Easy ways to save data on your Android.

Data plans we all know in Nigeria are quite expensive , and most times we use more data than we planned for, besides the occasional data zapping by network providers. These are a few ways to limit data consumption on your Android.

                                1. Ditch the Facebook app
It's pretty well known among Android users that the Facebook app is one of the biggest consumers of data, not to mention its high resource use and battery drain. So why not replace it with something less demanding? Even the lite version demands data too,  you could use shortcut from a browser like Uc Web or chrome.

                                 2. Make use of offline apps, games and services
Some apps and games require constant internet access to function: this can be simply a security measure or because they constantly need to retrieve data. There are some apps and games that don't require internet access at all after the initial download.


                                  3. Restrict background data
The easiest way to save data is to tell your apps (or the Android system itself) to restrict background data. Background data is all that internet traffic that goes on when you're not actually using an app: email syncing, feeds updating, weather widgets and so on.

You can also tell the Android system to restrict background data in Settings > Data usage > Restrict Background Data or for individual apps in Settings > Apps (depending on which version of Android you have). You can also change your sync settings for Google services in Settings > Accounts > Google > select the account and then check the services you don't want to sync 

4.Disable auto-updating apps

Another huge drain of your data allowance comes from the occasional bout of Google Play app updating. If you have the Play Store set to auto-update apps, even over a data connection, this could be chewing its way through your allowance every month without you even knowing.

                 5.Identify and limit/remove high consuming apps

In Settings > Data usage you can get a look at the apps which are consuming the most data both in the foreground and the background. This can be really useful for knowing which apps you should restrict.

Take Gmail, for example. On my phone, it has downloaded 451 MB of emails in the background. If I felt I didn't use the app enough to justify that much data use, I could remove the app, limit how often it syncs or prevent it from downloading attachments, all of which would reduce data consumption.