Opera has given Yahoo the boot and made Google the default search engine for its Opera Mobile and Opera Mini Web browsers designed for mobile devices.
Opera Mobile is getting Google as its default search option. Credit: Opera
In January 2007, Yahoo and Opera announced that Yahoo would be the default search engine on Opera Mobile and Mini. Now, however, the mobile versions are getting what the desktop version of Opera has had for seven years -- a built-in Google default.
Opera and Google "are extending this collaboration to give our users immediate access to the quality and convenience of Google's search results," Opera chief executive Jon von Tetzchner said in a statement.
Google search will be presented as an option on the browsers' start pages -- except in Russia and other former Soviet republics, Opera said.
Opera Mini can be downloaded for free on mobile phones, and Opera Mini users collectively browse 1.7 billion Web pages per month, the company said.
As someone who has access to hundreds of the so called latest and greatest mobile phones, all I can say is that the current quality of the LCD display is so variable that the fonts on some sites simply cannot be read.
Sure Opera has some nice features for trying to overcome this limitation, but the reality is that the small screen just doesn't cut it when it comes to browsing web sites that are not customised (eg WML) for it.
Couple that with deteriorating eyesight in elderly people. You just have to face up to it that the real estate is just too small.
A built in projector on the other hand would have been nice idea though.