Opera Mobile Emulator for Windows no longer available?

Question

I wish to implement the suggestion in this post:

Visual Studio 2012 Mobile Device Emulators

but Opera Mobile Emulator seems to no longer come in a Windows version. Anyone else experiencing this issue?

Dressingdown

Answer 1

Yes, that's not just you.

People at Opera forums discovered a direct link to the Windows version: http://www.opera.com/download/get.pl?sub=++++&id=35131

Corse

Or download it from the FTP site: ftp.opera.com/pub/opera/sdlbream/1210/… – Betony

Amazing that the link still works! I wonder if people are still using it though, Windows blocked it "for my protection" and I'm considering running it as an admin, but not sure it's a good idea considering the link on their article no longer works. – Scouring

Answer 2

Considering that the link in the article on this topic has no mention of the Opera Mobile Emulator, I concluded that the desktop version is no longer supported. However, all major browsers have a built-in mobile emulator in the developer tools.

For Opera, these are the steps to access it:

• Select the tab with the web page to be tested
• Open Menu > Developer > Developer Tools or CTRL + SHIFT + I
• Select the "Toggle device toolbar" icon at the top left (looks like a phone next to a tablet)
• Select the device from the first drop-down menu on the toolbar. It will be "Responsive" by default, or the last device used.

It's a similar process on other major browsers, like Chrome, Firefox and Edge. Comparing to physical devices I'd say it's reasonably accurate for testing layouts. It doesn't have the latest phones like iPhone 12 at this time, but you can add a custom device by specifying the viewport height and width.

My understanding is that each browser tests how it would behave on its own mobile version, which means, it's best to test it on the developer tools on all supported browsers. On this topic, there are tips and links to commercial testing tools on the MDN article on cross browser testing. My main take away is test a lot, and fix or provide fallback solutions.

Scouring