If you have a smartphone based on Android, iOS or Windows, then you have tons of options for picking web browsers. But Opera Mini is the only decent web browser for Java based mobile phones. It is no surprise that most of the Java based mobile phones come with Opera Mini pre-installed. But getting Opera Mini pre-installed brings another problem, you cannot remove it or update it (because it has to be updated from the manufacturer site which does not provide updates). If you try to install latest Opera Mini in your mobile phone, it gives a message “Please update through WAP” or “JAR not authenticated”. Fortunately, there is an easy workaround to install new version of Opera Mini on your Java based mobile phone.
You cannot remove the old version of Opera Mini from your mobile phone, then you can install the new version using a different app name. This way you will have two (or more) versions of Opera installed on your mobile phone at the same time. Here is how you can install two versions of Opera Mini on your mobile phone:
- Download the latest version of the Opera Mini from the Opera website to your PC. You have to download the JAR and JAD files. If you cannot find the files on Opera site, then you can get them from the Softpedia website.
- Install 7-Zip on your PC. This is required to edit the JAR file.
- Right-click on the Opera Mini JAR file and select 7-Zip → Open Archive from the context-menu.
- In the 7-Zip window, double-click on the META-INF folder. Then right-click on the MANIFEST.MF file and choose Edit from the right-click menu.
- This will open the MANIFEST.MF file in the Windows Notepad. Change the MIDlet-Name parameter from Opera Mini to something else, e.g., Opera Mini7.1.
- Press Ctrl+S to save the file. Close the Notepad window. As soon as you close the Notepad window, 7-Zip will ask if you want o update the the edited file in the archive. Click OK to update the file in the archive.
- Now you can copy the new edited Opera Mini JAR and JAD files to your mobile phone via Bluetooth or USB cable and try installing it. It will get installed along side your old Opera Mini browser on your mobile. This way you can have two or more versions of Opera Mini on your Java based mobile phone.