The default browser in Nokia Symbian mobiles, shows boxes in places where Tamil characters (or most of indic scripts for that matter) are suppose to be. Since I am an avid fan of Symbian and Nokia , it really was really upsetting me because I couldn’t read tweets or blog posts on the go.

The solution for this problem is to install Opera Mini Browser and tweak it. I’m sure that many of you might already be aware of this solution. But I am just posting it for the sake of others.

Things you must know

Difference between Opera Mini and Opera Mobile is that All the web traffic from Opera Mini browser goes through Opera’s proxy servers, which optimize the web content for mobile experience. Opera Mini does not have the capability to render complex scripts in mobile. So, by tweaking its settings as described below, you are letting the Opera’s proxy servers to render the complex scripts as images and send those images to mobile browser. Thus you’ll see the Unicode content as images, instead of fonts. This feature is not available in ‘Opera Mobile’ browser.

It is to be noted that since the Unicode content is rendered as images, it is increase the bandwidth consumption to a large extent.

• Opera Mini is a free browser and can download from http://www.opera.com/mobile/ or from Nokia Ovi Store. Make sure you have downloaded Opera Mini and not Opera Mobile.
• Open the address about:config in your opera mini browser. This will open the browser’s option page.
• Scroll down until you see something like this: Use bitmap fonts for complex scripts as shown in image above.
• Set the above option value to yes and then click on Save button.

That’s it. Now you’ll be able to enjoy the local content from your Opera Mini browser.