How To Reduce High Data Consumption On My Android Phone (Read and Thank me Later)

It’s no news that Android device consume more bandwidth than Blackberry device and I’ve been thinking endlessly why this had to be so. A normal typical Blackberry user may not be able to even consume 500MB data per month while this same 500MB won’t  be enough for Android user for two weeks; this alone keep them wondering in the state of quandary.  Those android users know what am talking about. That is why I try as much as possible to look for the cheapest way of surfing the net suitable for every mobile device.


This tutorial is typically for Android users and it’s going to help you reduce high amount of data rate consumption on your android phones.
How Can I Reduce High Data Consumption On My Android Phone?

Limit background data

One of the main drains on your data is probably going to be background syncing, when an app like Facebook grabs an update, or your phone checks to see if there’s any new email on your server. Think about what you actually need updated in real-time. Can you reduce the frequency of push notifications, or just set apps to update manually so they only grab new stuff when you actually open them? This can save you a lot of data, not to mention battery life. You’ll generally need to do it via the Settings menu of the app in question, but you can also check in Settings > Notifications on iOS, and take a look under Settings > Wireless & Networks > Data usage on Android.
1. Tap on the menu button on your screen.
2.  Navigate to "Settings".
3.  Scroll down to "Account and sync settings"
4.  Deselect "Background data". Ignore the warning and only select background data when you want to use Google play store.
Alternatively, for those whose Android phone consume battery like well, you can visit google play and download ‘juice defender’

Set data alerts and limits

On an Android smartphone running version 4.0 or later you can check your data usage and set alerts and limits. Go to Settings and under Wireless & Networks tap on Data usage. You’ll see a table showing your data usage for a specific period of time. You can tap to tick the Set mobile data limit box and then move the orange and red lines to set an alert usage amount (so you’ll get a warning when you’re closing in on your limit), and a hard limit (which will prevent you from going over your allowance).

My Data Manager (Android, iOS) is a free and easy-to-use app to keep track of your data and set alerts up.

Chrome Beta: 

The newest optimized browser is actually a Google offering. The most recent offering of Chrome Beta features  a new experimental proxy service run by Google that promises to radically increase mobile browsing speeds while decreasing data loads. In order to turn on access to this new proxy system, you will need to enter the address chrome://flags in the address bar of Chrome Beta and enable the entry for Experimental Data Compression Proxy. The release and the feature are brand new so we haven’t had long to play with them, but so far the project looks promising. Expect the proxy feature and optimization to appear in the regular release of Chrome in the near future.

Compress your data

Check out the Onavo Extend app (Android, iOS). It is designed to compress your data and potentially extend your data plan by up to five times. It doesn’t work with streaming audio or video apps, and it doesn’t work with VoIP apps, but it will help reduce the impact of images and text. It gives you a breakdown of which apps are using your data, lets you create a universal cache, and helps you choose the balance you want between image quality and data savings. It’s free, so it’s worth giving it a try if you find yourself running out of data all the time.