How To Minimize Android Data Consumption

Three weeks back I bought my first android Smartphone, the Sony Ericsson Xperia 10. Before buying the phone, I was using a BlackBerry 9800 with Airtel monthly BIS subscription and I thought all was well. Well, the android phone did what I never expected. The 1GB data allocated to monthly BIS subscription with Airtel was finished within the first week of the service.

Though some people might see 1GB data as a small allowance, as an engineering student who is always busy reading, it takes me up to three – four weeks before I exhaust my data when I was using a BlackBerry device. This made think in the first place there is something wrong with this device, the Xperia 10.

After a long research online, I found out that the problem with data consumption is not from the device, but the OS. The sony xperia 10 runs on an android 2.1 gingerbread and the android operating system has a well known feature of consuming data due to some reasons listed below.

Android users get their updates wirelessly compared to other operating systems like iOS which does its software updates over a wired connection via iTunes.
It has a higher percentage of free apps compared to other platforms, and most of those apps monetize through ads.
Android users are more savvy, the platform gets it popularity due to the ability to modify it. This is why most android users are programmers and tech enthusiast.
It’s ability to tether easier than other device.
The ability to multi-task easily, android lets lot of apps to run in the background.
After finding out the real cause of this problem, I decided to go for an unlimited internet data plan but was discouraged due to the fact that I don’t use my smartphone very well and that will a waste of money.

So, I went on the internet again to find ways I can minimize internet data consumption of my android phone and luckily, I came across DroidWall App. This android firewall app is a front-end application that allows you to restrict which applications are permitted to access your data networks. This is a perfect solution if you don’t have an unlimited data plan, or just wants to see your battery last longer.

To download this app to your android smartphone, a search for “DroidWall” on android market would provide the app for a free download.  After a successful download, click on Mode to switch between white list and black list modes, mark the applications that you want to block or allow, then open the menu and enable the firewall.

If you want to quickly enable or disable the firewall, add the DroidWall widget to your home screen. You can also set a password lock for DroidWall by using the set password menu  option. You can also set it to blank if you want to remove the password protection.