If you are using a WiFi internet access in your smartphone then you really do not have anything to worry about as most of the WiFi access points offer unlimited download data access. Furthermore, some of the publicly available WiFi access points are completely free of charge. This is why you see people working on their notebooks and smartphones all around the day in coffee shops – they drink less coffee and use more WiFi. But if you are in an area with no WiFi access and have to depend on the mobile network data access, then it is going to cost you dearly. Fortunately, you can reduce the data consumption easily in Android by enable the Data Saver option for the Chrome web browser.
The Data Saver feature in Chrome is very similar to the Off Road mode of the Opera browser for Android and works in the same manner too. What it does is basically route your internet data through the Google’s servers, compressing the content before you receive it in your Chrome browser and this reducing the amount of data downloaded. you can enable the Data Saver feature in the following manner:
- Open Chrome web browser in your Android smartphone. Open a new tab, and touch the menu button on your device (usually near the left-bottom corner of the screen). Select Settings from the menu that appears.
- On the Settings screen, scroll down near the bottom and select Data Saver from under the Advanced section.
- On the Data Saver screen, you can enable it by touching the toggle button and switching it ON. After this all the websites you visit shall be routed through the Google servers and data downloaded shall be compressed before it is received by your device. You can later on check on this very screen, how much data has been saved by the Data Saver feature.
The Data Saver feature in Chrome does not compress the HTTPS resources that you want to access over the secure connections. Similarly, it does not compress the incognito pages as that would violate the whole concept of the incognito mode. It compresses only HTTP resources. Since all the data is being routed through the Google servers, it also protects you from malicious and phishing websites.
Conclusion: The Data Saver feature in Chrome browser for Android can save the data bandwidth consumption by compressing the downloaded content. In addition, it also provides protection from malicious, attack or phishing web pages.