Opera Turbo promises web page speed boost

Opera, the Norwegian browser company, has announced a technology it said will greatly speed up web browsing on both mobile and desktops.

The technology will be revealed next week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Opera revelead few details on how the technology works, but the company claimed that Opera Turbo' can compress data sent to a mobile phone or a desktop PC by up to 80 per cent.

By increasing web page download speeds Opera said it will help make the best use of the resources of mobile devices, and improve the browsing experience on both lower-end hardware and for those on slower network connections.

"Opera Turbo uses advanced compression technology to speed up data transfer, and to reduce the amount of data that needs to be downloaded in order to view the page," Opera said in a white paper accompanying the announcement.

The appeal for the networks is that it will significantly reduce network traffic, placing less strain. Opera Turbo offers full support for dynamic web technologies such as Ajax and Flash.

The company said that in creating Opera Turbo for all its browsers it was expanding on its expertise in server side compression that it gained from Opera Mini.

IT PRO will be on the ground reporting from the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, which runs from February 16-19, 2009.

Benny Har-Even is a twenty-year stalwart of technology journalism who is passionate about all areas of the industry, but telecoms and mobile and home entertainment are among his chief interests. He has written for many of the leading tech publications in the UK, such as PC Pro and Wired, and previously held the position of technology editor at ITPro before regularly contributing as a freelancer.

Known affectionately as a ‘geek’ to his friends, his passion has seen him land opportunities to speak about technology on BBC television broadcasts, as well as a number of speaking engagements at industry events.