Web pages have increased in size over the years and if you use your Android phone to visit websites, you will see your data usage climb up by 3-4MB on an average for each web page you open. This could cost you a lot when you are charged by your carrier for your mobile data by the number of bytes transferred.
Do you know that you can reduce your mobile data usage dramatically by simply using a data saving browser on your Android phone? In this post, we will take a look at how Android browsers can help you reduce your internet data usage. We have also included some handy tips to reduce your mobile data usage at the end of the article, do make sure to read them to save more bandwidth.
Best Data Saving Browsers on Android
When it comes to saving data on your Android device, make sure that you are using a browser that allows you to turn on the data saving option. The data saving option usually works by routing the website data through browser’s own servers and delivering you an optimized version of the web page with reduced image sizes and stripping down ads.
There are many such browsers in the Google Play Store including Google’s own Chrome browser. Find below our top 10 picks for data saving browsers available for free download on Android:
1. Opera Mini
Opera Mini has always been the most popular data saving browser and even on Android, it does a great job in optimizing the web pages delivered to you. Opera Mini also includes an ad-blocking feature which can save you additional data. Through the settings menu, you can see how much data Opera Mini is saving you. The only downside of using Opera Mini is that some of the websites may not display and work as expected. Read our complete review of Opera Mini.
2. Google Chrome
Google Chrome is a fast and secure browser from Google and it offers a built-in data saving option that you can turn on by going to settings. While the data saving may not be as much as that of Opera Mini, Chrome does an excellent job in rendering the web pages even with the data saving turned on. On the downside, lack of inbuilt ad-block option may turn some users away from this browser, however, this may change in future.
3. UC Browser
UC Browser is another popular browser available on Android which offers inbuilt data saving as well as ad-block options. UC browser also speeds up and stabilizes downloads. It can resume downloads even in the case of a disconnection or interruption which can reduce wastage of data. UC browser packs many additional features and showcases promoted websites and news which may not be desirable to everyone.
4. UC Browser Mini
UC Browser Mini is a lightweight version of UC Browser with trimmed down features to occupy less storage space. It also includes a data saving option.
5. Yandex Browser
Yandex browser on Android offers an automatic turbo mode which speeds up the loading of web pages and images when the internet connection is slow. The browser also integrates with third-party plugins to offer ad-blocking.
6. APUS Browser
APUS is a tiny sized browser (2MB) which offers speed mode and no-image mode to save your mobile data. You can also save web pages offline to read later with this browser. On the downside, users have reported advertisement being shown by the browsers while surfing the web which may be annoying.
7. CM Browser
CM (Clean Master) Browser is a lightweight browser offering in-built ad blocking and smart video downloading which allows you to download and save video files from multiple websites for offline viewing.
8. mCent Browser
mCent Browser is a free web browser for Android devices that rewards you with mobile recharge while you surf the net. It offers “Text Only” setting which allows you to surf the web without the images thereby saving data. It also offers ad-blocking, smart download and “save for offline” features.
9. Flynx
Flynx browser on Android allows you to view websites and articles without the ads and unnecessary clutter, saving you lot of mobile data. It displays news articles and blogs in a trimmed down version allowing you to focus only on meaningful content. You can also save the articles for reading offline.
10. Puffin Web Browser
Puffin speeds up mobile browsing by doing resource intensive computations on cloud servers, along with compressing the data transferred to your phone before rendering a web page. This can reduce the data usage as well as improve battery life of your phone. However, the bad news is that Puffin Web Browser may not work outside US and is even blocked in some countries.
Data Saving Tips for Android
While using a data saving browser can certainly reduce your mobile data usage, however, if you want to cut down your data cost further then find below a few handy tips to achieve that:
- Turn off mobile-data when you are not using the phone.
- Restrict or terminate apps in the background that eat your data.
- Restrict app updates to Wifi only.
- Download content that you consume often like YouTube videos to make them available offline.
- Monitor data used by apps and uninstall data-hungry apps and games.
- Play games with data turned off to save on bandwidth consumed by the game to display advertising.
- Use one of the data saving browsers we listed above to reduce data usage while browsing websites.
We have also written a more in-depth guide on how to save mobile data on your Android phone, which you may want to read. Which one of the above-listed browsers do you use to save data on Android? Let us know in comments below.
