Who is using Opera browser?

Opera, which has only a 2-percent share of

total browser usage, has a significant share of

mobile browser usage. This is because of Opera

Mini, which is a very popular proxy browser for

mobile devices, although not necessarily for

smartphones.

A proxy browser is a browser designed to

reduce the amount of data that must be transferred

to a mobile device and the amount of

processing that the mobile device is required to

do to the data. It does this by having the fetching

of data and the initial processing of that data

be done on a remote server.

For people with less powerful phones, or who

get charged by the amount of bandwidth they

use, a proxy browser is very useful.

Opera Mini and WebKit browsers aren’t in

direct competition. Tablets and smartphones

with WebKit browsers are generally powerful

enough and used on fast enough networks that

the additional performance gained from using

a proxy browser isn’t currently worth the limited

functionality. This may be changing, however.

Amazon’s Silk browser, which is included

with newer Kindle tablets, is an example of a

WebKit-based proxy browser that combines

the best of both worlds — the functionality of

WebKit with the benefits of a proxy browser.For the latest browser usage statistics, visit http://gs.statcounter.com.
More important than just the percentage of mobile devices that include
WebKit browsers is the actual list of devices and mobile operating systems
that use WebKit. As of this writing, this list includes the latest versions of the
following:
. Android
. iOS
. HP/Palm webOS
. BlackBerry
. Amazon Kindle
. Nokia
Although some of these devices have different levels of support for WebKitfs
features, WebKit now dominates the smartphone and tablet browser market.