Netflix recently launched in South Africa, with three price plans available to customers.
What you pay per month to access the streaming service is not your only cost, though, as streaming in HD or UHD burns through a lot of data.
If you have a fast, uncapped connection with a solid fair usage limit, this is not a problem. Those who stream using capped accounts, or mobile data on a tablet or smartphone, are not so lucky.
Fortunately, there is some good news for Netflix users on the Android platform, according to Opera.
Opera Max
Opera Max is a free data management and compression app for Android, which can reduce the amount of data you use in apps like Netflix, YouTube, and Facebook, said Opera.
“We tested Netflix on Opera Max and were happy to see that it saved us up to 60% of the data,” said Opera.
The app works by shrinking images and video which users access on an Android mobile device.
“It uses the same compression technology that made Opera Mini famous.”
Instead of working through a browser, though, Opera Max uses a VPN to send user-requested data to Opera’s servers – which compresses the data before sending it to the user’s device.
The service works for both mobile data and Wi-Fi-linked broadband.
A test by Android Authority backed up Opera’s claims, showing that Opera Max saved 54% on data usage while streaming Netflix shows.
The image below is of a test conducted by Opera while using Netflix and YouTube.
The company said Opera Max also allows users to block unwanted apps from consuming data, and is useful when a shared Internet connection is congested by multiple users.
“Instagram also has particularly high savings, averaging at around 62%, [and] South Africa features in our top 10 countries for Opera Max globally,” said the company.
A video detailing how Opera Max works is posted below.
