Opera Launching New WebKit-Based Browser for Android in February

In an attempt to remain competitive on the mobile market, Opera Software will be launching a new browser for tablets and smartphones in February. Dubbed Opera Ice, the new mobile browser will be based on WebKit platform instead of Presto.

The folks over at Pocket-Lint have just published an “all-hands” demo of the upcoming Opera Ice mobile browser, which was showed off for the first time last month.

It looks like Opera Ice will come with icons on a homepage instead of tabs and users will be able to access new pages via Search or by directly typing in a URL.

According to Lars Boilesen, CEO of Opera, the new mobile browser will be built around “hiding technology,” which means most buttons will be removed and replaced by gestures.

“This is a full touch and tablet-focused browser. Most are taking a PC browser and squishing [it] into a tablet, or they are taking a mobile browser and blowing it up to fill the space,” explains Boilsen.