Opera Max: Browser-on-the-go

Opera, the independent browser from Norway, has a canny feel for the needs of the rest of us who don’t own fancy smart phones or sign up for blazingly fast data plans, yet want to enjoy videos on mobile like everyone else while working in our mother tongue. The latest version of Opera Mini for Android, supports 13 Indian languages: Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. Downloads are steadier, faster though if you want to cut your data usage to almost half, Gaana or Saavn, you might additionally download the Opera Max app which uses a clever software to compress audio or video streaming.

Most phones can read Quick Response code. With Opera you can also generate the code, so that you can quickly share links with friends without having to type long strings.

Almost 30% to 50% of the data that we consume is drained by things we never see — apps running in the background. On phones, all this fetching and carrying costs us data paise. Opera Max lets users cut this leakage by sending Smart Alerts and pop-ups when background usage is heavy. Max has quickly gained 5 million users.

This may be one reason why almost all Indian handset brands include the Opera browser in their default menu. In India last week to better understand desi user’s browsing needs, Opera’s deputy CTO, Bruce Lawson, reason’s this trend — it takes up just 15MB of space on your phone compared to 60+ MB of some competitors. Small is beautiful, samjhe!