Even if you follow gaming news casually, you’ve probably heard that Nintendo will restock the NES Classic Edition next month and keep it in stock for the rest of 2018. Last year, the NES Classic Edition quickly turned into a hard-to-find sensation, and Nintendo caught a lot of heat for ending its production run well before everyone who wanted one … Continue reading
Spigen has launched a crowdfunding campaign for a series of iPhone X cases designed after the iPhone 2G and iMac G3. The latter device — the G3 — was launched 20 years ago, bringing with it a unique, colorful design. Spigen has used that design as inspiration for its new iPhone X cases, bringing the nostalgic look to Apple’s latest … Continue reading
YouTube TV and Google Home have worked together to give you voice control over your live TV since last October. Now, the service is starting to roll out and test a voice-powered remote feature in its mobile app. We’ve seen the feature ourselves, so c…
If you go online on the go as much as I do, then you probably already know how easy it is to burn through a few Gigabytes of mobile data each month. Unfortunately, though, that won’t make the data plan’s check any less expensive. Thankfully, there are a few seamless ways of reducing mobile data usage, so let’s go through them.
Many 4G connections have speeds that would put basic home WiFi connection to shame, data consumption can happen very fast. Unless you are video streaming or loading a high res image, you should highly consider switching it off.
Going online when you are not home – or on the go – usually means casually checking social media; Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc. In that case, you could switch over to 3G. While loading time will increase a bit, consistent use of 3G for tasks like the aforementioned will definitely reduce your monthly data usage.
There are two ways of switching from 4G to 3G; either via your phone’s settings – if the manufacturer has included that option – or via an app.
One possible drawback about switching back to 3G is that as communications are slower, you may use less data, but the radio might stay ON for longer, which can negatively affect battery life.
To see if your device allows you to switch between 4G, 3G and 2G, open the Settings app>Network>SIM Cards & Mobile networks – the path might defer, depending on each phone’s UI – and look for an option named ‘Preferred network type’ – or something similar.
Select 3G.
If your phone does not support such an option, have no worries, since there is an app for that. While there are plenty of options on Play Store, we decided to go with ‘4G LTE Switcher’ primarily due to the fact that it works in a pretty straightforward way and it is ad-free.
As illustrated below, open the ‘Set Preferred Network Type’ tab and select the ‘WCDMA only’ option. To go back to using 4G and 3G, select the ‘LTE/TD-SCDMA/UMTS’ option.
This is by far the best thing to do. Your data consumption comes from two types of usage; foreground and background. Foreground usage accounts for the MBs you burn while using an app – like when you are watching a video on YouTube. Background usage accounts for the data that is being consumed by apps – wait for it – in the background, when you are not using them.
Thankfully, though, for years now, Android has a data monitoring option located somewhere in the Network section of the Settings menu. There a user can see each individual app’s background and foreground data consumption.
Go through the apps that consume most of your data and disable ‘Mobile’ usage for the ones that you rarely use on the go, though burn a considerable amount of data while working in the background.
Google Play can be the biggest data consumer of all if you let it auto-update apps on data. Why waste your precious MBs when you could just go home and update all of your apps for free?
Disabling auto-update via mobile data is pretty simple. Open the Play Store app, tap on the menu icon located in the top left-hand corner and swipe down until you find the ‘Settings’ tab. Tap on it and then select the ‘Auto-update apps’ tab. Select the ‘Auto-update apps over WiFi only’ option.
We recommend controlling background usage first. From there, you could switch over to 3G is needed but being aware of how data is consumed is your best bet. If you encounter any problems while trying out any of the above or have a recommendation to make, feel free to shoot a comment down below.
3 Ways To Reduce Data Usage on Android , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
There is no doubt that we store a lot of sensitive data to our phones these days; from sensitive photos and personal emails to a social security number and banking statements. Therefore, there is definitely a lot of data in there that you would want to keep away from any prying eyes.
Encrypting your phone is the most reasonable and efficient option here. Even if someone steals your phone, encryption will keep your data absolutely impenetrable. Having to buy a new phone is a small price to pay compared to having your privacy intruded.
Before the encryption process launches, you will be asked to plug your phone in to charge, thus eliminating the possibility of the device shutting down while the process is taking place.
If your Android smartphone is running on Android 4.4 or lower, you will have to set up a PIN or password before starting the encryption process. Head up to Settings > Security > Screen Lock and set it up. Once that is completed, go back to the Security menu and the process ensues as described above.
Ιf you are using an SD Card that does not just contain your music collection, then we would strongly recommend encrypting it as well, since, despite the internal storage being encrypted, a thief can still access the unencrypted SD card’s content by putting it into another phone or viewing it via USB on a computer.
The SD card encryption process is identical to the one described above. Just head back to the Security menu, and there you will see an option called ‘SD card encryption, or something to that effect.
Much like internal storage encryption, though, encrypting your SD card means that you will no longer be able to view its content in another device, other than the smartphone or tablet used to encrypt it – so bear that in mind before going any further.
Encryption on Android is a seamless process, so the device owner need no specific technical knowledge to use. It is worth noting a few things about encrypting your Android smartphone or tablet.
First and foremost, if you forget your encryption key then there is no way of accessing your data or using your phone unless you perform a complete factory reset – in which case all of your data will be erased. The same applies in the event that you wish to remove the encryption from your phone; it is something you’ll have to live with as long as you use the device.
Additionally, if you own a low-end device, using strong lock-screen password may be better for performance. The operating system makes use of device resources to encrypt the device (CPU, RAM etc.), and therefore in a low-end smartphone or tablet, performance issues could be noticeable. Did this work for you? Leave a comment below.
How To Encrypt Your Android Phone or Tablet , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner took the action after the defense requested to put her on the stand.
Thanks to leaks that surfaced last week, we had a feeling that Rage 2 might be in development, and today Bethesda confirmed it. Rage 2 was announced today with a one-minute long teaser trailer that’s very loud and in-your-face, so prepare your senses. Unfortunately, it doesn’t show off any in-game footage, so you might want to temper your expectations going … Continue reading
Today I’m going to show you how to get rid of mobile notifications entirely. I’ll start with a few major sources for notifications, and we’ll get a little more general. I’m not going to spend much time trying to convince you to throw your smartphone down a sewer drain today – but that IS the fastest way to do away … Continue reading
Guillermo del Toro, the director and writer behind The Shape of Water and other notable movies, will be creating an anthology horror show for Netflix. This isn’t del Toro’s first time working with the streaming company, but does underscore an expanded presence with the company, where his DreamWorks Trollhunters show won an Emmy. The upcoming anthology will be called Guillermo … Continue reading
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