Browsing the Internet is one of those things that can be a major draw for people looking to purchase a smartphone, but can be rather hit or miss due to the lack of quality mobile web browsers. For my money, having a choice between which browser you use in different situations can be a deal breaker. Luckily, Windows Mobile has more browser choices than many of its competitors.

Opera has been in the mobile browser game as long as anyone and their browsers are among the best. Opera Mini 5 Beta 2 is the latest and greatest from Opera’s Mini product. Traditionally a Java based application; Opera announced today that Opera Mini 5 is available as a native Windows Mobile application. There are technical reasons why having a native application is preferable over a Java based version. The bottom line is that a native Windows Mobile application should offer better performance, stability, and compatibility across a large array of devices.

My first impression with Opera Mini 5 is that it is FAST, though the rendering engine isn’t perfect. Mini 5 uses server side rendering; meaning that when you request a web page, a server somewhere actually downloads the files and formats it and compresses it before sending it along to your device. This method keeps your data usage to a minimum and doesn’t require as much processing power on your device. The Mini 5 UI is also very similar to what we’ve been playing with on the Opera Mobile 10 betas, which I consider a very clean and usable interface.

More information on the features you can expect from Opera Mini are available from Opera’s site. To download the application, point your mobile browser to http://m.opera.com/next/mini.

Making a decision on a next-gen Windows Mobile Browser just got tougher again, friends. SkyFire has been updated to 0.8.5 and the new version brings a few new features. Namely: support for larger screens (hi Touch Pro!) and the best feature of all: an immediate download of the open beta. Just head to http://get.skyfire.com/ to get the SMS punched out to your phone (US and Canada seems to be the focus here, though). Since Skyfire is proxy-based, it is able to render fairly quickly server-side and them push the page out for your zooming pleasure. It's also the best browser for multimedia since it's able to handle most Flash video and media embeds on that proxy server and then send it out.

If you're looking for a simpler proxy-based solution and you have an inexplicable yet abiding love for Java Virtual Machine, you might also be interested to know that Opera Mini is tapping in at 4.2 now with skins, performance enhancements, and some minor syncing abilities with Desktop Opera. Early support for video is here as well, but only for those dirty Symbian users.

Rene from our friends at The iPhone Blog must be feeling his oats -- it's not enough that they talk about Mobile Safari is better than PocketIE (it is), he has to point out that even some of our alternatives aren't quite up to snuff. Case in point: Opera Mini. It's a great little browser (though it does require you use a Java Virtual Machine) that keeps most of the work of rendering the pages on Opera's proxy servers -- meaning you get the pages pre-rendered for your screen very quickly. All in all, good stuff.

Good stuff, but not necessarily secure stuff. Take a gander at Opera Mini's security page:

Is there any end-to-end security between my handset and — for example — paypal.com or my bank?

No. If you need full end-to-end encryption, you should use a full Web browser such as Opera Mobile.

Opera Mini uses a transcoder server to translate HTML/CSS/JavaScript into a more compact format. It will also shrink any images to fit the screen of your handset. This translation step makes Opera Mini fast, small, and also very cheap to use. To be able to do this translation, the Opera Mini server needs to have access to the unencrypted version of the Web page. Therefore no end-to-end encryption between the client and the remote Web server is possible.

Also notable for folks who might be tempted to access very sensitive info via Opera Mini: since it uses a proxy server, technically you're giving any passwords you use in Opera Mini to Opera. Of course they promise not to keep them or use them (and of course we trust them not to, Opera's good people). But if you're the paranoid type, Opera Mobile might be the better choice. Once Opera Mobile 9.5 hits, well, we'll be telling you to use that regardless.

via Security Now!

Opera's browser for the desktop is actually stepping up to 9.5 and showing off its great new features. Many of you already love Opera Mini and can’t live without it. This new desktop version will hopefully make your mobile life complete. One of the ways Opera plans to do this is to synchronize your bookmarks between your desktop web browser and your Opera Mini mobile. This should save time and frustration with all your information. Opera also adds new security enhancements like malware protection and improved fraud protection.

This is all fine and dandy for the desktop browser but where is our mobile 9.5 version!? The custom version is already shipping on the HTC Diamond, so while we've been patient before, we'll admit we're starting to get just a little antsy.

On a side note, we're also intrigued by Dragonfly, which looks like a great set of development tools for Opera that give it a better shot at being a platform instead of just a browser.

While it's not the crown jewel of Opera's Browser offerings -- said title belongs to the as-yet unreleased Opera Mobile 9.5 -- Opera Mini 4.1 is still plenty good. We liked it when it was released in Beta and we like it now that it's a full release, with great features:

• Opera is now up to 50% faster
• Find text within a Web page
• Auto-completion of URLs
• Download and upload files
• Save pages for offline viewing

Opera Mini, sadly, is Java-based, meaning that on Windows Mobile you're going to need a Java Virtual Machine. I can't speak for all WM devices, but on my Moto Q9h it installed very cleanly and it created a shortcut on my Start Menu so I didn't have to go digging through my JVM. Opera Mini is probably the only app that makes me wish that Windows Mobile had Java more deeply integrated, otherwise you can keep it off, thanks.

Grab Opera Mini at http://www.operamini.com.

With all the new browsers on the scene, Opera found it only fit to show the new comers it still has a couple of tricks up the sleeve. In enters the new Opera Mini 4.1 Beta with new features like the ability to save pages offline and runs up to 50% faster. I’ve tested the new Opera Mini and have to say that it is very slick and easy to use. One of the new features is the ability to use the “Find”, button within a web page to find certain words. So next time you do a search for “Chicken salad”, you can go right to the recipe instead of reading through the history of chicken salad. The ability to save web pages offline is great for those long train rides or article reads when there is no reception or Wi-FI.

Opera now supports the ability to upload and download pictures to web sites like flicker. Again your phone must be compatible with the uploading and downloading as it did not work on my Treo 750 or BlackJack II -- Since Opera Mini needs to run through a JVM, support for WinMo devices will be a little hit and miss. Check out the video to see hands on with the new Opera Mini 4.1