images recompressed when on cell connection

[Android Question]

The last few days I've noticed images in web pages have looked terrible when browsing away from home. I did some poking around and found that images I download while using my cell data plan have significantly smaller filesizes than the original. Downloading over wifi is normal.

What's causing this? Can I disable it?

LG Venice running stock jelly bean on Boost Mobile.

 

[codesplice]

The web browser you're using may include some sort of bandwidth-optimization function to reduce mobile data usage. On Chrome (beta), this hangs out under Settings > Bandwidth Management > Reduce Data Usage. Your browser may have a similar option.

 

[FrankWDoom]

I believe it happens with Chrome and the default browser. Not using any beta version of chrome, don't have the bandwidth usage options in the browser settings.

The other thing I've noted is that if I email an image to myself and get the email through the browser, I can view/download the image with now quality loss. My guess is that this is due to the image being transferred over https.

I've run across a suggestion that the provider (boost here) might be doing this. Any possibility that's true? It would explain why it only happens over unencrypted traffic on the cell network. I have an unlimited data plan and had used less than 1GB of data at the point I noticed this happening.