Tips to save data consumption

Unlimited data plans are still quite expensive, and users on limited data plans are always concerned about exceeding their data allowance. But fear not as you can easily save on limited mobile data, and even stretch it up to a month. So without further ado, here are seven simple tips to reduce data usage on your Android smartphone. Web browsing is one of the major data-hogging activities on our smartphones. Most of the websites have bulky advertisements that eat up a large chunk of data. But you can prevent this data drainage by using Chromes data compression feature. After activating the feature, Google takes over the data transfer between websites and the browser and optimises it for maximum savings. In order to activate the feature, you just need to open Chrome and tap on the 3-dot menu. Now go to Settings > tap on Data Saver, and you are all sorted. Some of the apps that we use consume a lot of data, even when the smartphone is not being used. This is essentially to get the notifications from apps in real-time and keep everything updated. However, not every app needs to stay active all the time. So you can easily select and restrict the data usage of individual apps as per your requirement. Just go to Settings > Data Usage, and select the app you want to restrict the data for. Now, toggle the switch with Restrict app background data label to off. You must try and refrain from updating the apps over cellular connections. This can be controlled by restricting auto-update feature of the Google Play store. Just go to the Google Play store and tap on the menu button. Then tap on Settings option and then select Auto-update apps button. Finally, select the Auto-update apps over Wi-Fi only option. Streaming videos and music eats up more data than you realize. So its best to avoid these activities while youre consuming mobile data. You can store music and videos on your device locally to avoid streaming. And if you have to stream music and videos anyway, make sure to set the streaming quality to low. There are some apps which enable you to cache important data locally. Some of these apps are Google Maps and Google Play. So try and cache as much content as you can when on a Wi-Fi network. This will help you enjoy the same content later, without having to waste mobile data. Real-time syncing and push notifications are all great, but they also mean that the smartphone has to keep polling the servers for fresh content regularly. Obviously, this takes up quite a share of the mobile data. So it is advisable to always keep a check on the account syncing settings and adjust them accordingly. Go to Settings > Accounts, and select the services you think are fit for push notifications. Try and download a good data management app to help you conserve data. These apps compress data and are capable of saving up to 50% data. They can also restrain some apps from accessing the data. Some of these apps are Opera Max or CM Data Manager.