Opera Max is a free simple to use data compression app and service which compresses online picture, and video files to save your mobile data like 2G, 3G, 4G, LTE, and now it also compresses your home WiFi/internet connection from your home’s modem. It compresses videos, photos, and text on their server, and sends it to your Google Android device when it is done compressing your data. Opera Max App, and compression service is free to use to compress all pictures, video, and text for apps like web browsers, instant messengers, and streaming media apps . Opera Max also work with HTTPS secure connections, so you can continue to save bandwidth when using YouTube, and other apps and websites which use secure connections to send and receive data.
Users can also set video and picture file compression to high which saves the most bandwidth by saving video and pictures at a lower quality. The quality is good enough for casual web browsing like reading blog posts, and e-mail.
Using Opera Max on your Google Android device could make your inexpensive or free 1 GB and below data plan from freemium or ad-supported data plan companies more useful since you can download more pictures, video, and text once Opera Max compresses it on their server, and send it to you. Saving more data means you get to download more files with the same amount of data you get per month, so you are less likely to pay overage fees when you go over your data amount per month, and you do not have to subscribe to a more expensive data plan to receive more files.
I saved 120 MB of bandwidth, and used 420MB of bandwidth in the month of May when using Opera Max.
It can extend your data plan by up to 50% according to Opera Max’s description on its website.
Using Opera Max on a Wi-Fi network can make your network not as crowded especially on slower WiFi connection like 802.11b connections with 11 Mbit per second connection, or if your internet connection from your DSL or Cable company is 1 Mbps or slower because compress data use less bandwidth, so more devices can be connected to your Wi-Fi network without slowing it down as much if they all use Opera Max to compress its data. Using Opera Max may make using low Wifi and 2G/3G with a low signal strength faster because low signal strength signals from far away routers and cell towers are slower to use than high signal strength wifi in my experience, so compressing your data would help you receive your files faster.
Opera Max would save battery life on your device since smaller files download faster, so your Wi-Fi and Data connection won’t be as active by always downloading bigger files from the internet. The electricity usage of your wireless router, and DSL and Cable modem would be lower because smaller size compress files are faster to download, so your router, DSL or Cable modem would be less active when it is downloading smaller files.
You will also save time by not waiting as long for photos, videos, and text to show up on a website, or app, so you can turn off your screen after you are done viewing your content on your screen. The screen on a smartphone and tablet uses the most power, so it is best to turn off the screen after you are done reading a website, watching a video, or using an app.
Opera uses a secure connection which protects your privacy when you use Opera Max. You would need to agree to use Opera Max’s secure connection after you installed and opened the Opera Max App in Google Android’s homescreen launcher. After you agree to use Opera Max’s connection a Key icon will appear on your notification bar every time you start your device until you tap on disconnect from Opera Max in the left sidebar menu of Opera Max.
Opera Max works similar to Opera’s popular Opera web browser which compresses websites’ photos, html tags, and text to save data. But, Opera Max is an app which let you save data on all apps which access the internet through a non-encrypted connection, but Opera Max cannot compress secure connection apps like Social networking, banking, Google Play, and email apps which uses a secure connection which prevents other apps from seeing your data.
It also has an easy to use Data usage chart to show you which apps use the most bandwidth when connected to mobile data, and wifi. Opera Max also shows you how much data is saved when you use it to compress picture and video online files on apps like web browsers, games, etc. You can use Opera Max to keep track of your internet bandwidth usage when on Wifi, and Data, so you don’t over your data limit. Opera tells you how much data you used per day, week month, and year in its App. You can even use it to see when you used the most data per time of the day, and when you turned on and off data saving by scrolling down the Opera Max summaries in the front page of the app.
Opera Max would make your downloads faster if your Wi-Fi and data internet connection is very slow and a lot of people are on your wifi or data network because compressed files are smaller in size, so they download faster than larger uncompressed files.
You can also use Opera Max to block apps from accessing the internet to save more bandwidth data for cellular and wifi connections on your device. Blocking apps also protect your privacy, and save battery life by not having blocked apps send and receive data while Google Android is connected to the internet via Wi-Fi, and your data chips.
It is also easy to turn-off Opera Max if a website or app does not work on Opera Max’s connection for some reason.
I like the easy to use modern white, and greenish user interface which looks similar to Google Android Lollipop 5.0 user interface. It is easy to change the settings of the photo, and video compression to High to save the most data. Low, and medium compression would make photos and videos look better, but your data savings will be less. I can also disable the Opera Max Notifications widget which shows me how much data I used, and how much I saved when I am using Opera Max. There is also a button for easily disconnecting Opera Max which is useful if you don’t want Opera to Compress your data like when you are playing an online multi-player game where compressing data may make Ping speeds slowers which can affect your game play in multiplayer online games like MMO, MMORPG, and Online First person shooter and racing games. It is also easy to disable mobile data compression if you use Opera Max on a device like a Google Android laptop, tablet, eReader, media player, game console, or settop box which does not have a mobile data connection in most cases because these devices are generally wi-fi only unless you buy the premium version of a tablet which comes with a 4G LTE or 3G wireless chip for connecting to a data plan with a SIM Card. There is also a Share feature in Opera Max to let you share Opera Max, and your data savings when using Opera Max with your friends by using the Share feature built-into Google Android for sharing your pictures, web links, video, and other content with other Apps like Google Plus, Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, etc which is pre-installed, or you installed on Google Android.
Opera Max is reliable, stable, and runs fast on my Asus Nexus 7 2012 Google Android 5.1.1 Lollipop Wifi tablet with a Nvidia Tegra 3 CPU clocked at 1.3GHz, 1GB RAM, and 16GB of storage. Opera Max does not slow down, crash, or froze my device even when I play mobile games while Opera Max is running in the background compressing my online data connection. Opera also compresses fullscreen ads, and videos on games, so my games use less bandwidth.Opera Max also never crashed, or froze when I used it on my tablet.
Opera Max is a simple to use free app and data compression service which will make your Google Android device use less cellular data and Wifi bandwidth by compressing pictures, videos, and text on Opera’s server, and sending it to you. You can also use it to block apps from using the internet, and seeing how your bandwidth is being used by which apps, and the amount of time each app uses your bandwidth for.
Opera’s Max App size is only 5.5MB to download, so it won’t use much data to download, and update from Google Play. It also does not use much space on your internal storage drive for Google Android.
Download Opera Max for Google Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and up at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.opera.max.global
If you want to compress your bandwidth data even more when browsing the web on a web browser to save more data, I recommend using Opera Mini, and Opera for Android which compresses the HTML tags, Disable plug-ins like Flash and disable JavaScript to make pages load and run faster, and use less internet bandwidth when you set picture quality to low, and enable Off Road mode in Opera for Android. Opera Mini and Opera are available for Apple iOS, Windows, Linux, and other supported operating systems.
Opera Mini uses a custom web browser engine which works better on very old devices in my experience. Opera for Android uses the Newer Blink web browser layout engine which is the same web browser engine which is used in Google Chrome, Opera Desktop, and Chromium open source web browser, so Opera for Android is compatible with more sites which are designed for newer web browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer 11. Opera for Android works better on faster devices.