You know what it’s like when you’re out and about on the move with your Netbook and you need access to the Internet, maybe on the train connected through your mobile phone, or in the airport, or sitting in that cosy café where the network is very busy, too often you will find that the internet connection is disappointingly slow. Well not anymore it won’t be.
Opera have been working on Opera Turbo, which they have now released for limited testing and which is expected to significantly boost browser speeds on Netbooks and Mobile Phones to make surfing not only faster but also a lot cheaper if you are on a pay per usage plan.
Not everyone is going to benefit though, there’s no point booting up the Turbo if your connection speed is already pretty fast. It is aimed primarily for people on slow networks such as those with speeds of around 100Kbps as an example.
Apparently people on slow connections could see their browsing speeds boosted by a factor of four. No one is going to complain about that are they?
So how does it work?
Opera Turbo uses server-side optimisation and compression technology. Quite simply, the pages are sent directly to Opera’s own server first where they are compressed by up to 80% before they appear on your browser.
If you have your Opera Turbo on, it will even display an average compression rate so you know how much bandwidth has been saved.
We know we are all demanding faster and faster browsing, but do we really want that at the cost of viewing quality? I would say yes, it’s worth it to have the extra speed when the connection is diabolically slow and you’re in a hurry. Provided of course the reduction in quality isn’t too severe.
Opera has said that although the way that websites are laid out and the text will all appear perfectly normal, “image resolution may appear considerably lower as a result of the compression”. Ok so we can handle that.
Don’t expect to be able to use Turbo on any browser though; it is likely only to be available for Opera browsers. Opera are going to use the feed back they receive from the time-limited release to decide how to move forward with the Opera Turbo.
If you’re interested, you can download Opera Turbo from the Opera website.
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Always loved Opera!