[Damo]

As some may know, I spend about 20-odd weeks on a boat each year with only 3G (sporadic at best) Internet coverage with my iPhone.

It is fine for the majority of things (I'm typing this on it now), but I have heard of an application called MyWi for jailbroken iPhones which makes your iPhone a wifi 'hotspot'.

My question is this: will my computer (MBP) use up my 2GB limit per month faster than my iPhone will? My service provider gives me unlimited Internet, but caps it off at 2GB, where it doesn't stop it, it just slows it down. Thisis typical across France.

Presuming I do the exact same things on my MBP as I do on my phone (surfing, emails, facebook etc and no downloading), does a computer use more info than the phone?

 

[Arkayne]

Have you gone to cnn.com on your stock iphone? It'll give you a mobile version with mostly text and minimal graphics to cut down the bandwidth. If you tether and browse the web with your mbp using safari/ff/chrome, you will be given the full version of the website and all the graphical glory it can deliver. This will eat up your bandwidth.

Yes, browsing on your mbp via tethered iphone will go through more bandwidth.

However, I'm sure there are ways to browse the mobile version of website using a normal browser.

 

[Damo]

Aha. This is what I wasn't thinking about. With a lot of websites (ridemonkey being the last one in the entire world, hint hint) 'dumbing down' their content for mobile devises, I hadn't thought of this. I guess I'd use it for select sites and continue using iPhone for sites like BBCnews etc...

When is RM coming out with a mobile site? It sucks on an iPhone.

 

[H8R]

I use a Nokia with Joikuspot:

http://www.joikushop.com/

I have unlimited internet with my data plan and using Joiku they can't tell I'm tethering at all. (USB tethering, which they can detect, has a 5GB cap)

 

[H8R]

And the answer is HELL yes you will use up 2GB very quick, especially viewing streaming content, Youtube, feature rich sites, etc.

 

[binary visions]

If you start hitting streaming content you'll run right through it but you may not pillage your bandwidth too badly if you're only doing the same kind of sites you see on your phone. You will definitely take a hit because mobile sites are lighter, but you might be okay.

One thing you can definitely do is make sure you're browsing with flash turned off, and run a good ad blocker. Both of those things consume bandwidth.

 

[syadasti]

Use the Lynx browser

 

[Toshi]

TetherMe is only $2 and works just fine. Try ClickToFlash to minimize bandwidth usage, and avoid YouTube if possible.

 

[syadasti]

To be serious though clicktoflash is OK but Firefox with noscript and adblock plus provides class leading browser control/security and minimizes your bandwidth.

Noscript blocks javascript, java, flash, and other plugin content by default on a site basis unless temporarily or permanently whitelisted through an easy to use interface.

http://noscript.net/