photo hosting site.

 

Opera Mini uses a remote server to pre-process Web pages before sending them to a mobile phone. Opera Mini recognizes your phone's capabilities and optimizes Web pages accordingly for fast and easy browsing, keeping an open connection between server and client reducing overhead TCP set-up times. The content folding feature also shrinks lengthy menus to save users from endless scrolling.

 

“We are excited to improve on the mobile Web experience that has already been so well received by both end users and distributors," says Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software in a statement to the press. "I think the main reason for Mini's success is that it, for the first time, allows millions of people to use their mobile phones to access the same Web sites they do from their desktop."

 

According to the release, Opera Mini 3.0  allows:

 

- Content providers to instantly mobilize Web-based services directly to end users in the mass market.

- End users to easily browse and interact with the Web at high speeds and low costs on their current handsets.

- Handset manufacturers to make their phones more attractive by including a mass-market and user-friendly Web browser on their handsets.

- Operators to offer the same branded Web experience to all of their customers regardless of the handset being used, thereby significantly increasingly ARPU throughout the entire customer base.

 

The software is available at no cost at www.operamini.com. Users must have a mobile Internet Data Plan from their service providers.