Opera Mini 4 is here

I was going to comment how good Opera Mini 4 is, but there is a very interesting article in Opera's developer site. Opera Mini is not only fast and offers a lot of interesting features to mobile web users, it also compresses information thanks to Opera's proxy so data traffic is much much lower than any other browser promising "desktop" web experience or adaptations to mobile of such experience (it is the only one I use when roaming).

One of the problems of "desktop" browser engines in a mobile is memory. My N80 has not enough memory for some rich desktop pages (while the same pages is perfectly viewed in a E61, as it has much more main memory installed). Opera Mini also fixes that and I find it hard to get a page that fills free memory in my device.

It is implemented in Java and it works even in many low-end Java mobile phones.

TeaShark

I have finally found the time to write a little bit about TeaShark. It is a web browser for mobile phones implemented in JavaME. It tries to allow the user to enjoy desktop webs in your mobile phone and it seems to do it by transcoding. Doesn't it sound familiar? Yes, it looks like Opera Mini has a new competitor.

Its makers say it is based on WebKit "as the back-end HTML transcoding engine".

I have tried it and it is working pretty well to be an alpha. It offers options and preferences similar to Opera Mini beta 4 (landscape mode, fit to screen vs minimap browsing, high/low quality when displaying images). Give it a try, as current (alpha) version is free.

Oh, by the way, I could not find any information about the company or people developing TeaShark, which seems to be pretty weird.