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I'm using a sim card modem paying by the megabyte - how to cut costs?

  • 21-10-2010 5:18pm
    #1
    0verblood
    Closed Accounts Posts: 455 ✭✭


    I have a USB modem with a sim card that you top up with regular credit. I buy 40mb bundles but these don't last too long due to flash ads and useless pictures. How can I cut down on the megabytes? Would firefox extensions like flashblock work in a situation like this?


Comments

  • #2
    stuff.hunter
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 915 ✭✭✭stuff.hunter


    0verblood wrote: »
    I have a USB modem with a sim card that you top up with regular credit. I buy 40mb bundles but these don't last too long due to flash ads and useless pictures. How can I cut down on the megabytes? Would firefox extensions like flashblock work in a situation like this?
    ... in internet expolers setting saw option : show pictures and videos (animations), if unticked your internet usage will go down

    .... look at attached image


  • #3
    jor el
    Closed Accounts Posts: 16,713 ✭✭✭✭jor el


    You buy 40MB bundles? You can get 10GB for €20 a month with pretty much all the operators. Check their mobile broadband tariffs.


  • #4
    0verblood
    Closed Accounts Posts: 455 ✭✭0verblood


    Well I'm in Africa so 10GB bundles don't exist yet here I'm afraid!

    Any other tips guys? I don't use internet explorer...

    by the way I tried the internet explorer thing and it doesn't disable flash ads.


  • #5
    jor el
    Closed Accounts Posts: 16,713 ✭✭✭✭jor el


    Even without ads, 40MB is going to disappear in no time. Look for the Firefox extension AdBlock Plus. You're fighting a losing battle though.

    You could also look for a text-only browser. There are still some of those out there. These wouldn't load any images.


  • #6
    siblers
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,690 ✭✭✭✭siblers


    stuff.hunter wrote: »
    ... in internet expolers setting saw option : show pictures and videos (animations), if unticked your internet usage will go down

    .... look at attached image

    Is there a mozilla alternative? I've only about 5 gig to do me about 10 days, it's a proper pain as I'm having to avoid using youtube and the likes


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  • #7
    slowlydownwards
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 326 ✭✭slowlydownwards


    In addition to blocking flash and ads (as suggested above) you could try opera. It's a web browser (internet explorer / firefox alternative) that has a feature called "opera turbo". When enabled the images / graphics from webpages are routed via opera servers where they are compressed, which will give you smaller web usage footprint, provided that the option of not loading images at all is not viable to you.


  • #8
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 93,563 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    0verblood wrote: »
    Well I'm in Africa so 10GB bundles don't exist yet here I'm afraid!

    Any other tips guys? I don't use internet explorer...

    by the way I tried the internet explorer thing and it doesn't disable flash ads.
    Where ? - a lot of places have recently got fibre and there are good bundles

    eg: 3 weeks on €2 sim card and €6 in top ups - that included phone calls - data usage was miserly only 300MB mainly because real broadband was also available

    For firefox adblock is a no brainer https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/1865
    also get https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/232 to turn on/off images
    noscript might also help to stop some junk running
    trick I used to do at work back in the days of dial up was to bookmark locations of files you wanted to download when at home and then leech at work

    turn off auto updates updates - do them manually when you get to a location with broadband / wifi cafe
    - for operating system - set windows to notify you without downloading
    - for adobe acrobat and itunes and
    - for antivirus ( do manually each week if using windows)
    - clear your firewall so it pops up when apps try to connect so you can block them / or set their updates to manual

    increase the cache on your browser - this will slow down browsing on good connections a little since it looks in the cache first , but on a slow connection might save bandwidth
    try upping it to 1GB and see how you get on


    there are add ons for offline browsing of the cache - any one got links ?


    if feeling adventerous you could install a proxy server on your own computer especially if several people are sharing the connection


    don't forget if anyone is travelling out to you get them to bring DVD's or external drives and you can share files with others there ( might be a good time to update AV though)


    whole sites can be downloaded with things like httrack / winhttrack

    use kismet or netstumbler to check for Free wireless access points
    use cafe's with wifi

    also check all protocols on restricted access points, some providers require you to log on for web browsing but you might still be able to IRC / telnet or connect using IP over DNS


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