Google to be default search on Opera mobile browsers

While rumors of Google buying Opera Software haven’t proved true, the pair have extended their relationship. Opera will include a Google search item on the opening pages of Opera Mini and Opera Mobile, the browsers designed for handheld devices. Opera filed a short statement regarding the one-year contract to the Oslo stock exchange on Thursday.

Users of Opera Mini, the hosted Web browser that can be used on most Java-capable phones, will find a Google search bar along with a box for typing in a Web page address on the main screen when they open the browser.

Opera Mini will be formally launched later this month, though Opera quietly began allowing users around the globe to download the software in late December. The Google search function will become available at the formal launch, said Eskil Sivertsen, a spokesman for Opera.

Google will also be the default search partner for Opera Mobile, a fuller-featured browser for mobile devices, but the design and details of what it will look haven’t yet been worked out, Sivertsen said.

Opera has a long and good relationship with Google, and for many years a Google search bar has appeared on Opera’s desktop browser, he said. It made sense to extend that relationship to the mobile environment. “Searching is very important in the mobile Web and we see search as one of the things that users use the most,” he said.

In December, there were reports that Google might be interested in buying Opera but Opera executives at the time dismissed them as rumor.