Opera unveils final updates of Mini 5 and Mobile 10

Opera Software has released the final versions of its two mobile web browsers, Opera Mini 5 and Opera Mobile 10.

Both browsers have been available since September 2009, but Opera has spent the intervening months applying user feedback before releasing the final versions on Tuesday.

Rather than adding any new features, Opera has fixed bugs from earlier versions. Some of Opera's key features, such as tabbed browsing, password manager and speed dial, were already available.

Opera Mini is the company's free lightweight browser. Mini 5 is available on BlackBerrys, and Android, Windows Mobile and Java-based handsets.

Opera Mobile is a paid-for browser that contains more features. Mobile 10 is available for Windows Mobile and Symbian S60-based handsets.

Across fixed and mobile as a whole, Opera is the fourth most popular browser behind Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome, with 4.3 percent market share. Its growing popularity has been attributed to its user interface and ability to compress web pages.

"Keeping in mind the needs and wants of our 50 million-plus users, we have emphasised speed, desktop functionality and data savings in our mobile browsers," said Lars Boilesen, Opera Software's chief executive. "Today, we have made it even easier for everyone to surf search and socialise on the web."

Boilesen — a former executive at toy company Lego — replaced Opera's co-founder Jon von Tetzchner as chief executive in January 2010.

Compared with earlier versions, Opera Mobile 10 contains a Turbo mode for slow internet connections, support for a variety of web standards such as web fonts, improvements to Opera Mail and tweaks to the Speed Dial feature. The company actively promoted the browser on the Android platform at Mobile World Congress in February.

The release of the beta version of Mini 5 introduced a new interface, tabbed browsing, touchscreen operations and password management.