KZBlog

According to Reuters, Opera 10 is the most popular browser in Kazakhstan with 32% of the market share. An even more significant way of looking at it is that in January Kazakhstan, with an estimated 2,300,000 Internet users (less than one-tenth of users in China or the US) was one of the top ten countries in the world by number of Opera 10 users!

Opera is an Internet browser that has always aimed at being faster and easier to use than other browsers, produced by a Norwegian company. But anecdotal evidence suggests that Kazakhstan is a country heavily penetrated by the Windows Operating system. Apple has only in the last few years made some inroads here and Linux is starting to be adopted as a free alternative for cost-conscious companies and government agencies. How did an outsider like Opera penetrate the Kazakhstan market?

The increase in usage of 60% in the last year indicates to some that Kazakhstan users like the new Turbo feature which compresses web pages on a remote server and then downloads the compressed sites to the user. While this feature speeds up browsing because you are downloading a compressed, smaller website, it also means that sites that are banned in Kazakhstan can be viewed on Opera 10 because the original request for the website comes from outside Kazakhstan.

As has been extensively reported, the state telecommunications company KazakhTeleCom has blocked access to Livejournal, Blogger and many opposition websites.

Asked about this use of Opera, a spokesperson for the company emailed to Reuters:

We link such growth to the release of several new versions of Opera 10.x within the last year that perform significantly better than our earlier products…As for accessing blocked resources — we do not comment on that.

Are there other explanations as to why Opera is so popular in Kazakhstan? One that occurred to me is that Opera Mobile has made inroads and I believe is coming pre-installed on some of the latest models of Nokia and Samsung mobile phones. Since smartphones are very popular in Kazakhstan, I wonder if that has something to do with these statistics. Maybe it’s just that people are getting Opera on their phones more.

So, dear Kazakhstani, do you use Opera? If so, why? Have you heard about this subversive use of it?