Onavo Extend – is a watchdog app for wireless data consumption
by Paul Wilks
Jun 6, 2012 10:02 AM –
Install
Onavo Extend is a handy little tool that helps you reduce your data requirements, which is ideal if you regularly hit your monthly limits. Simply set the service up and it’ll kick in whenever you move away from WiFi. If you struggle to come under your monthly data usage limit, often get charged for excess data requirements, or just want to get more out of your data plan, this just makes perfect sense.
Price: Free
Tested on: HTC One X
Content Rating: Everyone
Pros & Cons:
Pros
- Simple to set up!
- Works really well to minimise your data needs!
- Detailed reports about your usage and savings!
- Great developer support!
Cons
Features:
Onavo Extend is a must-have app for those on a limited data plan. The app essentially compresses, and subsequently reduces, the data you consume- saving you up to 80% of your data. This obviously frees you up to consume more. This then is ideal if you spend a lot of time away from WiFi and while roaming- potentially saving you high charges.
The app is incredibly simple to set up. Simply follow the introduction, approve the app to create a new VPN connection and then let it run in the background. When the app is active it displays a small key icon in your status bar. It then helps to reduce the volume of data you consume, without reducing your experience.
You can configure the compression settings for different image quality, as well as to detect roaming situations. The reports you get are great too- after a little use the app will display a graph showing your usage, and how much you have saved. There a couple of pictures below which show it, even though I’ve only used it for a short period of time. There is a statistic that demonstrates a sample month and its savings.
Even after just a limited amount of use I can see how much the app has saved. While I personally never get close to hitting my data limit, I can see just how useful this might be to heavy data users. It’s simple to set up, works flawlessly in the background and ultimately saves you data- and money! For a free app, you can’t ask more than that.
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Onavo Extend – Overview
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Onavo Extend – Love me some graphs!
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Onavo Extend – Sample Month
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Onavo Extend – Sample overview
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Onavo Extend – share
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Onavo Extend – Settings
Usefulness:
Onavo Extend is incredibly helpful if you are trying to save data while out and about. It compresses the data and reduces the amount you need. I found it to be especially handy for the little things that swallow up small bits of data such as news feeds, weather, etc.
Ease of Use:
Extremely simple and very straightforward. Just approve the app and it does the rest. You can easily check out the reports after a few days to see what savings you have made.
Frequently Used:
It runs all the time in the background when you are away from your normal WiFi connections.
Interface:
The interface has that cool ‘Holo’ design we are seeing more and more with ICS- inspired apps. It looks slick and works very well.