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groingo
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# Posted: 3 May 2016 06:00pm - Edited by: groingo
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Those who know me know I truly enjoy reducing consumption of energy and dollars to achieve same goals.
The latest project has been reduction of power and cost as it applies to phone and internet.
That solution was relatively simple by moving to an internet capable smart phone...no more modems, routers and miniscule phone power demand, but there has been a catch....data costs are high so you have to set your phone up to accomplish tbis otherwise data costs can spiral out of control quick.
My solution has dramatically cut data consumption by nearly 90 percent.
First you need a serious browser, Opera mini is deceptively small at under 4 megs but is very flexible which allows you to taylor it for extreme data savings by compressing all data or eliminating it by reducing image or video quality or eliminating it all together.
Bottom line, you can tune your data usage, for me I want information only so seldom have images on and rarely watch any video, I am almost back to the days of the Bulliten board internet.
So, if you're an extreme reducer like myself it all comes together in baby steps.
True, this may not be your cup of stinky leaf tea, but it proves that there are always options!s
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Julie2Oregon
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# Posted: 3 May 2016 08:03pm
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Groingo, what do you do about ads? Webpages these days are laden with ads. The ones that tick me off are the pages with ads containing video loops that play over and over. Hate those things -- they take a bit to load, even with high speed internet, and have to be data hogs.
I don't mind basic ads. I understand the need for them and consider it a fair tradeoff for the valuable information I get from the sites.
I couldn't go that bare bones, as far as internet usage. I think I would find it frustrating. But kudos to you for making it work for you!
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MtnDon
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# Posted: 3 May 2016 08:28pm
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There are ad blockers for whatever browser you use. Keep in mind that many forums would not be able to exist without the ads we see and hopefully for the page owner, get clicked on once in a while. I can understand blocking ads when bandwidth use is critical. However, on our home DSL I don't bother to block as I generally ignore the ads. In some ways they do seem pointless to me as most of them are simply reminders of things I have already looked at.
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MtnDon
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# Posted: 3 May 2016 08:31pm - Edited by: MtnDon
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Interesting article on ad data vs editorial content...
It becomes obvious where some of your bandwidth use goes if you visit some sites frequently.
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silverwaterlady
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# Posted: 3 May 2016 09:10pm
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Sorry but I lived with limited Internet data when I was a over the road truck driver and I hated it.
I could not watch any video and had to watch my time on regular sites. I still went over because I needed to be able to communicate with people,check the weather and pay bills.
The only time I could watch any video was if I could find free wifi. 
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Julie2Oregon
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# Posted: 3 May 2016 11:22pm
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Quoting: silverwaterlady I still went over because I needed to be able to communicate with people,check the weather and pay bills.
Yep. In my mind, living rural makes quality Internet an important and necessary expense, both energy- and money-wise, for weather and news reports, bill-paying, connection to people, and entertainment. I can save money and power on other things in other ways but the Internet is "one-stop shopping" for doing many things from home, particularly in inclement weather, when you live many miles from services. It isn't something I want to skimp on and find myself caught short, despite constantly monitoring/limiting my usage.
Heck, with Amazon Prime, I could even order food/water via the Internet to be delivered in 2 days in a pinch!
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groingo
Member
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# Posted: 3 May 2016 11:56pm - Edited by: groingo
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Here goes:
Reguarding ads, Opera mini beta has a very effective ad blocker, that combined with the ability to operate with images off takes care of most ads while Opera's file compression halts push ads.
Content is the same, pages look the same and function tbe same but you can choose options like removing images to save data.
Another very effective setting within Android itself is to not allow programs to run in the background most like Google Play and all Apps are continually sending data back and forth to Google, just turn Google Play off when not using and any others or just Google Play which is the key conduit, so if its off the others are as well.
The entire data saving process allows you the options to do many things or not....it all depends on your need.
I pulled the plug on cable internet after 15 years of crummy service enough was enough.
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