Have you ever received that dreaded text message from your wireless provider that you’ve reached 90% of your data cap before the end of the month? It’s a weird feeling, being scolded by your smartphone, but it’s certainly better than the alternative of the providers just collecting their overage fees at the end of the month.
Still, wouldn’t it be nice to have more control over the data you use when you’re away from a Wi-Fi connection?
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Opera Max might be the perfect solution. This data management app from Opera Software has been out for well over a year, but as of the latest update, Opera now claims that the app can compress data from YouTube and Netflix in order to cut down on data usage from two of the biggest data hogs on your mobile device.
“Spend less data on watching YouTube cat videos or your favorite shows & movies on Netflix,” read the update notes. “Opera Max’s unique technology saves data on videos without any significant loss in quality and reduces buffering – which means more funny videos and House of Cards.”
It’s extremely easy to set up too — once you’ve installed the application, simply open it up and tap on the connect button. You can decide whether the app only activates while you’re on mobile data, you can change the degree of savings the app attempts to reach and you it all works in the background while you go about your business.
After spending some time with the update, gHacks found that “[playing] several videos on YouTube using the official application […] resulted in savings of more than 50%.”
If you already own the app, be sure to apply the latest update as soon as possible. If not, we’ve got the download link for you below: