Opera mini is my favourite browser. I am frequent mobile gprs user. opera mini help me to check email and browse where ever I am. I am an operal mini user since they released 3.0. the 3.0 does not support secured sites. 3.1 does. with version 4 I got a mouse on my mobile but there is one thing which I dont like on opera mini 4. opera mini 4 cannot browse and login to my icici bank account. when I try to login with ver 4 it will give error but with version 3.1 no problems. I can login to iccibank.com. I used to check my salary online.
Apart from that opera mini 4 is the best browser. I wont go to browsin cafe. will access yahoo mail from it. also opera mini 4 is much faster than 3.1 to zoom you can press * button twice there is no network setup wizard in opera mini compared to 3.1. it is automatic.
For fast browsing, in sony ericsson phone (which I am using) you should choose "Wap settings" of your mobile gprs provider for "Settings for Java".
I am using bsnl gprs. so my settings will be wapsouth.cellone.in. choose that settings for "Settings for java"you can view in landscape or normal mode in Ver-4. if you have a phone with big screen this is very useful.all options are located in settings.
also or book marks you can get the original title and icon of the website.
about the speed, I tested the speed of browsing by going to https://2wire.com speed meter. I was surprised by the speed. it is around 1.12 mbps. where my gprs speed is 9kbps.
this is because opera mini will work by sending a request to opera servers in oslo, norway. there the server compress the webpage requested and will send it to opera mini. hence the page will be compressed to 80%. we are seeing the page of a server that is located at oslo, norway.
another thing that I noticed in opera mini is when I went to https://google.com it is displaying in Norway language. that is because opera is accessing the page from the server located in oslo, norway. same way ip address will be of a server located in norway. it is intersting. go to https://dnsstuff.com from opera mini and see.
Regarding search, my choice is google. my recommendation to opera mini is to remove yahoo search and put google. we can change it in ver-4. but not in 3.1 They should also add pdf function to it some other companion product that I suggest with opera mini is Flurry - for yahoo and any email, Morange - for yahoo messenger and ms chat. If you have all these tools in your mobile there is no need to go to a internet Cafe.