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Ask Slashdot: Measuring (and Constraining) Mobile Data Use?
An anonymous reader writes: I've carried a smart phone for several years, but for much of that time it's been (and I suspect this is true for anyone for whom money is an object) kept pretty dumb — at least for anything more data-intensive than Twitter and the occasional map checking. I've been using more of the smart features lately (Google Drive and Keep are seductive.) Since the data package can be expensive, though, and even though data is cheaper than it used to be, that means I don't check Facebook often, or upload pictures to friends by email, unless I'm in Wi-Fi zone (like home, or a coffee shop, etc). Even so, it seems I'm using more data than I realized, and I'd like to keep it under the 2GB allotment I'm paying for. I used to think half a gig was generous, but now I'm getting close to that 2GB I've paid for, most months.
This makes me a little paranoid, which leads to my first question: How accurate are carriers' own internal tools for measuring use, and do you recommend any third-party apps for keeping track of data use? Ideally, I'd like a detailed breakdown by app, over time: I don't think I'm at risk for data-stealing malware on my phone (the apps I use are either built-in, or plain-vanilla ones from Google's store, like Instagram, Twitter's official client, etc.), but of course really well-crafted malware would be tough to guard against or to spot. And even if they can be defeated, more and more sites (Facebook, for one) now play video just because I've rolled over a thumbnail. Read on for second part of the question. Second, what tools or tips can you offer for doling out my data more carefully? Can you name some apps that actually do a good job of minimizing data transfer, or managing apps' data use to at least to look harder for a Wi-Fi connection? I know Opera Mobile uses compression to minimize data transfer, and I'm sure it's possible to turn off many of the annoying sound-bearing ads of the world.
In short, what are some ways to get the most use from my limited data allotment, and be mindful about the ways I *do* spend it? This will be even more important if, as I hope, my next laptop has built-in data service. Web sites are I suspect only going to want to use more of my bandwidth in the future, even if it does get slightly cheaper. Nowadays, browsers have made it a chore even to do things like turn off images, never mind dancing, animated ads. Turning off images used to save my 56k dialup bandwidth, and the concept here is the same. (Google doesn't exactly make turning off images in Chrome friendly enough for my mom.)
(I'm using an Android phone, but I'm sure there are iPhone users who'd like to know the answers to parallel question for Apple gear. I can't be the only one who finds cavalier bandwidth sucking by web pages to be a blood-pressure-raising offense, when I'm paying for each expensive byte. There are lots of places where even wired connections are expensive, but at least with a wired network connection things like Squid can be deployed.)
Have a question for Slashdot's readers? Take a look at other recent questions first to see if someone else has had a similar question. And if not, ask away! The more details and context you include, the more likely your question will be selected.
This makes me a little paranoid, which leads to my first question: How accurate are carriers' own internal tools for measuring use, and do you recommend any third-party apps for keeping track of data use? Ideally, I'd like a detailed breakdown by app, over time: I don't think I'm at risk for data-stealing malware on my phone (the apps I use are either built-in, or plain-vanilla ones from Google's store, like Instagram, Twitter's official client, etc.), but of course really well-crafted malware would be tough to guard against or to spot. And even if they can be defeated, more and more sites (Facebook, for one) now play video just because I've rolled over a thumbnail. Read on for second part of the question. Second, what tools or tips can you offer for doling out my data more carefully? Can you name some apps that actually do a good job of minimizing data transfer, or managing apps' data use to at least to look harder for a Wi-Fi connection? I know Opera Mobile uses compression to minimize data transfer, and I'm sure it's possible to turn off many of the annoying sound-bearing ads of the world.
In short, what are some ways to get the most use from my limited data allotment, and be mindful about the ways I *do* spend it? This will be even more important if, as I hope, my next laptop has built-in data service. Web sites are I suspect only going to want to use more of my bandwidth in the future, even if it does get slightly cheaper. Nowadays, browsers have made it a chore even to do things like turn off images, never mind dancing, animated ads. Turning off images used to save my 56k dialup bandwidth, and the concept here is the same. (Google doesn't exactly make turning off images in Chrome friendly enough for my mom.)
(I'm using an Android phone, but I'm sure there are iPhone users who'd like to know the answers to parallel question for Apple gear. I can't be the only one who finds cavalier bandwidth sucking by web pages to be a blood-pressure-raising offense, when I'm paying for each expensive byte. There are lots of places where even wired connections are expensive, but at least with a wired network connection things like Squid can be deployed.)
Have a question for Slashdot's readers? Take a look at other recent questions first to see if someone else has had a similar question. And if not, ask away! The more details and context you include, the more likely your question will be selected.
Why would you want to turn off ads? If you could do that, there's no point in these companies spending all their time and energy producing the device.
Just use a sane carrier like T-Mobile or similar that gives everyone unlimited data and just throttles you after that. I never even think about it.
Android has a built in data meter (at least in Cyanogenmod/AOSP). Go under mobile data and it will break it down by app.
Now install DroidWall and disable network access for your apps that don't need it. I walked out of my house once listening to a YouTube "video" lecture (screen off via XPosed plugin) and blew through my entire 300MB data plan on that.
2GB is crazy-high usage if you're trying to be conservative - I have email and calendar sync and occasional photo uploads on trips and rarely have to buy an extra data card.
I presume you have to own your phone (be "rooted") to do such useful things. Being slashdot this should be safe to assume.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
My best recommendation would be to turn off all apps (disable them) that you do not use. TCTB (The Carriers That Be(TM)) load phones up with worthless tripe applications that continually "phone home" or check for updates or blah blah blah. This has reduced my data usage 25%.
All your apps that have no actual need for network connectivity should come from F-Droid.
I have an iPhone5S w/VZW and find their tools to be 100% spot on. Between my wife and I, we end up right at our 4GB limit each month and sometimes we're in airplane mode + wifi for a day or more in order to make it under the wire. I feel VZW's own tools are just fine for monitoring my bandwidth, at least at this point in time.
Many of you will ask why we just don't add more to our plan. Well, that's simple: I don't believe that carriers should be able to charge what they do for the limited amount of bandwidth they provide; data is the new SMS (something I also refused to pay for when I was on AT&T and instead forced the carrier to block all incoming SMS to my phone and I used Google Voice + iMessage to avoid paying for it).
YMMV.
I would see what apps are the most egregious, make sure you are on wifi at work and home and go from there. You can also look into cyanogen or other roms for your phones that allow you to turn data off at the app level.
Also, look into ting, since now you can use GSM or CDMA phones on their service. Well worth it.
Silence is a state of mime.
Once (upon a time) they existed. Don't (and, this is hard) let them switch you to a new plan (no matter how much they try to)!
Also (please), stop using so many parenthesis in your writing (it's like reading LISP).
Here's another idiot who can't keep his phone clean from malware and then complains about his data usage. If i had a dime for each time i meet one of these morons...
tcpdump it all and then sort it out packet by packet.
Android 4.0.4 on a Sprint device has "System Settings" "Wireless & Networks" "Data usage". It lets you set a "warning", a "limit", shows a graph of cumulative usage over the past month, and also breaks down traffic by app.
note: I have at least one, possibly two other, Slashdot accounts because OpenID creds can't be merged with an older acco
I'm sure you're going to get a lot of posts about Droidwall and things like that, so I won't bother. Instead, I thought I'd mention the app Greenify. Its intended use is for improving battery life by keeping apps from running when you aren't actively using them, but apps that aren't running can't use data, so it can also help you out there.
do you recommend any third-party apps for keeping track of data use?
On Android? No. Data usage is a baked in feature since forever ago, including an app by app breakdown, warning levels and mobile data cutoff limit. Just use that - it should be buried in settings somewhere.
As far as data limiting tools, the only thing like that I've ever used is DroidWall, which is just a simple GUI for IPTables. It does require root (!) but once installed you can hand out network privileges (Roam, Data, WiFi, all independently) on an app by app basis. This lets you keep data crazy apps from ever touching a cell tower (WiFi only), or apps that have no good reason to be calling the outside world from doing so. Just be warned that a blacklist by default policy means installing a new app isn't just as simple as pushing install - you also have to remember to set it's network rights, or most mobile apps won't work as designed. All that said, I'll admit that DroidWall isn't a perfect solution for what you're looking for (requires root, no way of throttling an app, just yes/no access) but it might still be useful.
I use AFWall+, which is an update of the abandoned DroidWall, which is just a front end for Linux iptables. It lets me pick and choose which apps are allowed to transmit over cellular, wifi (LAN), and/or wifi (Internet). Most of the apps which have no business using data and are probably using it to send back tracking info, I simply prohibit from ever transmitting any data. I have an unlimited data plan so I use this for privacy reasons, not limiting data. But I typically only use about 150-300 MB/mo unless I do something like stream a video over cellular.
It requires root. I see in the similar apps section of the above link that there are other firewall apps out there which don't require root, though I have not tried them. Also, the latest version of AFWall+ is nearly a year old and has a bug with Lollipop which makes it fail to connect to wifi networks. You have to disable it (use the widget), connect to wifi (use WiFi Manager's widget), then re-enable it. Kinda annoying and digging through xda forums it seems someone already came up with a fix for it, it just hasn't been integrated into the baseline code yet.
Bennett will answer this for us all... whether we want him to or not!
A gigabyte of data transmitted over the public Internet is not worth a dollar, much less $10. Carriers do not *need* to charge that much, but they choose to because it's profitable and you don't have any other choices.
Well, you do, kinda. You can "rent" an unlimited data plan from someone who has one grandfathered on Verizon or AT&T, on eBay. It'll be expensive, but if you use data like nobody's business, it's the best way to go. Don't do this if you plan to "sip" data, though, or you'll end up paying MORE than you would with a cheap limited plan.
Then there's T-Mo as someone else mentioned, but they have the huge downside that you get throttled after a certain amount of data. And the throttling is brutal. You can barely function after you're throttled for the month. It'd be fine -- great, even -- if they reduced it to 25% of full speed. But no, they bump you down to what basically amounts to 2G, if it isn't *actually* 2G. This is not a practical Internet connection for most purposes because everything will timeout trying to use it.
Then there's Sprint. I think they're still selling unlimited data plans without throttling *in most cases*, but if you're in the top 5% of users AND you're in a congested area (cell tower is saturated), they'll throttle you.
I'd rather have T-Mo OR Sprint over a "hard cap" data plan with overage fees beyond the cap. But my preference is still for the unlimited data plan I have from Verizon. I don't have any good suggestions for how to manage your data with a 2 GB cap because I would be unable to do that myself. I don't think it's a reasonable cap and it's not acceptable in 2015. The minimum plan should be 10 GB and they should make that as cheap as their current minimum plan.
The carriers have got to stop gouging the public for access to Internet services. It's killing the economy because so many other businesses besides the carriers depend on customers having unrestricted Internet access to profit from customers demanding their services.
Analogy: If you can't afford to pay the toll at the toll bridge, how are you going to get to the other side of the river and buy a new car at the dealership there? Well, you won't - the car dealership will go out of business for lack of customers. This is actually happening in the digital economy today.
Do you have wifi at home and work? If so, turn the phone off, put it in airplane mode, or shut off cellular data; you are doing something wrong if you think you are a light user and are consuming more than 1GB/month. I do video conferencing, web meetings, VNC, and a few other data-intensive uses, and am around 1GB/month (up from 250MB though a year or two ago).
With the iPhone you get application-specific cellular data usage, and you can limit applications' access; I assume Android does the same. For my iPhone, about half of my usage is system services and the app store (needed to replace phone while on the road, so I had to download everything over cell).
Every once in a while I go through my settings and turn off each app's use of cellular data, except for a few obvious ones (like Google Maps) There's a ton of apps that phone home/check for updates/adds/notifications/etc.and that all ads up...
"There are people who do not love their fellow human being, and I _hate_ people like that!" - Tom Lehrer
You're in a bad situation where you carrier is billing you, and you have to pay. You don't get to question the data.
That said... use the Android data limits, have it warn you at a certain level, and turn off data when you reach your limit.
Uninstall Facebook, their app is disgusting in the way it consumes data. Auto-playing videos, messaging app on all the time in the background, refreshing itself with no option to disable it. It was by far and above the worst offending app, even with most options disabled, that I've ever had installed on my phone.
A lot of apps have options like "Only download big files over wifi" turn as many of those on as possible. Most google apps have features like that, like Picasa can be set to only backup while in wifi. Do everything you can over wifi.
One thing I'd like android to do more of is give more options for wifi usage. It seems to treat all open wifi the same, which is certainly not the case now that a lot of wifi requires login. I don't want my phone just using my work wifi willy nilly for example.
As far as Apple goes... if you've got an iPhone, you clearly don't value money anyway, so your question is moot in those cases. :-P
How do you roll over a thumbnail on a smart phone?
I use Avast firewall. On it, I can select what kind of internet access all my programs can have: Wifi only, data plan + Wifi, or none.
For me, is good enough.
I don't see on what grounds a court could strike down an "Unlimited with the first x GB at blazing fast speed" claim for a carrier that falls back to dial-up speeds after the subscriber exceeds his quota. It's still unlimited, even if on EDGE.
imo, some carriers (AT&T, are you listening?) use marginal techniques to make you buy more data. I'd make sure a carrier's apps are not sucking up my data allotment.
The only data hog I got on my iPhone is the Wall Street Journal app. If I'm not careful to use the wifi connection on the express bus, I'll get an email warning towards from Sprint near the end of the billing cycle that I'm approaching the 1GB cap. Otherwise, my typical data usage is under 300MB per month.
All your apps that have no actual need for network connectivity should come from F-Droid.
Which leaves what for single-player games? Free software has tended to lag at producing compelling video games that aren't flat-out clones. Or would you consider the online leaderboard an "actual need for network connectivity"?
Started using "My Data Manager" recently on android. It shows data by app per time period. There's a lot of other stuff out there, probably plenty better and plenty worse, and probably most of it free like this one. Still...it seems pretty invaluable. I just use it to see which apps are using way more data than they ought to on my unlimited plan, but it also lets you set alarms, and it differentiates between wifi/phone data use.
Most mobile web browsers make it difficult to keep a device "clean from malware" that is written in JavaScript and served through advertising networks. Without wiping a device to root it, for example, there's no way to install a third-party firewall.
I have a stock Nexus 5 with Lollipop (Android 5.something) and they put in a pretty excellent data meter under Settings | Data Usage
It shows a cumulative graph of data usage over time, and a linear projection up to the end of the month for your billing plan, along with a customizable warning threshold. Under that it lists a histogram of how many MB is used by each app. Click on those, and you can configure background data for each app to restrict them to only update on wifi (or not at all).
This is pretty much a solved problem if you can convince your phone manufacturer to update you to Android 5 (or just flash a CyanogenMOD build yourself like I used to do on every phone I had before my Nexus 5)
I found that getting my voicemail from my phone sucked up cellular data unnecessarily. Try getting voicmail with cellular data turned off. It will call the voicemail number instead of playing the recording over cellular channels. Alternatively, you can ignore voicemail.
needed to replace phone while on the road, so I had to download everything over cell
Was there not a restaurant on the way where you could grab a bite while your package manager could also grab a byte?
You need to work big to small here, and your focus seems almost backward.
The things you mention as concerns are relatively data-light: Avoiding checking facebook through the app, or turning off image loading in the browser aren't really going to save you much unless you're hitting very image-heavy pages often*. You can spend a ton of time working to minimize these and in the end you won't save much--as a hint, if you were doing it on a 56k modem (even if it was "bandwidth-heavy" then), then it's probably not a significant bandwidth user in this day and age.
Meanwhile the things you're dismissive of are exactly the sort of things that can suck bandwidth: Google Drive can be using arbitrarily huge amounts of data depending on how you use it. Instagram is the definition of "very image-heavy", unless you're pretty selective about its use.
*Blocking videos in the browser can be a big win, but IME autoplay videos are extremely rare on mobile
rage, rage against the dying of the light
How do you roll over a thumbnail on a smart phone?
In context, I think it's referring to video that some apps start as soon as the user scrolls past it. Also tethering, and "This will be even more important if, as I hope, my next laptop has built-in data service."
Apps can never background update if you have your 3g radio off except when you're using it. As an extra bonus, it also saves you tons of battery (I turn off wifi and gps when I'm not using them, too, even though they don't cost any money to leave on). If I turn my 3g on and immediately notice it start flashing like something is using data, that's a big red flag, then I investigate what's doing it.
I'm a huge fan of Ting - when it was just me using it by myself (now we've merged several accounts, so bookkeeping would be more complicated), my phone bill was usually an amazingly low ~16 bucks after taxes and fees. I got that because I rarely went above the lowest data bracket of only 100 MB. I used data as much as I needed to - I was just mindful of it. Occasionally I'd go above 100 MB and have to pay an extra ~10 bucks that month for the 500 MB bucket, which I was alright with. I can't even imagine needing 2 GB, though. (Now me and my wife have a combined 500 MB bucket for a couple dollars more each, which is even nicer. We *never* go above that.)
There may not be any need to panic and start fixating on what every little app is doing.
But then again, there might. How is one to know? That's the biggest problem I have with the mobile telecom computing model. I have no idea what the apps do, and no way, other than make it my life's work, to find out.
I hate having to trust the OS provider that everything is properly sandboxed, that none of the apps in their stores are malware, etc. What's going on, inside this box?
Your carrier charges you based on what they know you used so the carrier tool is your best bet.
keep your phone for years or get something on the level of a phone from 2 years ago and use it for email, texting, etc. get a tablet with at least 96GB of storage and use that for media on the go. or put a sd card into your phone for music. don't rely on the cloud. if you use spotify or something similar the premium accounts let you download music to your phone and play it from there
My Android phone has a data measuring tool built-in and also warns and stops when you hit the limit. It's not rocket-science, it's already there in the settings on any vaguely recent phone (fuck knows about Apple, because I don't care about them).
If you don't have a vaguely recent phone then install something like Onavo, which does exactly that.
Also, if you're doing 2Gb on a mobile, stop using the mobile for data, connect to Wifi, or up your package. How hard is this? Pissing about shrinking images hasn't done much since the days of Opera Mobile and WAP.
This is Slashdot and you HAVEN'T worked this shit out?
On my Android devices I play mostly emulators
Where should one (lawfully) obtain ROM images for these emulators now that Retrode is out of production?
text adventures
How does text input work on those? Is there any attempt to work around the limits of the on-screen keyboard that ships with Android OS?
If you browse the web, make sure you have adblock activated. Firefox supports this.
Also in android there's a built-in feature to allow you to see which app that consumes most bandwidth.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
For iOS users that somehow haven't heard, it'll be possible to write content blockers for Safari in iOS 9, and someone has already implemented one as a test that significantly reduces the amount of data that mobile sites use. (Using iMore as a test, he got page load times down from 11s to 2s, and reduced the amount of data transfer from something as high as 14MB in some cases down to 4MB.)
That seems like something that those of us that are concerned about data limits should immediately get on.
I'm not sure why you are fretting about data use when there are plenty of unlimited plans available (You didn't say where you live, so I'm guessing US based on slashdot user base). Telecommunications companies have been making an effort to push us all into tiered / limited data plans mostly to boost their bottom lines. T-Mobile offers 2 lines with unlimited data for $100 a month - so why accept limited data from a-holes like ATT or Verizon? Show them what you think of their policies by giving your money to their competitors instead.
Chrome has a "Data Saver" feature in settngs; enable that.
I think it compresses and/or down-scales images on a proxy before sending them to your device.
My Data Saver reports that it has saved me 32% in the last 30 days sample.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.netspark.firewall
"With Mobiwol No Root Firewall you can - ...
* Easily Allow/Block App Connectivity
* Block background app activity
* Be Alerted When New Apps Access the Internet
Secure your phone or tablet, with reliable Android firewall protection - No ROOT access required!"
I use https://play.google.com/store/... (Internet Speed Meter Lite), it runs up the top left of your notification bar, and tracks your wifi data/mobile data usage (separately), and also displays your current speed
Windows Phone tells you exactly how much data each "app" or part of the OS uses. Easily limitable, too. Sucks for Android/ios users.
I don't respond to AC's.
Multi-part answer:
- carriers often misrepresent data numbers. The method most use when on the "native" network are accurate, but issues creep in when devices roam on to other carrier networks , either domestically due to coverage limits and carrier-carrier roaming agreements, or international roaming. How much an issue this is depends on which country you are in. Generally phones sleep & wake, reconnecting to the network. Often the roaming agreements cross charge for connections, as well as data. To make your bill "easier" to read, they simply present the connection fees as data usage of an equivalent cost.
This is partially why you see stories of people traveling overseas, not using their phones much, but leaving them on and still racking up large roaming fees.
So if you roam , your data usage numbers from the carrier are likely going to be dodgy, and over estimate how much you used.
For iOS, in Settings -> Cellular, you can see it tracks it on the device, down to the App or individual service , and you can toggle cellular data usage on or off for individual Apps whenever you like. eg if you wanted to disable you streaming radio service (whatever your favorite one is) or podcast player from using cellular , you can do so really easily . You can also reset counters if you want to test over a particular period of time. Managed devices give MDM some control of this stuff as well, eg when MDM has installed an App, it can prevent it from using cellular data by policy.
On Android , it varies widely be what version , device, carrier you have. In general later 4.4.x and 5.x devices start to get similar UI to the iPhone, and in some cases better. Cyanogen has good UI for this. On earlier builds of Android you might need to install a firewall and use that .
The further complexity is does the carrier treat the data usage of its Apps that re built in to the OS as part of your data plan not. Some do , some don't.
Further complicating the data is how does the carrier bill ? Upload & download ? Download only ? It can get tricky.
These days, I'd consider 2 GB/month a light usage plan for someone who is away from wifi most of their day. eg an OTA OS update could blow that limit easily, or even if you were in a country with decent LTE , and a capable phone - if you can download at 20-40 MBit per second, 2 GB can be burnt through quite quickly without perhaps realising. If you are capped by your carrier at say 1.5 Mbit, it's less likely to sneak up on you
I use the carriers tool. It may be gouging me (mobile carriers are notorious for "padding" the amount of data you pay for), but without thousands of dollars for court, that is the one that my bill is based on.
I use Verizon Wireless with an iPhone. This gives me two levels of data overage. My philosophy is - I'm paying for 2GB, nothing wrong with using it.
Check with your carrier - I'm sure they all have similar features. Here's what VZW & iOS offers...
First: VZW offers to send me text messages when I get to ~80% and 90% of my monthly usage. Enable that.
Second: iPhone now has "widgets" and VZW created a data usage one. So I can now see a % progress bar in the notification screen.
Third: I've configured my phone and certain apps to only download data on Wifi. App patches, podcast downloads etc. If I want something Now! on cell-data I'll manually pull it.
And finally - VZW stops me if I reach my allotted data plan. I haven't yet maxed it out because I spend most of my time on WiFi. I let photo uploads occur anytime.
There's no harm on my plan for reaching 100% usage...other than data stops.
On Android 4.4 I could toggle my cell data on and off with a swipe and a press. Android 5.1 has broken that simplicity, so now it's a swipe, a press, a careful swipe and another press (thanks, Google, for making that harder). I can toggle background data access on and off from the same widget bar. I just turn it on when I need it and off when I don't. The rest of the time I use wi-fi. I set my podcast app to only update and download on wi-fi, so I have plenty to listen to on my commutes without consuming my cell plan at all.
Has Safari for iOS added a way to block HTML5 video ads from even starting? If so, in what version?
1. I remain on old fashioned phones with only talk and SMS on a PAYG (Pay As You Go) scheme. 2. I use computer based data only via WiFi or Ethernet work, home or Public Wifi. My costs are about GBP £2 per month (say USD3 per month) fro phones (two of them on separate networks so roaming and dead spots are minimiseed) 3. I see no reason for a data phone or visual 'apps' outside my base (home,work or pub) 4. Maybe because I am a canny Scot I do not like transfering my cash to others. 5 Organise your life to suit your cash available.
Regards Eion MacDonald
I have this feature in my Blackberry Q10 that sends me an alert when I get to 70% of my allotted data for the month. I can set the amount I'm allotted and the phone keeps track of ALL data usage from all apps - even tethering. It's quite nice really.
Sorry, if you don't use Blackberry. Maybe you should.
Sorry, I don't feel like logging in...
Ghostery has a nice little browser for Android with the Ghostery plugin baked in. I installed it on an S4 to help limit unintended data usage and am very happy with the performance.
For Android, I use Onovo and My Verizon Mobile. Onovo gives me a widget. MVM gives me an exact number and a date/time when the reading was taken. It also allows you to set an alarm for when you get close to going over. The two numbers are always very similar, though I suppose they could both be wrong.