How to Minimize the Use of Internet Data on Smartphone or Tablet?

Okay, who likes to waste internet data everyday? Well, I believe no one does, including you. But the truth is, today many people love to check their social media accounts too often every single minute, even few seconds.

Although it’s good to stay updated with the latest news using these apps, checking out your social media accounts every minute definitely will squeeze a lot of your data because your device will download many contents like images, sounds or videos from these apps.

If your budget for internet data is unlimited, then it’s fine for you if you want to keep checking out your phone every minute, even every few seconds just to see the latest tweets, photos on Instagram or videos on Snapchat.

However, if you have limited internet data every month, then it’s really important for you to start changing your habit in order to save your internet data so you can still a lot left whenever you need it the most.

Okay, in the following list below, I’m about to show you my 9 personal tips that I always use to save my internet data every day. Hopefully you can also apply them to your device from now on.


If you want to become well aware about the use of your internet data every minute, you definitely need a data monitoring app. With this app, you can easily detect how many data you’re currently using in real-time.

There are actually tons of data monitoring apps available on Google Play Store or App Store. I actually have already tried some but I think many of them are not that great.

But thankfully, I found a great data monitoring app called “Data Monitor”, developed by KUMobileBand.

The great thing about this app is Data Monitor has a cool feature that can give you information about your current download speed, upload speed, as well as how many data you are currently using right now.

I’ve actually already showed you this app in my previous post. So you better check it out if you want to learn more about this app and how to use it.


If you want to start saving your internet data, the easiest thing to do is turn off the internet connection of your device whenever you don’t need it.

I know that quick data toggle has been removed by Google since Lollipop OS. So you cannot use quick data toggle anymore on any apps. Thankfully, there’s a workaround for this, which requires you to root your device.

But if you're still hesitant to root your device, you can still use the traditional way to turn OFF your internet data by going through Setting > Data Usage > and then tapping on the data toggle.


Well, most people definitely love to use email clients such as Gmail or Yahoo Mail. Not only can you get the full email features from these apps, you will also be notified everytime you receive a new email in your inbox with pop-up notifications.

However, even though these email client apps are great and useful, they actually can squeeze a lot of your data because they will keep using your internet connection every few seconds in order to check new emails in your accounts.

So I think it’s time for you to start using simple web browsers like Opera Mini to check out your emails. Well, it’s fast and Opera mini is also really efficient with data usage. So you will not waste a lot of data everytime you check your emails.


If you are using Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other social media apps, then in default, you will receive push notifications everytime you get a new follower, a new mention, a new direct message from these apps.

Well, this of course will waste a lot of internet data especially if you log in to multiple accounts on each of these apps. So the best solution for this is turn off the push notification from all of these apps.

But the question is, how?

Well, it’s actually pretty easy. On Twitter, swipe the LEFT navigation menu > Setting > Notifications > Mobile Notifications > and slide the toggle OFF to stop receiving any notification. But if you log in to multiple accounts on this Twitter app, then you need to set it up again one by one on each account.

On Instagram, you just need to go to your profile > press the menu option on the TOP RIGHT > Push Notifications > and select “Off” on all the available options.

Meanwhile, on Facebook, you can turn off notifications by tapping on Ξ menu option > Account Setting (scroll down to the bottom) > Notifications > and turning off all the notifications by tapping on each of the post.


Many Android users out there are mostly browsing the net with Chrome, Firefox or Opera because these are great web browsers with the full features.

But they actually use a lot of your internet data because these web browsers will usually load the full PC version of some websites, not the mobile version.

But that will not happen if you use Opera Mini as your daily web browser from now on.

Not only is this web browser really fast when loading the page, but it’s also really efficient with data usage because Opera mini will usually compress the site before presenting it to the user.


Turning off then images when browsing the net is definitely the best solution to keep your internet data low in usage.

And this is pretty effective because images are usually the ones that slowly but surely eat a lot of your internet data when browsing the web.

But the question is, how exactly to turn off images on the web browser?

If you’re using Opera Mini, you can turn off the images by tapping on the Data Saving (Opera mini icon on the menu) > Images > and choose "Off".

If you’re using Mozilla Firefox on the other hand, you can download an add-on called “Mobile Image Blocker” to turn off the images from being loaded on this web browser.

But you can also use the traditional way by pressing menu option on the TOP RIGHT CORNER > Setting > Advanced > and then turning off the Images.


Even though active widgets like Twitter widget can help you stay updated with the latest tweets on your Twitter account, using this widget can waste a lot of your internet data because this widget is working continuously in the background in order to push new updates every few seconds.

So this is why, if you want to be more efficient and effective with your internet data usage, you must never use any of these widgets on your homescreen from now on.

You can actually use other simple but useful widgets like clock widget, photo gallery or music player. But it's best to not use any widget on your homescreen to improve battery life and also save your data.


The other most effective way to cut off the internet data usage on your device is by blocking some of your apps from using internet access.

There’s actually a new feature on Android OS called “Data Saver” that does exactly like that. Unfortunately, this feature is only available on the latest Android Nougat OS.

The good news is, there’s a workaround for this. And that is by using an app called DroidWall. However, this app requires you to root your device first.


Usually, if you’re using the latest version of Mozilla Firefox, everytime you go to the video page on YouTube, it will use your internet data to load the video, especially if your internet connection is fast.

Well, to solve this problem and prevent YouTube from loading the video automatically, you can use one useful add-on called “Toggle JavaScript Enabled”, which prevents any JavaScript from being loaded when browsing on any website, including YouTube.

But the coolest thing about this app is, you can still download the video on that video page by using an add-on called “YouTube Downloader 4K Download”, so you can download that YouTube video and watch it later offline, which totally saves a lot of your data.


Well there you go guys, my 9 personal tricks that I always use on my device to slash the use of my internet data. Hopefully, all of my tricks above can also help you become more efficient with the internet data usage on your device.

Anyway, what about you? What you usually do on your smartphone or tablet to save your internet data? Do you have any other tips that you would like to share with me.

Well, if you do, don't hesitate to voice your opinion on the comment section below. I'll be more than happier to hear yours.

Have any question? Leave your comment here!