10 WTF ways to save mobile data, according to mengarut Malaysians

Err… are you reading this on 3G? Don’t worry if you are – we didn’t overload on videos and gifs so you won’t be using so much data. #CilisosCares

Speaking of data usage, we asked some of our friends how much data they actually consume in a month and here’s what we found out:

Woooah max out 7GB plan, TWICE?! Well it’s not a surprise since Malaysians use mobile data as much as they consume Milo or Nescafe. Didja know that Malaysians watch YouTube more than ANYONE else in the world? The global average is about 40 minutes a day, but we spend 80 freakin’ minutes!

According to findings from TNS’s Connected Life 2014 study, over three fifths (62%) of Internet users in Malaysia access social media networks daily, whilst 52% use instant messaging every day… both higher than national averages.

 

Wahlao… better make sure ugaiz have enough mobile data!

Aaaand here’s where our sponsor’s message comes in! 😎 #yaycilisoswritersgotsalary

Most telcos these days are getting more generous with their data. But the current king of the hill is of course, our lovely sponsor U Mobile with 15GB worth of monthly mobile data for just RM70! OMGerdddd!

This offer is only valid till June 30th 2016 though, after which your line will revert to the normal 7GB a month for the same price. Calls are still unlimited and SMS prices remain cheap as ever. Also, unlike some other telcos, the data doesn’t come with any sorta funny conditions either. (Click here to check out more benefits and to sign up for an account! 🙂 )

But in the meantime, if you wanna save your mobile data, here are 10 super creative/ridiculous/idiotic/WTF ways you can do that. Submitted by mengarut CILISOS readers of course…

(BTW congrats to all our winrarzz! Check your emails – ugaiz have won a pair of MBO movie tickets each!) 

 

1. Make friends with smart people

“Very easy… just make friends with the atas-atas and smart people so you don’t need to Google anything.” – Yen C

And if this method fails, just download an encyclopaedia into your phone so you don’t need to keep Googling stuff. Or if you wanna save data, just buy Encarta 95 only la 😛

 

2. Just use a Nokia 3310 (ᵔᴥᵔ)

“Back then in the Nokia phone series, phones didn’t have internet connection. And a phone is just a phone. So for me, I don’t buy internet data for my phone.” – Benz Aliff

Not only would this save you money on data, it’ll save your battery and your life… if you’re ever being shot at, of course. And remember how happy we were with playing snake and listening to monophonic ringtones? Turning on the phone didn’t take us more than 30 seconds, and we had gr8 fun wit SMSes. Life was just so much simpler back then, eh?

Nah, take a walk down memory lane:

 

3. Secretly use your best friend’s hotspot password

“Nicely ask your best friend for his hotspot password (or you could whack the password out of him), then curi-curi turn it on and use when he is around.” – Kar Wai

Other ways to destroy a friendship include using the Wild Card when playing Uno, hitting on his mom, and eating his fried chicken skin. Never touch anyone’s fried chicken skin. Seriously.

But if you wanna salvage your friendship after stealing your buddy’s data, let him borrow your phone to call his girlfriend lor. U Mobile Hero Postpaid P70 plan has unlimited phone calls* so technically you’re not paying for much anyway 😛

(*Subject to fair use, don’t go using it for conference calls, telemarketing and all that la)

 

4. Fake your app screen

“Take a screenshot of your current home page and then set it as your wallpaper. Proceed to delete all your apps. Why? Because if you have no apps to use, you will not waste data! But have the wallpaper there to make you feel better and so that your friends don’t think you’re a loser.” – Ghazlina P

Kk that may sound a bit too ridiculous BUT you’d be surprised at how much data your staple applications makan! Didja know that if you spend an hour a day on FB using phone data, you could use 2.7GB data a month? And if you think making WhatsApp or Skype calls would save you money, erkkk think again! Android Authority did a calling test and found that WhatsApp (740.6kB/min) and Skype (875kB/min) were the top two data-eaters in the pool. (And the two most data-efficient ones were Kakao Talk and FB Messenger, surprisingly!)

So if you wanna save on call charges, make sure you’ve got more than enough data allowance k 🙂

 

5. Stay in a rural area…. like Melaka or Klang 😛

“Live somewhere where there got no signal so can’t even use data. Like my home in Melaka, we turn off the wifi at night and got no data signal at all. So when in bed, I don’t even bother to turn on my phone because won’t have connection anyway.” – Jaireh S

Speaking of bad signal, why does it happen even in urban places? Or even indoors?! Well there are many reasons why, and most of them are too technical to explain in this article. But if you wanna just head on to the solution, apparently putting your iPhone in a glass bowl actually works. 

P/S: Dear Klang flers, don’t aggro la. Wa lang kong seng chio nia…. (Hokkien for “We’re just joking”)

 

6. Steal from your wife

“1. Use my wife’s phone when she sleeps.
2. Use her company’s phone when she sleeps.
#sorryIhaveto” – Amirul H

Ok before you kena one tight slap, go check out our previous coverage on best mobile packages for couples.. can share data AND love somore. But if you’re ballsy enough to try, well, learn from this impressive 3-year-old girl: she cracked her mom’s password and saved her pregnant mom’s life in the nick of time! How? She remembered the password pattern by seeing how her mom swiped the tablet. 

So pay more attention to your wife ok? 😉

 

7. Use it like you’re puasa-ing

“Text all your friends in bulk at a certain time of day (example: between 1-2 pm). Tell them everything you think they will need to know for the day so that you won’t have to have any human interaction over the internet until 1 pm the next day.” – Kyle Iman

During Hari Raya Puasa, there are many ways Muslims manage their fast. Like eating dates to have enough energy to last through the day, or avoiding salty foods which causes thirst. Likewise for Text Puasa – it’s totes manageable if you know how to! For starters you can restrict all notifications so you won’t get tempted, or screencap your crush’s messages so you can reread it for the 12875th time for free 😀

 

8. Ask your friend to sing for you

“Bring a friend in the car with you so you don’t have to use Spotify… or learn how to sing yourself.” – Amanda A

Yea we know what you’re thinking, just use the radio la! But the whole idea of Spotify is to personalise your stream, and who else to sing you your favourite tunes than your best friend? (Or most hated… for 7 hours… like this annoying dad…)

But if you have no friends you can always try paying for Spotify Premium and downloading your favourite playlist for offline listening. Nah, here’s an extensive list of 31 Spotify tips and tricks for you to take advantage of 🙂

 

9. Be naturally ugly

“Loading effects on Snapchat actually wastes data. So to save data, JUST BE UGLY (or be yourself), and people will think it’s a effect. Just take multiple ugly shots of yourself. Turn on data and upload all at once.” – Chloe L

Snapchat is all the rage now. If you didn’t know, it’s basically an instant video/photo messaging app with hilarious effects updated daily. (Click to download – iOS; Android) If you haven’t seen some of them, let us be the first to tell you that THEY CAN BE REALLY HORRIFIC. Like this face-swapping one which we tried recently:

 

10. Delete all your friends from Facebook

“Hi CILISOS…try this. Get rid of all the people you don’t talk to on FB, so that you don’t have to be guilt-tripped into wishing them all Happy Birthday on their birthdays. What a WASTE of good data.” – Anand J

We know the drill – every morning, we get birthday notifications and Facebook asks us to ‘help them celebrate’ with a message or a posting. But y’know what…. Stuff like that have just taken away the true meaning of wishing someone a happy birthday. Like why even bother typing ‘HBD’?! And then the obligatory post likes and grateful comments saying, “Thank you for your kind wishes” bla bla bla…. ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ

Just remember the birthdays of the people who matter to you… then make them a handmade card (pick one of these 31 ideas) cos nobody does those things anymore. We gerenti you’ll earn brownie points too. 😉

 

 

Okok… here are some REAL tips to save data

Yea, maybe our readers were on something when they submitted their entries, but desperate times call for desperate measures yo. So to make your life easier, we came up with some REAL tips for you guys to save data.

• Delete your FB app. Download less-demanding apps instead, such as TinFoil or Facebook Lite.
• Disable all the auto-auto stuff. App auto-updates, auto-play videos on FB, or auto-download media files on WhatsApp makan A LOT of data wei.
• Use Opera’s video compression option. It’ll save you a LOAD of data if you love watching videos when you’re out of home/office.
• Use the Data Saver option on Chrome. It’ll compress web pages before they load.

Oh and if you leceh, then there’s always U Mobile’s 15GB data plan to save you. Hee hee! #CilisosCares 🙂 <3