Tips to control data usage on your smartphone

One of the main concerns for every smartphone user , along with battery life, is data usage . Even if we have a generous plan for browsing data, the truth is that, in practice, data usage is used up much faster than we'd like.

Obviously, there's no mystery here: either you buy more data or you try to control your usage to make ends meet with mobile internet. Okay, but... how do you control this data usage ? It's not easy, of course. We have to keep in mind that these days we use our mobile internet for almost everything, from the moment we wake up until we go to bed: WhatsApp, email, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube... Indeed, at this rate, we'll likely use up the data on our plan in no time.

However, there are a series of tricks we want to share with you that will help you reduce this consumption and thus be able to continue browsing without problems, even during the last days of your billing period.

• Use Wi-Fi whenever you can

Often, through forgetfulness or lack of habit, we use up our mobile data plan while in a location with free Wi-Fi . To avoid this and still be able to take advantage of the Wi-Fi connection, it's best to always have the "Automatically detect and connect to a Wi-Fi network" feature enabled . If you're in a restaurant, bar, cafe, library, etc., with free Wi-Fi, don't hesitate to ask for the password ... then browse freely, without wasting data! Remember that Wi-Fi is one of the best ways to save money.

• Read posts and articles with TextOnly

If you're someone who likes to read articles and news via Twitter or Facebook , the TextOnly app is for you.

Keep in mind that many of these articles aren't on a mobile-optimized website or contain a large number of images and other large files. With TextOnly , you can view only the text document (excluding images, banners, etc.), allowing you to read the entire article while significantly reducing data usage.

• Use an image previewer

  
  

As in the previous point, we often access links to image hosting services that host an image or photo (twitpic, yfrog, imgur, flickr, etc.), which requires us to load the entire page (with its associated files) just to view the image. However, if you use a previewer , you can save yourself this unnecessary overhead, as it will show you only the image you're interested in in a pop-up window. Some of these previewers are Image Viewer Free or Movapic Previewer .

• Use a lightweight browser

  
  

Even if you don't realize it, when you use a browser, your smartphone is using data, although not all browsers use the same amount of data. To avoid this data consumption, it's best to avoid using the default browser on your Android device and instead download a more efficient, less expensive browser, such as Opera Mini.

What do you think of these tips? Do you know any other tricks we haven't mentioned? We hope that with these simple recommendations, you'll be able to reduce your data usage and make your data last much, much longer.