Advanced Minesweeper Strategies?

Solution 1:

Turn off the Question marks. They only slow you down. Once you have all the bombs in a square marked you can click both mouse buttons to clear all adjacent squares. Learn to recognize patterns so you can mark or clear stuff as quick as possible.

Solution 2:

You shouldn't forget that you don't need to place all flags, you just need to open all squares without the mines.

Solution 3:

I usually start by trying to click about a dozen widely scattered squares at random. Quite often this hits a mine right away, but once in a while, maybe 1 in 10, you will open a couple of large areas this way. Large open areas are good b/c you have all those 1-mine corners to start working from.

The alternative, trying to work carefully starting from a single non-mine, or just a small open area, takes GOBS of time to get going. In 30 seconds with the multiple random stab approach, you can easily get to a starting position with just 2-3 seconds on the clock, that's as opened up as working carefully with all 30 seconds, or more, on the clock.