Opera Mini is a web browser designed primarily for mobile phones, but also for smartphones and personal digital assistants. It uses the Java ME platform and consequently requires that the mobile device be capable of running Java ME applications. Opera Mini is offered free of charge, supported through a partnership between its developer, the Opera Software company, and the search engine company Google.[2]

Opera Mini was derived from the Opera web browser for personal computers, which has been publicly available since 1996. Opera Mini began as a pilot project in 2005. After limited releases in Europe, it was officially launched worldwide on January 24, 2006.

Opera Mini requests web pages through the Opera Software company's servers, which process and compress them before relaying the pages back to the mobile phone. This compression process makes transfer time about two to three times faster, and the pre-processing smoothes compatibility with web pages not designed for mobile phones.

Opera Mini was derived from the Opera web browser for personal computers, which has been publicly available since 1996.Opera Mini was originally designed for mobile phones that would ordinarily be incapable of running a web browser.It was first introduced on August 10, 2005 as a pilot project in cooperation with the Norwegian television station TV 2. At that time, Opera Mini was only available to TV 2 customers.

A beta version was made available in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland on October 20, 2005. After the final version was launched in Germany on November 10, 2005, and quietly released to all countries through the Opera Mini website in December, the browser was officially launched worldwide on January 24, 2006.

On August 16, 2009 Opera Software presented the next generation of the product: Opera Mini 5.0 beta. The new version included tabbed browsing, a password manager, improved touch screen support, and a brand new interface, including a visual Speed Dial similar to the one introduced by Opera Software in their desktop browser.