[DREBAND] Opera Mini remotely "branded" by carrier?

[Guest Hitomajiri]

Hi, everybody!

I hope the tag [DEBRAND] is adequate. I'm not sure if this term applies to this issue below, so my apologies in advance if doesn't fit here.

Well, my DEFY shows Claro's branding on startup (bootanimation). It's no big deal here, since I bought it from Claro... Not the best thing in the world, but I can live with it. I barely turn my phone off anyway... :unsure:

Although it's Claro-branded, it doesn't have SIM restrictions (I guess this feature is called SIM-unlocked, right? Is it even right to put a hyphen there?). So I went to use a TIM chip on it, to get advantage of their promotional data plans.

Thing is they somehow managed to mess up with Opera Mini's startup by putting an annoying logo that displays "Powered by TIM" while it's loading. The default search engine changed to Yahoo!. They also added ads above the Speed Dial thumbnails ("Win a phone" and "Internet on your phone") and a link to the TIM homepage (a thumbnail). Intrusive at best...

I've managed to remove the TIM link just by selecting "Clear" on the pop-up menu, but no such look to revert everything else back to the "stock" Mini. Not even uninstalling and reinstalling did it, nor cleaning the cache. I'm a rookie, by the way.

Did anyone go through the same thing? I couldn't find any post with something related to this. Any suggestions? Any help is appreciated -- and comments are welcome as well. B)

Hugs,

Hitomajiri

Edited January 4, 2011 by Hitomajiri

[Guest Hitomajiri]

Still haven't figured it out. Any ideas?

[Guest Sam0ht]

Still haven't figured it out. Any ideas?

http://www.opera.com/mobile/specs/

Opera makes two browsers.

Mini is available for a wide range of phones, even not-very-smart ones. Opera's own servers download the page you request, re-encode it, and send a minimal image of it to you. This massively reduces both bandwidth use and the requirements of rendering on your phone, hence why it can work on 'Java phones'.

However, this obviously depends on someone being willing to host the servers (proxies) that compress and re-broadcast the content. I believe some carriers have arrangements with Opera that they will host/pay for the servers, but monetize this by adding adverts to the stream (very easily done as the content is being reprocessed).

Mobile is a full client-side web browser, comparable to a PC browser or the standard iPhone / Android browsers. It does have the option of utilizing Opera's servers to reduce bandwidth use, however it is basically a full stand-alone browser.

Therefore if you're using Mini, and the ads are appearing in the app, it may not be a case of your phone being remotely branded, but just you may be configured to use a proxy that adds adverts / branding.

[Guest Hitomajiri]

Therefore if you're using Mini, and the ads are appearing in the app, it may not be a case of your phone being remotely branded, but just you may be configured to use a proxy that adds adverts / branding.

Hi, Sam0ht, thanks for your response, and sorry for the late reply. I thought nobody would reply to the topic... So I ended up forgetting about it, until now.

Your theory makes a lot of sense indeed. But the weird thing is that, even when I switch back to my Claro chip, the TIM logo is still there. I guess somehow the proxy settings persist even when the connection isn't being made through TIM anymore... I'll see if I can change some setting back to remove their "branding" entirely. Or maybe I'll ditch it altogether and stick to Mobile.

Oh, yeah, and I'll watch this topic more carefully from now on. Enabling email notifications of replies is a good start. :mellow:

Thanks again! :o