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Back to Google on Opera Mini and Opera Mobile

8 Comments
 Published February 27th, 2008 11:33 AM EST By Daniel Goldman

Good news for all of you Google fans (and that includes me). We’re switching back to Google Search as the default search engine on the start pages of Opera Mini and Opera Mobile!

In early 2007 we signed a deal with Yahoo OneSearch for them to be the default search engine on Opera Mini. At that time, many Opera Mini users openly complained about the switch away from Google Search. To be honest, I myself wasn’t happy with the move either.

Yahoo OneSearch was at one point supposed to be the future of ‘local’ Web searching on mobile phones. For a short while I got onto their bandwagon and was optimistic about Yahoo’s future.

Using Yahoo Search on my Opera Mini wasn’t always a positive experience. I found their results page very confusing and generally unhelpful. Until today I don’t understand how Yahoo decides to categorize the results into their three categories: ‘Web’, ‘Mobile Web’ and ‘All results.’ If you’ve used Yahoo OneSearch, you probably know what I’m referring to.

Google, on the other hand, is… well… Google. I don’t need to say much about Google and the relevancy of their search results.

Even with Yahoo being the default search engine on Opera Mini, I wasn’t too far away from Google.

In fact, a neat feature of Opera Mini allows you to add your own choice of search engines to the start page. Google Search has been on my Opera Mini start page ever since we added this feature in Opera Mini 4.

The switchover to Google Search will take place on March 1st. Since Opera Mini works with a server on the backend, existing users would also be affected by this change.

Now get yourself Opera Mini (if you don’t have one yet) and start googling again! What are you waiting for?

Tip: Add your search engine of choice to the Opera Mini start page
Just like in Opera for your computer, you can create your own web search from any search field on the Web using Opera Mini 4. Simply click on the search field in the web page and then choose “Create search” from the Menu.

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8 Comments

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  1. 1 Adrian Lee Feb 27th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
    using Opera Opera 9.25 on Windows Windows XP

    I did have something of a chuckle when I saw the press release about Opera Mini going back to Google this morning.

    Glad you at least had the sense to acknowledge how it’s switched back and forth the last few years ;)

  2. 2 Matt Cox Feb 27th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
    using Opera Opera 9.50 on Windows Windows XP

    Clusty ftw! ;)

  3. 3 Joar Feb 27th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
    using Opera Opera 9.50 on Windows Windows XP

    An odd thing about the press release was that russia and the CIS countries were kept out of the new Google deal. Is really Yahoo more popular than Google in these countires (Opera would know, obviously, from the server usage in these countires). I remember some russians saying something about russian sites being better indexed in yahoo than in Google, but thought that was just a personl view from ths person…

    Any russians care to comment?

  4. 4 Andrew Feb 27th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
    using Opera Opera 9.26 on Windows Windows XP

    Thank you. Really. Does this mean the next Opera Desktop version will also switch back in the Speed Dial page?

  5. 5 Mark Feb 27th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
    using Opera Opera 9.50 on Windows Windows Vista

    Thank god for that. Yahoo search was dreadful, and I cursed every time I used it. Google greatness is back, phew…

  6. 6 Steve Barker Feb 27th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
    using Opera Opera 9.26 on Linux Linux

    Not struck on the idea of Microsoft buying Yahoo, but the idea of Microsoft paying Opera royalties amuses me.

    Please keep Yahoo on Speed Dail, and the Wii.

  7. 7 Andrey Feb 27th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
    using Opera Mini Opera Mini 9.50

    Joar: Google much better indexes Russian pages than Yahoo! and Google of course more popular. But Russians not often use Google for searching Russian sites. In Google Russians often search sites in English, but for searching Russian pages we use Russian search engines such as Yandex which specially adapted for Russian.

  8. 8 Aleksey Feb 27th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
    using Opera Opera 9.26 on Windows Windows Vista

    Sooo… Google has been Opera’s default search engine for quite some time… what about their other services working in Opera?

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Opera Watch, an Opera browser blog, is run by Daniel Goldman, who used to work for Opera Software as a Technical Evangelist.

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