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29 Sep 2011 18:12

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Tech: Amazon Silk getting privacy complaints: Why this is pretty bunk

  • This makes Amazon like your ISP. Every site, everything you do online [through Silk] will go through Amazon. That’s a new role for someone like them, and I don’t think it’s at all clear that Amazon can step into that, or that it will be apparent to consumers.
  • Center for Democracy & Technology spokesperson Aaron Brauer-Rieke • Offering up this claim that Amazon will use Silk, which Amazon claims will help speed up Web sites on the Amazon Kindle Fire, as a tracking tool. To that, we say this: Are you guys familiar with this Web browser called Opera Mini? It’s not as common as it once was, but for people using old-school phones, it was a bit of a lifesaver. It made the Motorola Razr, for example, a far more usable phone for surfing the Web, due to the way it handles content — through the company’s own servers, which cleared out all the extra stuff and sped up the sites you were downloading. Sound familiar? It’s exactly what Amazon Silk claims to do. Not buying this whole privacy argument. source

15 Apr 2010 09:15

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Tech: Despite sucking terribly, Opera Mini gets a ton of downloads

  • 1 million downloads of a crap iPhone browser in its first full day source

13 Apr 2010 10:58

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Tech: The reason Opera Mini was approved for the iPhone? It sucks. Badly.

  • Opera Mini: like VNC-ing from your iPhone to a Motorola Razr with a really fast connection.
  • Panic developer Neven Mrgan • Saying what needed to be said about the browser. It’s a fast, zippy browser, but as Harry McCracken notes, it makes Safari look that much better in comparison. In fact, we’d argue it’s ugly. It also makes ShortFormBlog look like it was built in 1997 by people who hadn’t heard of CSS. If we’d paid for it, we’d want our money back. We still might ask for it, even. source

12 Apr 2010 21:08

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Tech: High-fives all around for the makers of Opera Mini for the iPhone

  • Hell froze over, boys. Our good friends at Opera, who ballsily submitted a Web browser (i.e. direct competition) to the good folks at Apple for the iPhone App Store, actually got it approved. Which was beyond unexpected based on Apple’s recent track record. Maybe Apple isn’t made of stone after all. Will a mobile version of Firefox be next? source

10 Feb 2010 09:45

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Tech: Opera plays with fire, creates iPhone version of its Web browser

  • Well, this seems like a rejected app waiting to happen. Opera, the creators of a not-terrible also-ran Web browser, have created a version of the app for the iPhone which makes Web sites load really fast due to compression technology. Problem is, Apple has notoriously blocked apps that duplicate the phone’s basic functionality. This oughta be fun to watch. source