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Workarounds for Opera Mini

wtfoperamini.com

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Re: Workarounds for Opera Mini

#11

Post by nickysielicki »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #10
nickysielicki wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the politically correct way to look at it but I don't think you're right. With the advent of the $30 smartphone, by the time these countries have disposable income that you can indirectly or directly profit from, its likely that one of their first purchases is a better phone with a capable browser. Until then they're a waste of time and resources. On Black Friday you could get a Moto E, unlocked and off contra…

And which magic exactly does that phone perform to reduce the bandwidth prices of their provider?

The same exact "magic" of MITM optimization that Opera performs is available in Chrome for Android. [1]

But even putting that aside, you're ignoring the fact that as these developing nations develop and have money that's worth going after, bandwidth is certainly going to become cheaper as well.

[1]: https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2392284?hl=en

Re: Workarounds for Opera Mini

#12

Post by mahouse »

nickysielicki wrote: post #11
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And which magic exactly does that phone perform to reduce the bandwidth prices of their provider?

The same exact "magic" of MITM optimization that Opera performs is available in Chrome for Android. [1] But even putting that aside, you're ignoring the fact that as these developing nations develop and have money that's worth going after, bandwidth is certainly going to become cheaper as well. [1]: https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2392284?hl=en

You really can't compare both.

Re: Workarounds for Opera Mini

#13

Post by superkuh »

pmx wrote: post #3
wtbob wrote: post #2

It's not the browser which is breaking the site; it's the site's developers who are using features which are not universally available. Guess what? If you use simple, clean HTML and progressively enhance with JavaScript, CSS and HTML5 features then everyone can browse your site. Or you can use the absolute bleeding edge of everything, requiring every user to give your code a full VM on his machine (a JavaScript VM, g…

It's not fair to blame web devs for not trying to support a browser that doesn't try to support any standards. We have clients pushing us for cool things that they have seen on other sites, or some interesting (to them) feature that they must have. If we refuse? They go to someone more accommodating.

Then implement them in a way that allows for graceful fall back to just text, etc.

Re: Workarounds for Opera Mini

#14

Post by nickysielicki »

mahouse wrote: post #12
nickysielicki wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same exact "magic" of MITM optimization that Opera performs is available in Chrome for Android. [1] But even putting that aside, you're ignoring the fact that as these developing nations develop and have money that's worth going after, bandwidth is certainly going to become cheaper as well. [1]: https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2392284?hl=en

You really can't compare both.

Um, why not?

Re: Workarounds for Opera Mini

#15

Post by Natanael_L »

furfish wrote: post #8
snarfy wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The users don't want a site. They want an app. It's like expecting the developers of the latest, greatest PC game to write a progressively enhanced game that the same executable will run on DOS 1.0 all the way to the latest Windows version. They will spend time and resources on making sure it works with DOS 1.0, even though there are next to zero users for it, making it completely uneconomical, basically working for…

The reason many users are using Opera Mini is to use less data and to load pages faster. An app won't scratch that itch. -posted using Opera Mini

Chrome on Android offers proxy compression too

Re: Workarounds for Opera Mini

#16

Post by evook »

superkuh wrote: post #13
pmx wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not fair to blame web devs for not trying to support a browser that doesn't try to support any standards. We have clients pushing us for cool things that they have seen on other sites, or some interesting (to them) feature that they must have. If we refuse? They go to someone more accommodating.

Then implement them in a way that allows for graceful fall back to just text, etc.

I am curious, how many people would prefer this fallback overr the actual site. I'd do.

Re: Workarounds for Opera Mini

#17

Post by coldnebo »

wtbob wrote: post #2

It's not the browser which is breaking the site; it's the site's developers who are using features which are not universally available. Guess what? If you use simple, clean HTML and progressively enhance with JavaScript, CSS and HTML5 features then everyone can browse your site. Or you can use the absolute bleeding edge of everything, requiring every user to give your code a full VM on his machine (a JavaScript VM, g…

And how many commercial marketing clients from Fortune 500 are in your portfolio?

Re: Workarounds for Opera Mini

#18

Post by coldnebo »

superkuh wrote: post #13
pmx wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not fair to blame web devs for not trying to support a browser that doesn't try to support any standards. We have clients pushing us for cool things that they have seen on other sites, or some interesting (to them) feature that they must have. If we refuse? They go to someone more accommodating.

Then implement them in a way that allows for graceful fall back to just text, etc.

Easier said than done. For a trivial combination, it's easy. For most real world requirements it becomes a combinatorial explosion of various strategies that are mutually exclusive in many parts.

Unless you have some new machine learning approach to work out all the platform quirks and arrive at pure fallback nirvana?

Re: Workarounds for Opera Mini

#19

Post by mahouse »

nickysielicki wrote: post #14
mahouse wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really can't compare both.

Um, why not?

I guess Chrome compresses the HTML and maybe recompresses the images. But what Opera Mini delivers to the user's browser has nothing to do with HTML, is completely stripped from any JS, etc

Re: Workarounds for Opera Mini

#20

Post by tombrossman »

meric wrote: post #5
pmx wrote: post #4

For many many sites it really doesn't matter if they don't support 3rd world countries - what value do we gain from working hard to support people with no money to spend? Advertisers aren't interested in them, we can't sell anything to them. It sounds selfish but society is based on exactly that way of thinking.

If thousands of users are desperately trying to use your site everyday even when it's broken for them then I'd wager the business is missing out on profit. Our company sell to developing countries too, and there's definitely money to be made. If you don't want to support people who you automatically assume have no money to spend, go ahead and leave it on the table for us to collect. :)

Let's flip the argument around and try: 'by targeting users in more affluent regions, and using state of the art technology to deliver engaging content, you can make more money'. Does it make economic sense to go with a simpler site and accommodate users from poorer regions? How does that affect revenue versus using the latest eye candy and targeting iPhone users?

If a business doesn't care about users in developing countries, that's their call. I don't think either way is wrong but the front-end people should at least raise the issue and then go with what the client needs. So many websites target a relatively small geographic area that they can safely ignore Opera Mini users and continue to thrive.

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