Phones and apps get more sophisticated by the day. Yet, they run up against the same old real world problem as always – data caps. If you like to snap pictures and share them on Facebook, watch a high quality YouTube video clip or two each day and try out a couple of new apps sometimes, you can burn through your monthly 5GB data allowance (if you have an unlimited plan) in no time . Simply listening to a half hour of streaming music on Pandora each day can knock nearly a gigabyte off your data package.
You can use up your data even without actively doing anything. Your apps often go on the Internet on their own and download updates and other data.
When your data allowance does run out, you need to either only use data when you are in a Wi-Fi zone or pay the phone company a few dollars for a little extra data to see you through the month. How do you make your data package last you all month without having this happen?
Your first step is to estimate your data usage
The easiest way to estimate how much data you use for your smartphone activities each day is to look at the inbuilt data usage monitor on your phone. Android phones later than version 4.0 have an inbuilt data monitor. Android’s monitor tells you how much data each of your apps uses through your cellular connection.
If you need to check how much data a new app is known to use each month before you install it, you can simply use your phone carrier’s data usage estimator on its website.
Now that you know how much data you use with each app, what can you do about it?
It’s easy to cut down on your direct data use – you can simply decide to not watch videos or download large apps when you don’t have free Wi-Fi. Figuring out how to restrict the background data used by your apps can be less obvious. Background data use – the data used by your apps when downloading more recent versions or your email and social network apps when they frequently check for updates – can contribute significantly to your data usage. Here’s how you should go about not wasting your data limit on these activities.
Restrict background data use to the times when you have Wi-Fi
The easiest way to cut down on background data use is to make sure that none of it happens unless you have Wi-Fi. To restrict your apps from updating themselves on a cellular connection, you need to open the Play Store, tap on the Menu button, go to Settings and then tap on Update over Wi-Fi only .
When it comes to restricting other kinds of data use – checks for new email, Facebook updates, Dropbox uploads and weather updates – you have three approaches to take.
You can select Restrict background data on the Data usage menu under Settings . This will make sure that no application uses any data on its own. While this method is certainly effective, it stops background activity even by apps that use very little data. Weather apps, for instance, offer useful information but hardly use any data.
If you would like to selectively restrict background data, you can go to each individual application and find the Restrict background data option among its settings. If you have many apps, this can be a hassle. It can also be a hassle because when you make these settings inside individual apps, they will usually not automatically turn on when you get to a free Wi-Fi zone.
A good way to selectively restrict background data on individual apps would be to get a special app for the job – a third-party data manager like Onavo Count . With this app installed, you get fine control over your data even on phones running ancient Android versions.
Completely turning your cellular data off when you reach your limit
If you absolutely do not want to spend a cent on overages once you finish your data allowance, you have two simple ways of achieving it. If your Android phone is version 4.0 or later, you can simply go to your Data usage submenu and select Set mobile data limit . It will cut you off at any data usage level that you set. On earlier versions of Android, you can use an app like Data ON-OFF to do the same thing.
Trying to use less of data when you browse the Internet
When you need to browse the Internet for information, having dozens of pretty images downloading on each page can send your data usage up. A good way to put a lid on such data profligacy would be to use a data-restricted mobile browser like Opera Mini. Opera’s mobile browser makes sure that you download as little data to build your webpages as possible.
If you would like to be even more restrictive, browsers like TextOnly help you view only the text on webpages.
Another powerful option to keep from having to pay for unnecessary data downloads when you browse the Internet would be to use an application like Adblock Plus or AdAway .
You can also help lower your data consumption by simply buying the apps that you use the most instead using free, ad-supported versions.
A few final tips on cutting down on your data use
Make sure that you never use a task killer. Each time you kill a task, you get rid of its cache files. This is a bad idea because the next time you use the app, the information in the cache will need to be downloaded all over again.
You can cache your Google Maps , too. You can get Google Maps to download and store all the map data on your phone for the areas that you tend to use the most.
Thanks & Regards,
"Remember Me When You Raise Your Hand For Dua"
Raheel Ahmed Khan
System Engineer
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