Background Data Traffic

[Rayven2]

Hey guys, I'm not much of a phone person myself. However I came across this option, could anyone explain what this could effect for me?

Also, overall I want to limit my phone as much as possible, In the sense of I don't use it for anything other than calling and text, not to mention to make it a bit more privacy originated, without all those nasty tracking 'options'.

Also it's a android phone, thanks for any advice.

 

[PCBuilderProbs]

hmm, maybe a power-saving mode may be of use to you, limiting the background processes on your phone. Then just disable all the crapware most android phones come with through the "applications manager" section of your settings and that should be as good as you can get it

 

[Solandri]

If you're on Lollipop (Android 5.x), manually enable Battery Saver (settings -> battery -> ...). That limits nearly everything that makes a smartphone a smartphone. Your phone will probably go several days on a single charge.

If you're on KitKat (Android 4.x) and are rooted, install xprivacy (requires xposed framework). It completely reworks Android's API so you can manually disable permissions or keep the permission but feed the app fake data. So for example if a game wants network access, you can prohibit it from getting network access. If it refuses to run without network access, you can give it network access but feed it fake data (phone id, location, call history, contacts, all the stuff a game has no business accessing but which the developer wants to access for some reason).

 

[Rayven2]

Well I've been going through my settings and the Background Data Traffic option seems to reduce a lot of privacy issues, such as usage info and so forth. It also explains why I'd lose data even without browsing or downloading anything.

Also I'm on KitKat, but it doesn't seem like I can do much more. I ended up just going through this article; http/www.howtogeek.com/140261/how-to-minimize-your-android-data-usage-and-avoid-overage-charges/