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'll look at seven ways to save money. mobile traffic, from the simplest ones available in 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 more the right decision will 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 program AdAway 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 rights(and S-OFF on HTC).
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 latest versions everything was fine (either Weather Underground changed something, or AdAway corrected the host addresses).
3. Save 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. This 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 methods compression, in some cases breaking 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 article c 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
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Hello friends. It's summer, many people go on vacation, or somewhere far from the city, and of course a problem arises, but what about the Internet? After all, somewhere outside the city most likely he won’t be there, so what then? Panic begins, tears and all that :).
Well, of course there is a way out, you just need to get mobile Internet. Can buy GPRS or 3G modem. In the first case, the speed will be lower, but most likely it will reliably receive the signal almost everywhere. In turn, 3G technology will provide greater speed, but the signal will not be as stable and you may need to buy an antenna. I wrote about setting up 3G Internet in an article.
I switched to modems, but I wanted to write about how to save internet traffic. Well, of course, GPRS and 3G Internet are not very cheap now; compared to the city network, they are even expensive. That is why I decided to write today's article. So, with the right approach, you can save a lot of Internet traffic, and traffic means money.
All tariffs of mobile Internet operators have package restrictions or fees for spent Internet traffic, and in the first and second cases, tips on saving traffic will be useful.
First of all, I advise you to install a program on your computer that will measure the Internet traffic you spend.
I recommend the program to you NetWorx. This program has a clear Russian interface and can do a lot. You can measure traffic by hours, days, or whatever is convenient for you; you can set restrictions for a day or a month, and the program will warn you when your tariff plan ends, which will save you from unnecessary expenses, because traffic in excess of the package is not very cheap.
Turn off the image
I remember when I still used GPRS Internet via my phone, I always turned off image display in the browser. Graphics on web pages take up a lot of traffic and this is very bad. It seems to me that surfing the Internet can be convenient without pictures, but it’s a little unoriginal.
You can disable the image in the settings of any browser. For example, in Opera we go to “Tools”, “General settings” tab “Web pages” and where the image is selected “No images” and click “OK”.
Now you can try to use the Internet without images; by the way, this method also very effectively increases the speed of loading pages.
Cache is a great traffic saver
Cache is elements of a web page that the browser saves on the computer and the next time these elements are accessed, it does not download them again from the Internet. Cache is really good at saving traffic when you visit the same site many times. For example, you logged into VKontakte once, the browser downloaded an image of your friends and saved them to your hard drive.
When you visit this site again, the browser will not re-download these images and thereby save Internet traffic.
Service for saving Internet traffic
Although I am a supporter of all sorts of services and add-ons, I can recommend Toonel.net to save traffic. This service compresses Internet traffic well and allows you to save money. By the way, the service is completely free.
Advertising is the main traffic eater
There’s a lot of advertising on websites now, even I have a little, but of course, I want to eat it :). But advertising takes away almost half of your traffic. Flash advertising does this especially well. To disable advertising, you need to use add-ons for different browsers. Just type in any search engine “ how to disable advertising in Opera(or another browser)".
Separately, I would like to note the excellent function in the Opera browser. Turbo mode helps save traffic and increase the loading speed of Internet pages on a not very fast connection. All traffic that you request will be passed and processed through Opera's servers, and will arrive on your computer in compressed form.
Activating Turbo mode is very simple. Go to the browser and find a button in the form of a speedometer at the bottom left (above the start button).
Click on it and Select “Enable Turbo Mode”, the button will light up blue and the turbo mode will start working.
Offtopic: In just a couple of days I’ll take my last exam and go home for the summer. Of course, I’m taking the computer, but the Internet... I decided to get the Internet from Intertelecom, buy a modem and most likely have to buy an antenna.
So these tips will also be useful to me, although 1000 MB for 5 UAH. per day doesn’t seem very bad to me, we’ll see what the speed will be. Good luck!
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Updated: January 11, 2015 by: admin
IN modern society It’s hard to live without mobile Internet, gadgets, smartphones and other equipment that attracts users. But as practice has shown, “any” technology turns into a “brick” without Internet access, so today we want to tell you how to save mobile traffic using 5 interesting applications.
List of programs participating in today's review: Opera Max, Onavo Extend, Data Status, Osmino Wi-Fi and WeFi Pro.
Developer: Opera Software ASA
Version: 1.0.225.113
Onavo Extend
Developer: Navo
Version: 1.4.6-0ex
Onavo Extend is a simple and easy-to-use application that perfectly compresses data of any kind. The principle of operation of the program is as follows: the mobile phone contacts the operator providing the connection, then the data goes to the Onavo server, and after that you receive compressed data, which, in fact, is several times smaller than the original, and the quality does not suffer from this. Before you start using the program, you must allow the program to send mobile data to Onavo servers, after which you can start working. The application itself works through a VPN connection, which allows you to save data and also safely use the global network.
Data Status
Developer: Flavor Monkey
Version: 6.21
Data Status– a convenient program that allows you to save mobile traffic, which will also pass through third-party servers and compress it. The program will delight you with its clarity; on the start screen you will see all the graphs, scales, comparative indicators, various numbers and much more, which makes it clear how and where your traffic is going. It is not necessary to run the program in order to make sure it works; you can simply pull out the curtain and see how many megabytes were compressed and how many megabytes were spent by the user. Despite English language application, it is very easy to use.
Osmino Wi-Fi
Developer: RIWW
Version: 5.25.03
Osmino Wi-Fi – useful program on Android, which is a community-supported Wi-Fi network manager. According to the developers, you no longer have to worry about high-speed Internet on your device with their application, since the program itself will find desired point Wi-Fi access and connect to it, even if you don’t know its password. We launch the applications, click on the large round button located in the center of the display and our smartphone/tablet will connect to the available network itself, while skipping settings and entering a password. You can also view a list of available Wi-Fi hotspots on a city map located near you, test your connection speed, and even view the location of nearby augmented reality hotspots (with your camera turned on). The program is in Russian, it’s easy to use, and its effectiveness has been proven by hundreds positive feedback in the Google Play store.
WeFi Pro
Developer: WiFi
Version: 4.0.1.4200000
WeFi Pro is an application that will automatically connect to the most available Wi-Fi hotspots. It’s worth noting right away a very nice feature - automatic switching on and turning off Wi-Fi to save battery power. That is, Wi-Fi will automatically connect in places where there is a constant signal (for example, at home or at work) and disconnect where there is none. There are convenient Push notifications about open networks, as well as networks that have passwords. If you wish, you can specify public networks that should be avoided (a blacklist, in other words). If you travel often, but do not want to pay for mobile traffic, then use this application completely free.
The list of applications given is not final; on Google Play you can find great amount similar programs, each of which will be unique in its own way and will allow you to save mobile traffic.
Long gone are the days when providers kept track of the megabytes spent by users on the Internet. Tariff plans on home Internet these days the difference is 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 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 time left to download attachments from mail. Well, let's think about how we can deal with this and how to save on mobile Internet.
1. Disable automatic app updates
The first thing to do is turn off automatic software updates. Many applications download updates in the background, meaning you may not even know about it. Allow updates only to those that you really need on a regular basis. You can do this on iOS in the “Settings – General – Content Update” section.
Android owners need to go to the “Settings – Data transfer – Operator” section. You can also see in detail which application consumes how much over a selected period of time. When you click on each of them, detailed settings for a specific program open. We need to “Limit background traffic”, and if you wish, you can disable auto-updating of data.
2. Set a traffic limit
To control Internet traffic consumption, set the required limit in accordance with your tariff plan or option directly on your smartphone. On iOS just download third party application from the App Store. The free Traffic Monitor utility is just one of these. On Android, you can limit data transfer as follows: go to “Settings – Data usage – Set limit”.
3. Refuse synchronization
Regardless of which network you access the Internet on - 4G/ LTE, 3G or EDGE/ 2G, the smartphone regularly synchronizes available applications with remote servers. In order to avoid this and, accordingly, save money, you just need to disable such synchronization. On iOS, this can be done in two steps: first go to “Settings - iCloud - iCloud Drive - turn off Cellular Data”, then to “Settings - iTunes Store and App Store - turn off Cellular Data”. On Android, just go to “System Settings - Accounts– Turn off synchronization/Only via Wi-Fi"
4. Disable widgets
Many smartphone users install widgets. Statistics show that a one-time Internet surfing in a browser consumes significantly less traffic compared to widget requests that require an uninterrupted Internet connection.
5. Load data in advance
Navigation applications Yandex.Maps, Yandex.Navigator and Google Maps can actually work offline. You just need to download the maps first. In Yandex, this is done like this: “Yandex.Maps – Menu – Loading maps – Moscow – Downloading.” And in Google it’s like this: “Google Maps – Menu – Your places – Download map area – Select map – Download.”
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 turn off data transfer altogether, 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. True, when global ban When downloaded 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
Data compression function is also available in mobile version browser Google Chrome. 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 purpose, both simple consumption statistics and restrictions on different periods time.
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. Current speed data transfers can be observed 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 over the last month by day, the amount for the last seven and thirty days, as well as total number from the beginning of this 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 opportunity Reserve copy data to an SD card and its quick recovery.
⇡ 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 is useless 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, it free application 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.
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