You can access content of the virtual world in many ways, but the most comfortable way would be using a web browser. While there are many names existing in the browser world, only a few of them manage to stand out among the rest. And in the mobile world, the name is Opera.

We've discussed mobile browser alternatives before, and Opera Mini browser download - the mobile version of the brand - is one of them. But it has evolved so much since then. It even has an iPhone version to stand alongside Safari.

Now let's see several things that you can do to optimize your mobile browsing experience by downloading the Opera Mini browser.

Optimized For The Small Screen

The first thing is installation. To quickly acquire Opera Mini for your mobile device, point your default phone browser to m.opera.com or get.opera.com and your phone type will be detected and the download link to a compatible version will appear.

Opera Mini is available for most modern mobile phones. But if your phone isn't supported, you will get the link to download the previous version.

After installation, open the browser to start browsing the web. You will see that, beyond the simplicity, Opera Mobile's interface is indeed designed for the small screen.

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You will see nine boxes on the Start Page. Opera calls them speed dial. The purpose is to give users quick customizable access to their most visited sites. Users can press one of the "dial" buttons to quickly go to a site.

So the first thing that you can do to optimize your mobile browsing experience is to add your favorite sites to the speed dial. Just click one of the empty grey boxes with the plus sign inside and you can type in the address of the site(s) that you want to add to the speed dial.

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Ordinary browsing is similar to what you normally do on the ordinary browser: just type in the site URL, and click "Go".

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On the lower part of the screen, there are the usual browser buttons: back and forward (the left and right arrows), refresh (circular arrow), tabs, and tools.

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Opera Mini is capable of opening several tabs at once. All you have to do is to click the tab button; and after the tab bar is opened, click the plus button to add a new address.

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But please bear in mind that opening several tabs at once will drain your phone's memory and might slow down (or even crash) your phone.

The Tools Of The Trade

The tool button contains several common browser tools: Bookmarks, History, Start Page, Saved Pages, Downloads, Settings, Find in Page, Help,

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And Exit at the very bottom of the screen.

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Some of these buttons are so common that they need no further explanation. But there are also some that are a little bit special like the "Start Page" button. This is the button that you need to click to customize the start page that we mentioned before.

"Settings" is the place to customize several things on Opera Mini to better suit your tastes and need. For example, if you prefer to have every inch of your phone's screen property for the webpage, turn on the "Fullscreen" option.

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You can also choose the size of the font used in the browser's display. A larger font size means better readability, but - in my humble opinion - an uglier look of the page.

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The "Privacy" settings deal with things like passwords, cookies and history. Those who really concern about safety would want to tinker with these options a little bit further.

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"Help" might be the least visited place for most users, but there's a sweet surprise waiting inside.

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You can find a list of shortcuts inside Help that you can use to quickly access Opera Mini's functions, including the sites in speed dial. These shortcuts are nice time savers, especially for those who uses phones with physical buttons.

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So, have you tried Opera Mini? Do you have any quick tips to use this cool phone browser?  Please share using the comments below.