Opera Mini 8 for Android Now Available With Private Browsing and More

"We aim to reach 275 million users on the Android platform by 2017, more than doubling today's user base of 130 million. This growth will further cement Opera's position as a dominant browser in fast-growing, emerging economies," says Lars Boilesen, CEO of Opera Software. Boilesen added that the company is aiming at reaching 75 million feature phone subscribers by 2017, taking it total mobile users to 350 million.

First up, Opera Mini 8 for Android comes with a completely revamped design, overhauled Speed Dial, simplified menu and more. Like the previous Opera Mini versions, the updated Opera Mini browser will also compress Web pages to as little as 10 percent of their original size for faster loading and less data consumption, says company. It has got a new data counter as well that will show the daily progress on data saving.

The new Opera Mini browser for Android now supports swipe gestures - for bookmarks to delete, downloads to abort or tabs to close. Users can swipe up or long press to search as well. Also new is an updated Discover news feed. The browser layout can also be customised by the user.

Similar to Chrome, Opera Mini 8 has also got a combined omnibar for URLs and search suggestion. Additionally, the company has added a private-browsing mode, visual tab gallery, high DPI support for tablets and large phones, the ability to drag and drop group favourites into folders.