After having listened to consumers' demands for nearly a year, Opera and Helio have finally released an official version of the Opera Mini mobile browser for the Helio Ocean smartphone.

Helio users wanting to use Opera Mini on their Ocean smartphones were forced to use a hacked version of the browser that became available in August. After directions were published on Heliocity, a Web site where users discuss how to hack their phones, Opera Mini soon became the most popular piece of software for the Ocean.

Opera has actually shipped its Mini and Opera Mobile browsers on select Motorola phones since 2003, but the Helio announcement is the first time Opera is working directly with a US mobile phone provider.

At a time when companies often times shrug off the demands and desires of consumers, Helio saw the number of people using hacked versions of Opera Mini on its phones and acted on it. The new browser download has been tweaked by developers to make it run faster and more efficiently for specifically the Ocean.

Interested users can now download and install Opera Mini via Helio Ocean, by typing 67372 as a jumpcode and following the instructions. The two companies may discuss shipping Opera browsers on future Helio phones.