Opera Browsers, Modes & Engines
The Opera browser is available on a wide range of platforms, in a number of flavors with different modes, engines and levels of standards support. As things can get somewhat confusing — did you know that Opera Mini on iOS comes with three rendering modes, one of which is powered by UIWebView & Opera Turbo? — we decided to create a simple product overview that details some of these technical differences.
We’ll keep this table as up-to-date as possible, so be sure to bookmark this page for later reference!
| OS | Browser | Mode | Engine | Proxy | Standards |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Android | Opera | Normal | Chromium | No | Full |
| Data savings * | Chromium | Yes | Full | ||
| Opera Mini (11+) | Extreme | Presto, server-side | Yes | Limited | |
| High * | Android WebView | Yes † | Full | ||
| iOS | Opera Mini | Normal | WebKit, system | No | Full |
| Opera Turbo * | WebKit, system | Yes | Full | ||
| Opera Mini | Presto, server-side | Yes | Limited | ||
| Coast | Normal | WebKit, system | No | Full | |
| Opera Turbo * | WebKit, system | Yes | Full | ||
| J2ME | Opera Mini | Opera Mini | Presto, server-side | Yes | Limited |
| Windows Phone | Opera Mini | Opera Mini | Presto, server-side | Yes | Limited |
| Desktop | Opera | Normal | Chromium | No | Full |
| Opera Turbo | Chromium | Yes | Full |
Notes:
- : these modes (powered by our Opera Turbo servers) also have a Video Boost compression option.
- † : when in High mode and connected to Wi-Fi, data savings are disabled, unless the user has explicitly opted in by activating the Wi-Fi data savings option in Settings.
- Opera Turbo mode compresses data up to 80%. Opera Mini mode compresses data up to 90%.
- If you’re doing IP-based geo-detection, you should always check if there is an
X-Forwarded-Forheader. That way, you can also correctly locate browser users using proxy functionality, powered by Opera Mini and Opera Turbo. - Opera Mini comes with “limited” standards support: this means that advanced JavaScript, CSS and other dynamic elements might not work as expected, due to the peculiarities of server-side rendering and limited client capabilities.
- Older Presto-powered Opera products that are no longer under active development, such as Opera 12 for computers, Opera Mobile Classic, etc. are not listed here.
