It is now possible for users of Opera mobile browser to play videos within the browser, according to Richard Monday, Vice President (Africa), Opera software. 

In an interview with Appsafrica.com, Monday explains, “This feature is already available within Opera Max. You can download it on your smartphone and it would add up to 15% to your data plan because what it does is it compresses not just the browsing, it compresses every app on your phone. It’s really clever”.

Prior to the introduction of this new feature, users of Opera Mini were redirected to their device’s default browser whenever they wanted to play videos. When this happens, the videos would not be compressed making users pay higher than they would have if the video files were compressed and played by the Opera browser.

According to Monday, the feature will soon be available for users of Opera Mini browsers and “It’s being tested by an operator at the moment for Opera Mini,” he added.

This unique ability of the Opera browser to compress data, Monday said, will make the browser to continue to be relevant – and remain the browser of choice recommended mostly through word of mouth.

He said: “People value speed. If I’m on a 2G network, I want a quick internet speed – not the page loading per byte, I just want the page to come. It is quicker on Opera because of the compression.

“We have a very thin client on the phone, all the work is done on the server – it’s the server that does all the compression, transcoding, rendering, size fitting and sends the picture to the phone. So all the work is done on the server and we’ve got server firms all over the world.”