Update: Opera Mobile 10 Beta 3 Flash (Lite) and More

Opera Mobile has been the leading mobile browser for quite some years now. While Microsoft is desperately trying to gain on Opera Mobile by releasing new versions of IE6on6, Opera Software ASA leaps forward by releasing Opera Mobile 10 Beta 3. Not only does it fix almost all bugs present in Beta 2, it also adds (experimental) Flash Light support and thus being the first browser to support this natively.

Opera Mobile: Techz with Flash

Changelog:
- Fixed: General Bugs
- New: Opera Mobile 10 Beta 3 now supports non Touch-Screen devices (Windows Mobile 6 Standard, or Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone)
- New: Flash Lite 3.1 Support (Disabled by Default, see below)
- New: Completed the Bookmark Sync in Opera Link
- New: Support for Language Extensions
- New: Support for Background Sounds
- New: Phone Numbers will be shown as Links

Before you get too excited about this release, though it is quite good, you need to know a few things. First of all settings and Opera Link Bookmarks (from Beta 2) will be lost if you install Beta 3. This because the system has been changed significantly and performs better. Also Flash is only a preview or alpha version and far from stable. One some websites it works great, on others it doesn’t (crashes Opera). For this reason Opera Software ASA has disabled Flash by default and you need to enable it through settings (Settings > Advanced > Plugins ‘On’). Also some sites won’t work at all in this Beta, one example is Windows Live Hotmail, you can try to use their mobile counterparts or open them in IE6on6.

Known Issues:
- Flash is only included on the Touch-Screen edition; Also the performance is mediocre at best and quite unstable, only enable it if you either do not use this browser as default or want to test Flash;
- If you install Opera Mobile 10 Beta 3 on a right-to-left language ROM the UI is incomplete; Some words are not present and not all settings are visible;
- hTC Sense sometimes forces Opera to portrait, while you are holding the device on side; This is because the Sense interface (the non test versions) do not support landscape yet; You can avoid this by not having Opera run in the background while you are visiting the hTC homescreen;
- Some onscreen keyboards do not work with Opera; If Opera detects a problem it will force the device to use the default input method; The only exception is EzInput 1.5, where only the compact Qwerty is available (do not try to switch the input method);
- Opera Link Bookmarks are lost; No fix as of yet, but the links made now are expected to be available in the final version;
- Some sites, like Windows Live Hotmail, don not work at all; Use their mobile counterparts;

For those who want to see Opera Mobile 10 Beta 3, but don’t want to install it on their device, we will review Opera Mobile beginning next week.