How to Lower the Data Usage

If you are not among the people who enjoy regular unlimited data plan, then you might already have some basic knowledge about data management. This involves no live streaming, downloading large apps or online games unless you are close or using Wi-Fi. Despite using all the available methods you might still not be able to conserve data and ending up paying more than required monthly bills. In this article you will be given some simple way through which you will be able to save every kilobyte.

Change your Maps app or program: 

If you were thinking that maps do not require or uses any data, then you are certainly wrong. It is a GPS service which will require data more specifically if you are using turn-by-turn directions, the built-in navigation service or even watching or checking on the potential traffic on the next road.

If you using the map for a shorter commute than you might be losing out on much data but when it comes to those long drives, the data is gone for a toss. Users have the option to switch to Google maps or Apple maps though for the Apple map you might have to turn the airplane mode on. But for using the GPS navigation service, these offline maps are of no use.

Luck for many people now they can get turn-by-turn directions as well as the GPS navigation without the need of being online, they just need to spend $7.99 and purchase the CoPilot GPS app. This app is currently available for platforms like windows phone, iOS and Android platforms. With this app you will get 2D offline street maps as well as complete navigation support in US. Citizens of Canada will have to pay extra price to avail this option.

Get efficient browser: 

The default phone browser will not help you in saving data though you might enjoy using the web. Other browsers like Opera Mini helps in saving data as it compresses websites before it reaches the phone. It also has another feature called as video boost which helps in saving data by reducing the buffering time. You can also reduce the image quality as well as completely turn off images from being loaded.

For people who have unlimited access to Wi-Fi or data, Opera also allows to switch off the data saving mode so they can enjoy the complete web experience. Even the Chrome app from Google helps in saving data and a good choice for browser. Chrome compresses the pages via Google before it reaches the phone of the user.

Basic Inbox: 

Both the iCloud and Gmail users should download the Dropbox's Mailbox app for saving data as downloading large attachment and opening email with signatures can cost you data. Through this app even though the email might look old and boring but user will be able to read the content of the mail. This app will allow them to see the HTML attachments as well as message also.

How to Tame Down Data Consumption on Android!

The known fact is that Android apps are designed to consume more data and all users love apps and games which we tend to download as much as possible on our devices. In doing so, we consume high data since these app come with high memory which needs constant internet connection to operate them. Most of the service providers advertise unlimited data with a soft cap of about 5GB while others have a hard cap of 2GB who tend to reserve the right to charge if the limits are crossed. Earlier, multiple GB of mobile data was unheard of, due to the absence of large mobile content but now with most of the major streaming sources having mobile apps, these applications have increased in size and with its installation, have been taking in major space of data plan with simple background activity.

Taming Your Apps/Minimizing Browser Data Usage - Though it would be appropriate to pay a reasonable cost for generous data plans than the current ones, users are often stuck minding bits and bytes in order to avoid getting charged with high fees. There are various options to reduce data Consumption on Android which would benefit the users in their data consumptions whenever they engage in various types of downloads. Tame your App with a thorough cleanup of all applications on the device by finding out those apps which could utilize more data and if possible eliminate them. Minimizing Browser Data Usage is also another option wherein at the time of web browsing, which is a data hogging culprits, eats into data with its huge advertisement.

Web Compression in the Cloud -The best solution is the data compression where the web page can be compressed in the cloud before it is sent to the phone, thereby considerably reducing the download size though there may be some disadvantage wherein even if the data is encrypted, the browser still processes the activity while compressing it. At times compression could also result in forgoing quality leaving the user with altered web pages. Options could be worthwhile sometimes with slow connections with various providers offering compression in reducing data usage. Chrome Beta has some handy new data compression features which users need to enable it by heading to Setting – Bandwidth Management – Reduce data usage and then going forward, the user can revisit the setting window to check how much data has been saved.

Files Downloads through Wi-Fi - Downloading of files from the internet is also another form of data consumption which on downloading consumes a lot of data and it is suggested to download files only through Wi-Fi connection. Apps which do not permit fine tune data settings could also be loading background data as in Ice Cream Sandwich and other versions of Android, where the option of getting to know a list of apps with data usage status is by going to Settings – Data Usage and then scrolling down to the list of apps along with accompanying status of data usage. If the app utilizes too much background data, users could scroll down to the bottom and check on `restrict background data’. This setting overrides any app behavior similar to the app which updates bank account information from time to time.