Free apps & tricks to reduce your smartphone data consumption

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Need to use less data in your life? These free apps can help.

Free apps help reduce the amount of data you use

Opera Mini offers a way to dramatically reduce how much data you use on your smartphone.

This mobile browser reduces data consumption by 90% — so you can dramatically stretch your data plan with your carrier.

Opera Mini is available as a free download for Android, Apple, Blackberry, Windows and Symbian S60 smartphones. Because it only sips data, you may even be able to stay on a lower data plan when you’re using it. Plus, in my experience using Opera Mini, it’s really fast to boot!

So try downloading it. It will improve your web surfing and save you money on the data side.

Read more: These apps could save your life in an emergency

Another option for you to try would be Onavo, a free app that compresses data on your smartphone and saves you money. The compression process to your data is much like what cable and satellite TV companies do versus traditional over-the-air broadcast signals.

Tricks to reduce data usage & save battery life

There are a few popular apps that can not only drain your phone’s battery very quickly, but they can also eat up your data plan. (If  you have an iPhone, you can turn apps off by double clicking the ‘home’ button and then swiping up on each application so it stops running in the background while you’re doing other things or not using your phone.)

When you’re not using them, make sure these apps aren’t still running in the background:

  • Netflix
  • Weather apps
  • Facebook
  • Tumblr
  • Spotify
  • Pandora

If you want to save battery life and reduce your data usage, just turn all apps off when you’re finished using them.

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