Cellular networks provide faster and faster access to the World Wide Web, and traffic consumption by mobile devices is only growing. However, mobile Internet is still not a cheap pleasure: many people still use tariffs with a traffic volume of 4 GB, and many people travel, and the Internet while traveling is much more expensive.
In this article, we will look at seven ways to save mobile traffic, from the simplest ones available in the Android settings, to means of compressing transmitted data, a complete ban on data transfer, and completely unobvious approaches, such as installing an ad blocker.
1. Standard Android tools
A few simple steps can help reduce the amount of data transferred.
- Go to the Play Store settings and in the “Auto-update applications” option, select “Never”. Uncheck the box next to “Availability of updates”.
- Go to Settings → Location and turn off Location History.
- “Settings → Accounts”, “Menu” button, uncheck “Auto-sync data”. Internet usage will decrease noticeably, but mail and application notifications will stop coming.
- Now go back to settings and go to “Data Transfer”. Click "Menu" and select "Limit background activity." As a result, the battery life of the smartphone will increase and Internet consumption will decrease, but notifications from instant messengers will no longer be received. Therefore, a better solution would be to go through the list, find not very important applications and limit their access to background data and/or data on cellular networks.
- Open Google Settings and go to Security. I don’t recommend disabling “Check for security problems,” but unchecking the “Anti-malware” checkbox would be the right decision. At your own peril and risk, you can disable “Remote device search” and “Remote blocking”.
- In the same “Google Settings”, go to “Data Management” (at the bottom of the list) and set “Application Data Update” to “Wi-Fi Only”.
- Go back and open Search & Google Now. Go to the “Personal Data” section and turn off “Send statistics”. In the menu “Voice search → Offline speech recognition”, download the package for offline recognition and disable its auto-update or select “Only via Wi-Fi”. You can also go to the “Feed” section and turn it off. The Ribbon is the left screen of the Google Start or home screen of the Google app. Here you can disable “Screen Search” (Google Now on tap). Well, at the very bottom, turn off the “Recommended applications” item.
- Don’t forget to turn off auto-checking and auto-downloading updates in “Settings → About phone.”
2. Get rid of advertising
Oddly enough, one way to reduce traffic consumption is to block ads. The indispensable AdAway program will help with this. It completely denies access to ad servers, blocking it at the system level. In other words, when an application accesses an address that is in its database, the request goes nowhere. By the way, activity tracking services (those that monitor user actions) are also blocked. The application requires root permissions (and S-OFF on HTC) to run.
When the blocking is enabled, problems may arise with the operation of some applications for making money from advertising (for example, NewApp, AdvertApp, CoinsUP - the latter did not show anything at all until recently). Other incompatibilities are also possible: six months ago, the Weather Underground application did not work due to AdAway. In the latest versions, everything has become ok (either Weather Underground changed something, or AdAway corrected the host addresses).
3. Saving using your browser
There are not so many browsers with a built-in data saving mode. I selected five and tested them by opening seven web pages.
Firefox
Used for benchmark testing. There is no saving mode here.
Consumption: 13.33 MB
Opera Mini
The most economical browser. Allows you to save up to 90% of traffic (on average up to 70–80%). The data is compressed so much that you can browse the Internet on Edge or even GPRS networks. It all works by using its own engine, which represents web pages not as text, but as binary code. And Opera servers are responsible for converting pages into this code. Plus a built-in ad blocker, video and image compression.
There is also a super-saving mode, which includes aggressive compression methods, which in some cases break pages. For example, the Eldorado store website did not open at all in this mode, YouTube opened in the WAP version, the map could not be viewed on the OpenStreetMap website, and the article from xakep.ru opened with distortions. With the super economy mode turned off, these problems disappear.
Consumption: 12 MB
Opera
It differs from the Mini version in a different interface and the absence of a super saving mode. But it works faster.
Consumption: 12.15 MB
Chrome
This browser also has a data saver, but no ad blocker. According to the developers, savings average 20–40% depending on the content. But in practice, in almost a month I saved as much as 4%.
To activate, you need to go to settings and enable the “Traffic saving” item. There are no settings, statistics on saved megabytes can only be assessed by traffic, there are no statistics on sites, there is no ad blocker and support for extensions (for installing the blocker).
The saving mode itself works completely unnoticed. The quality of the pictures does not suffer, and the page loading speed remains almost unchanged. That is, Chrome remains one of the fastest browsers. And he turned out to be the most gluttonous.
Consumption: 15.5 MB
Puffin
Desktop versions of YouTube and Play Store sites opened instead of mobile ones. But the savings are obvious.
Consumption: 5 MB
4. Lazy reading services
Pocket lets you save articles to read “for later.” And it has an interesting property that will help save traffic. When you add an article (no matter from a PC or mobile device), if there is a Wi-Fi connection, it is immediately downloaded to the device and becomes available for offline reading. Only the text and images from the article are saved, and all other garbage is deleted, and it becomes possible to change the font size and background.
Pocket has a competitor - Instapaper. In terms of functionality and quality of work, it is almost identical.
5. Auto-sync files over Wi-Fi
If you often use Dropbox and other services to access your files from your smartphone, pay attention to
FolderSync. It can synchronize selected folders with a smartphone immediately when files are changed and only when connected to Wi-Fi. So you'll never have to download files to your smartphone over the mobile network if you forgot to do so while at home.
6. Completely disconnect applications from the Internet
AFWall+ allows you to disconnect selected applications from the Internet. You can unlink both installed applications and system services, such as ADB. Unlike the built-in restrictor in Android, AFWall blocks access not only in the background, but also in the active mode. You can also use it to give Internet access to only one application in the system. This feature will certainly appeal to users who pay per megabyte (hello, roaming!).
In CyanogenMod 13, you can restrict network access through “Settings → Privacy → Protected Mode.” This feature has not yet been added to CM 14.1.
AFWall+: A True Firewall for Android 7. Data compressors
The market has several very unique applications. They create a VPN tunnel, compressing traffic along the way. Two striking examples: Opera Max and Onavo Extend. Their developers promise up to 50% savings. But we won’t take their word for it and will conduct our own test.
So, the amount of transmitted traffic without savers:
- Websites: 14.62 MB (five pieces)
- YouTube 173 MB (1080p video)
The changes became noticeable immediately: the time it took to open sites increased due to some pause after clicking on a link. And the pages themselves began to load a little longer. The video on YouTube (more precisely, the advertisement before it) took a very long time to load. Moreover, the download speed was almost zero. But what’s most interesting is that Opera Max itself consumed 12.5 MB.
- Websites: 11.59 MB
- YouTube 3 MB (video did not start)
Onavo Extend
The situation here is almost the same. Everything became slower, although not as much as in the case of Opera. And the video started without problems in 1080p. Total:
- Websites: 14.73 MB
- YouTube 171 MB
We track and control internet consumption
The standard traffic manager in Android (Settings → Data transfer) is very convenient and quite functional. For most users who use tariffs with a monthly Internet limit, this will be enough. However, I recommend that others use the analogue from the Play Store. And third-party applications show much more useful information. - Xposed module showing data transfer speed. It can be perfectly customized and consumes virtually no battery power.
Are unlimited tariffs so unlimited?
The line of postpaid tariffs “Everything” from Beeline, “Unlimited Black” from Tele2, “Smart Unlimited” from MTS and some other tariffs, according to the operator, offer full-fledged unlimited Internet on a smartphone. Is it possible to blindly believe these loud promises? Is everything really so rosy and the Internet will soon become completely free?
It's actually not that simple. Everyone knows about restrictions on torrents and using a smartphone as an access point, and in addition, often after reaching a certain amount of data received, the speed is limited.
As a study of many forums has shown, almost all operators with so-called unlimited speeds reduce the speed after reaching 30 GB in 3G networks (up to 512 Kbps), and in 4G it’s different for everyone. However, people downloaded 700 GB per month (you have to try...) from some companies without cutting the speed.
The author on Tele2 used about 170 GB of 4G Internet last month and there were no restrictions. And after reaching the 100 GB threshold, almost any operator will probably begin to analyze your traffic and apply restriction methods if you use the Internet too intensively. Long questions and pestering of the operator actually confirmed this: “When a subscriber creates a large load on the network, the speed may be limited until the day the statistics on the server are reset.” But they seem to have an honest unlimited limit.
Conclusion
As you have already seen, the most effective way to save traffic is to buy a more expensive tariff. And all super compressors not only degrade the quality and make the Internet more sluggish, but they also don’t always save as much as possible. But if there is no way out, then they will help you save something.
Last updated by at February 9, 2017.
Mobile data usage has increased dramatically in recent years. Applications have become more hungry and are constantly pushing new versions to update. Previously, web surfing was used primarily for text. Now, video streaming services have gained widespread popularity and social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram have also integrated video services as a mainstream. It's harder to reduce your data usage on Android.
Here we have compiled some of the most effective ways to save Android data.
8 Best Ways to Reduce Data Usage on Android - Save Data on Android
Limit data usage in Android settings
Setting a limit for your monthly data usage is the simplest thing you can do to avoid using excessive amounts of data without your knowledge. You can limit mobile data usage on Android using the Settings app. Switch to settings and press " Usagedata">> Billing Cycle >> Data Limits and Billing Cycle. There you can set the maximum amount of data you are going to use in a month. Additionally, you can choose to automatically disconnect from the network once your data limit is reached.
Restrict app's raw data
Some applications continue to consume mobile data even when the smartphone is not in use. Background data allows you to monitor and update apps while multitasking or when the screen is off. But every app doesn't have to use background data at all times.
Go to " Settings >> Data Usage", and you can see the statistics for which app is consuming most of the data.
Click on an application and you can see both foreground and background usage for that particular application. Foreground data usage is the data consumed by an application when it is actively being used by you when you open it. Background data is the data you consume when you are not using an app and the app is running in the background. It does not require action and occurs automatically. This could include things like automatic app updates or synchronization.
If you find that the background data is too high for the app and you don't need the app to be in the background all the time, click " Restrict app background". This ensures that the application will only consume data when it is opened and thus use less data.
Use data compression in Chrome to save traffic on Android
Google Chrome is one of the most popular browsers for Android. It has a built-in feature that can significantly reduce data consumption on Android.
When data compression is enabled, all your traffic is sent through a proxy server run by Google. The data will be compressed and optimized before being sent to your phone. This results in lower data consumption and faster page loading times without making significant changes to the web content.
To use data compression, open Chrome, click the 3-dot menu in the top right corner, click " Settings" and scroll down to " Data store". There, you can click on the top right corner to enable the data saving feature.
Enabling the Save Data feature also implements Chrome's Safe Browsing system to detect malicious pages and protect against malware and harmful content. As you can see in the screenshot above, Chrome managed to retain 17% of data over a period of one month.
You can view this settings panel in Chrome to see how much data you have saved over a certain period.
How to save traffic on Android - Updating applications only via Wi-Fi
One of the most effective ways to reduce mobile data consumption is to disable automatic app updates in the Play Store. Go to Play Store and click " Menu" >> « Settings" >> « Automatic application updates." Make sure you select " Automatic app updates via Wi-Fi only" Alternatively you can select " Not fulfill automatic application updates", but this is not recommended since you need to remember app updates manually from time to time.
Limit your use of streaming services
Streaming music and videos are the most hungry for content, as well as high-quality images. Try to avoid them when using mobile data. You can choose to save music and videos locally in your storage or download them when you are connected to WiFi. When streaming on mobile devices, you can reduce the stream quality to reduce data usage. Youtube consumes a lot of data, so make sure you lower the video resolution when using mobile data on Android.
Keep track of your apps
Using data-dependent applications can have a serious impact on your mobile network data consumption. What you might not realize is that the Google Photos app can sync your photos in the background with every click. Social media apps like Facebook and Instagram consume a lot of data. Try to avoid watching videos and GIFs on these apps.
Try using alternatives to some apps that will still perform the required functions while consuming less data. For example, Facebook Lite is a very lightweight alternative for the Facebook app. Plus, it saves battery life and data usage. TweetCaster is a similar option for the Twitter app.
Google Maps cache for offline use
Did you know that you can save maps in the Google Maps app? Caching Google Maps for offline use can save both your time and data. Once the map is loaded, you can even navigate when your phone is offline simply by using your GPS. This turns out to be handy for daily commutes and commuting as you can never be sure if some places will have network coverage. It's a good idea to download a map of your home area and the regions you travel to frequently.
So, next time you're on Wi-Fi, open Google Maps, go to the menu and select " Offline Maps".» . There you can click " Choose your own card” and zoom in or out to select the area where you want to be offline.
Once you decide the area, click " Download ».
Optimizing account sync settings
Your account settings are synced by default. Don't turn on automatic sync for data-dependent apps like Facebook and Google+, which use sync services to sync files like photos and videos, consuming large amounts of data in the process.
Google constantly syncs your data when changes are made. Most of these synchronization services may not be required. This background synchronization affects both data consumption and battery life.
To configure the sync setting, open " Settings >> Accounts». There you can configure synchronization settings for different applications. To optimize Google syncing, click on Google and disable the options you don't need. For example, I don't need Google Fit, Google Play Movies, or Google Play Music data to sync. So I switched them, leaving the other services in sync.
- Download large files when you are on Wi-Fi.
- Do not clear the system cache unless you have another way to free up space.
- If necessary, turn off mobile data.
- Turn off notifications for apps you don't want to notify.
- Set a longer refresh interval for home screen widgets that update frequently.
Have you found these ways to reduce data usage on Android to be useful and found the answer to the question - how to save data on Android? Share your feedback and suggestions in the comments below.
In light of the fact that mobile operators have stopped providing tariffs with unlimited Internet traffic, it will be useful to know how to save mobile traffic on Android smartphones and tablets. In this material, we will tell you how to significantly reduce traffic consumption and try not to go beyond the volume that is required by your tariff.
Identifying applications with high network activity
To determine consumers of mobile traffic, the Android operating system has a built-in application, which, depending on the versions of the operating system and the proprietary user interface, may be called “ », « " or " data usage».
Here you can see which programs consume megabytes the most, and also set a traffic limit, upon reaching which work on the Internet via the mobile network will be stopped. And if you look at the name of a specific application in the list of Internet data consumers, you can see more detailed information about the consumption of mobile traffic.
Having studied the list of applications, you can see that the main consumers of the Internet are a small number of applications. Typically, these are those programs that provide viewing of pages on the Internet (browsers), viewing online video and audio, as well as navigation maps. Let's see what can be done to save mobile traffic in these applications.
To save mobile traffic when browsing the Internet, you should use browsers that support data compression and . In such browsers, the requested information is compressed on a special server and then transmitted to the user.
Along with blocking unsolicited advertising banners, which take up additional data against your will, with such browsers you can get quite good traffic savings on the mobile network. Applications such as Ghrome, Opera and UC Browser have proven themselves well.
Watching videos on the Internet using a mobile operator’s network is the most “traffic-consuming” activity. After watching just a couple of videos in good resolution, you can spend the entire monthly limit on your tariff. The vast majority of users watch videos on YouTube using the application of the same name. How can you save mobile traffic here?
Open the app settings and check the option " Traffic saving", thereby disabling viewing HD video on mobile Internet.
Listening to music and radio online also consumes a large amount of data over the mobile network. Although compared to watching video, traffic consumption here is an order of magnitude lower, it is still worth setting up an application for listening to streaming audio to save Internet data received. Almost all streaming audio download apps have an option to select the audio quality. The lower the quality, the lower the traffic consumption.
For example, in the Google Play Music program, you can select the sound quality over the mobile network " Low», « Average" And " High" You can completely turn off listening on the operator’s network and use only WI-FI.
Most users use maps from Google and Yandex search engines on their smartphones and tablets for navigation, which consume mobile traffic when downloaded to the device. You can save money here by saving the desired section of the map in the memory of your smartphone or caching it in another way.
And if you are in roaming, then for navigation it is better to use special navigation applications that work without using the Internet, determining the location using GPS or Glonass satellites.
Long gone are the days when Internet providers everywhere kept track of megabytes spent by users on the Internet. Tariff plans for home Internet these days differ mainly in speed. But cellular operators are in no hurry to provide completely unlimited Internet and, as a rule, allocate only a certain amount of inexpensive traffic.
But today not only people, but also smartphones themselves cannot live without the Internet: it happens that he himself downloads something in the middle of the night, updates a couple of applications, and in the morning there is no more prepaid traffic left to download attachments from mail. Well, let’s think about how we can deal with this and how to save on the still expensive Internet.
⇡ Traffic control using standard operating system tools
First, let's see what we can do without installing additional applications. In the Android settings there is a “Traffic Control” item, with which you can separately monitor data transfer over Wi-Fi and through mobile networks. You can also completely disable data transfer, that is, the use of mobile Internet.
The operating system displays a graph of traffic usage for a selected period of time (you can change it by moving the sliders along the graph) and shows which applications consume the most data. By clicking on an application, you can see a consumption graph generated specifically for it.
On the mobile Internet tab, you can also set a limit on traffic consumption for a certain period. The limit is set on the same chart, and a threshold is selected using a separate slider, upon reaching which the system will display a warning about the imminent exhaustion of the limit. If the traffic ends, the device will automatically turn off data transfer.
Many Android applications communicate with the Internet in the background and, as a result, traffic is consumed even before the phone owner has time to wake up. To prevent this from happening, you can prevent certain applications from using mobile traffic in the background. To do this, click on the application name in the traffic consumption window and check the Restrict Background data box.
This feature can also be disabled globally. To do this, being in the “Traffic Control” section, go to the settings and check the box of the same name. You can also disable automatic data synchronization here. However, with a global ban on downloading via the mobile Internet, some important applications - such as an email client - may not work as you expect.
A lot of traffic is spent on application updates. To prevent downloading updates from eating up expensive traffic, you can go to the Google Play settings and in the “Automatic application updates” section, select updating only via Wi-Fi or (as an option) disable automatic updating altogether.
By the way, don't forget to check the settings of your favorite applications. In many, you can enable synchronization and downloading of data only via Wi-Fi.
⇡ Traffic control in Google Chrome
The data compression function is also available in the mobile version of the Google Chrome browser. It works like this: the content of web pages is first sent to Google servers, where it is optimized and loaded in a compressed form. The quality of the images, of course, suffers, but much less traffic is consumed.
You can find and enable this option in the “Settings → Traffic Control → Traffic Reduction” menu. Depending on what web pages you view on your mobile device, the savings can be significant - up to 50%. True, data compression will be useless when loading web pages that use traffic encryption - Google will not be able to send such data to its servers. In addition, it is worth keeping in mind that compression will not be performed even if you enable incognito mode in the browser.
To save mobile traffic in Google Chrome, you should also disable the function of preloading web pages. It is located in the same “Traffic Control” settings section. You can allow the browser to download pages in the background only when there is an active Wi-Fi connection, or disable downloading altogether.
⇡ Control over traffic consumption using specialized applications
The main purpose of mobile traffic accounting applications is to help you save money. For this, both simple consumption statistics and restrictions for different periods of time are used.
Perhaps the simplest traffic metering program is Internet Speed Meter Lite. It only performs monitoring and statistics collection functions. The application monitors mobile and Wi-Fi traffic consumption in real time. The current data transfer speed can be seen in the notification panel, and if you expand the notification menu, you can also see the name of the current network and the amount of traffic that was consumed today.
The application window shows how much traffic was used in the last month by day, the amount for the last seven and thirty days, and the total since the beginning of the current month. Mobile and Wi-Fi traffic is counted separately.
The Data Usage application is interesting because it can count not only mobile, but also Wi-Fi traffic. And not only count, but also notify when a specified limit is exceeded, and also block data transfer when a certain value is reached. Why might you need Wi-Fi traffic metering? For example, some hotels practice providing free Wi-Fi access within a certain limit. If it is exceeded, you must pay additionally.
In the application settings, you can specify how much traffic (mobile and Wi-Fi separately) is provided for a given period. Data Usage will not only collect statistics for the day, for the week and for the reporting period, but also calculate how much traffic should be consumed ideally so that the Internet does not cost a penny. It also shows predicted consumption, separate statistics on received and transmitted data and, most importantly, how much free traffic is left until the end of the reporting period.
Data on mobile Internet and Wi-Fi are shown on separate tabs, but you can view the total history of traffic consumption on a visual graph.
Data Usage can warn you that your prepaid traffic is about to expire. Moreover, there may be three such warnings. The default is when using fifty, seventy-five and ninety percent, but this parameter is configurable. In addition, the application can completely turn off the Internet when a certain value is reached (99% by default) and automatically turn it on when the next reporting period arrives.
Another traffic monitoring application that may be useful is “My Internet Manager” (My Data Manager - Data Usage. Its feature is the ability to set separate data plans for roaming and mobile Internet. You can set a traffic limit, as well as the date and plan start time.
As for data received via Wi-Fi, it is impossible to set a traffic limit here, but you can specify when the number of downloaded data is reached, the program should notify the user. “My Internet Manager” displays information about traffic consumption in a convenient form, with each type of connection located on a separate tab.
A full report of total data consumption can be seen in the graph. Also, information on consumed traffic is displayed on the notification panel.
The app also keeps track of the data consumption of different apps. This information can be presented in chart form or as a list.
Pleasant bonuses of the application include the ability to backup data to an SD card and quickly restore it.
⇡ Non-standard approach: not only control, but also traffic reduction
Even before the advent of smartphones, mobile browsers from Opera Software were extremely popular. And one of the most popular features of Opera Mini was traffic compression. Thanks to this, on the one hand, the loading of web pages on a slow connection was accelerated, and on the other hand, mobile Internet bills were reduced.
The same compression technology that was used in the Norwegian company's older products forms the basis of the Opera Max application for Android. It is currently being tested, but is already available for free download from Google Play in our country. The main difference between Opera Max and the corresponding function in the browser is that it works with all applications. That is, if Opera Mini compresses only the content of web pages, then Opera Max works with any browser, as well as applications for viewing video content, reading RSS, downloading photos, etc. In particular, with the help of Opera Max, traffic in the VKontakte, Viber, and Odnoklassniki applications is significantly saved.
Technically, Opera Max works through a VPN network. All network traffic from a mobile device passes through Opera servers, where it is compressed whenever possible. Thus, the user downloads much less data.
How much data has been saved is shown in the application window. Detailed statistics by date and by application are also available. As our testing has shown, web pages and photos are best compressed; with video, the situation is worse. But the application does not work with Facebook and Twitter at all - this is because these social sites use an encrypted connection. Accordingly, the application is unable to intercept this traffic in order to send it to Opera servers. It's also worth keeping in mind that the app isn't useful for compressing web pages if you're using the Google Chrome browser with data compression enabled. In this case, you cannot save even more. Opera Max also does not compress application updates or files downloaded to the device.
Opera Max only works with mobile Internet. As for Wi-Fi traffic, it is not taken into account and is not saved. But the application has a convenient option for banning the use of mobile traffic for individual applications. This can be handy since the Wi-Fi update option may not be found in all apps.
Finally, when using Opera Max, it's worth keeping in mind that the app works offline for seven days. For its further operation, you need to “recharge”, that is, click on a special button on the corresponding tab of the application. For now (at the testing stage) it is free, but in the future, most likely, you will have to pay to extend the service.
However, if Opera Max becomes paid in the future, it is worth keeping in mind that this application is not unique. The same functions have been available for more than two years to users of the lesser-known Onavo Extend program, the developers of which came under the wing of Facebook in 2013.
Like Opera Max, this free app works through a proxy server and compresses all mobile traffic from the device. When you turn on Wi-Fi, it turns off automatically. In the application you can see statistics on saved traffic for a week and a month. And in the settings you can control the quality of graphics, as well as set the cache size for saved graphic elements. This is true if you constantly load the same web pages. Onavo Extend saves the graphics from them, they are not re-downloaded, resulting in even greater savings.
⇡ Conclusion
I really hope that in five to ten years the demand for all applications for saving mobile traffic will decrease. Perhaps very soon they will become as rarely used as programs for monitoring traffic on a PC are now rare. And just as inexpensive internet via cable came to our homes without taking into account traffic, so our smartphones will receive inexpensive unlimited access to the Internet.
Internet surfing speed regularly drops, the Internet slows down, and instead of LTE or at least 3G speed you get a GPRS connection? To enjoy the Internet included in your tariff plan for as long as possible, use our tips.
1. Check where your traffic is going
Anyone whose Internet speed drops dramatically after two weeks of use either has an unprofitable data plan or several hidden data consumers on their smartphone. To save your traffic, you need to first check that none of the apps are using data without your knowledge.
IN iOS you can do this in the "Settings" of the mobile network. If among them there are applications that you do not use, but which consume mobile traffic, then disable them.
Users Android can check the Data Consumption or Data Usage menu in Settings. Set thresholds for first warning or stopping data usage completely.
2. Don't fall into the system's traps
Smartphone manufacturers live in a different world. They don't seem to be interested in users who want to save some bandwidth. Example: When updating to iOS 9, Apple introduced a new feature called WLAN Assist. When Wi-Fi reception is poor, iPhone switches to a fast mobile connection if one is available. Problem: Users think they have turned on WLAN, but in fact the smartphone is using mobile data, using up precious GB.
WLAN Assist can be disabled in Settings under Mobile Network. In the App and iTunes Store, iPhone users should also disable the "Use mobile data" menu option, otherwise updates will also be downloaded through the mobile connection.
3. Avoid decoy apps
If you took note of our first tip, you've probably already found apps that consume a lot of data. Typically, such programs can be removed or disabled. But what about the apps you use? Watch the loss of mobile traffic?
Typical consumers are a variety of instant messengers: WhatsApp, Instagram, and other VKontakte. In WhatsApp settings there is a section “Data and storage” - “Auto download media”. Here you can specify whether the application will download videos, photos and audio files. Our advice: download videos only via WLAN. We described in detail how to disable auto-downloading of files from WhatsApp.
On Facebook, background updates often transfer large amounts of data. In settings you can simply disable such updates. App stores also often throw up some nasty surprises - especially if you've set your settings to allow app updates to be available over the mobile network. It is better to leave the update exclusively via Wi-Fi.
Automatic copying of files to the cloud can also be easily configured. Set the backup behavior so that data is only downloaded using an existing WLAN connection.
4. Use offline apps
If you've finally gotten into the spirit of saving, we recommend using apps that work offline. For example, instead of using streaming music services, save your favorite tracks to your phone and download offline maps to Google Maps - we told you how this works.
5. Enable data compression in your browser
If you frequently use the mobile Internet, enable additional data compression in your browser. In this case, all data is first passed through proxy servers and delivered already compressed, which saves your traffic. For example, Google Chrome and Opera Max use this compression by default.
Fortunately, today there is a large selection of tariff plans with virtually unlimited Internet. So, in theory, many users may not worry about saving mobile traffic. If even with our advice you don’t have enough mobile data, consider changing your tariff or operator.
More savings:
Photo: manufacturing companies, pixabay.com
