Data savings app Opera Max comes to New Zealand

Thu, 20th Nov 2014

FYI, this story is more than a year old

Data savings app Opera Max is now available in New Zealand.

Opera Max compresses data usage across most apps on Android, enabling users to get more usage out of their data plans.

Opera Max's video optimisation is powered by Rocket Optimizer, a cloud-based solution from Opera's Skyfire unit. Once installed, Opera Max starts rerouting data traffic on the mobile device to the Opera data-savings cloud, using a virtual private network.

All non-encrypted data requests (excluding secure websites and apps with HTTPS connections) are sent through Opera’s servers, which compress video, images and websites to consume less data.

The app is ideal for those with data limits, paying per megabyte for data or using the web while roaming abroad.

Users will be able to keep track of their data quota, giving them more control over the data the consume, including blocking particular apps from using mobile data, restricting them to Wi-Fi only.

“Opera Max is the next step in the evolution of compression technology created by Opera Software. We are continuing to roll out Opera Max to more countries, because it makes web access more affordable for users,” says Sergey Lossev, head of Opera Max at Opera Software.

The Opera Max user interface and core networking component has been optimised for Android’s Lollipop. Issues with IPv6 traffic in previous versions of the app have been resolved. Additionally, the VPN will have a lifetime approval permission, meaning that once users confirm VPN approval for Opera Max, then every time their device reboots they will no longer have to reapprove the app.

With the update, users have the option to hide all notifications from Opera Max, by going to the app settings and disabling the optional “savings status” notification. By default, Opera Max savings status notifications will now be visible as a lock screen notification. It can be disabled by long pressing on the notification, then pressing the ‘i’ for Information and flicking the block notification switch to on.

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