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Mysterious Mobile data usage

RAJTR6

Lurker
Sep 26, 2021
4
0
Several times in the last week our data use has shot up. On investigating we found our Data Usage > Mobile data had been turned on, presumably by an app, but not explicitly by me or my wife - we only turn Mobile data on when traveling, which we haven't done for 18 months. We both have LG G7 thinQ phones with Android 9.
Has any one else had their Mobile data turned on by someone/thing else?
Is this another way for our wireless providers to rob their users (semi)legally?
 
If you check into your data useage, you can find which app(s) have been using it.

Some apps can use data in the background, sometimes this can be restricted.

Not the case. We have background restrictions on youtube and firefox which are the main causes of the data usage. They are supposed to use wifi (the usage is all at home). But I don't think they turned Mobile data on - something else did. We are still looking for the app that did that.
 
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Mr puppykickr
I am not a tyro.
I appreciate your responding to my post but your comments are not helpful as I have already done the detective work your posts suggest.
SOMETHING keeps turning Settings > Data usage > Mobile data to ON. It has happened three times on my wife's phone and twice on mine. Simply checking usage confirms that youtube and firefox are sometimes running over-the-air and not on wifi as they should. Our phones (LG G7) are identical (desktops differ) and the same age. This has started only recently after more than a year of good behavior.
I suppose a virus could do that but we're very careful and ESET has not reported anything untoward.
We have both had intermittent problems with our voicemail boxes that Verizon claims to have fixed ... but I wonder what they fixed.
My post was to find out if anyone else had experienced unintended (and expensive) data usages over-the-air when they thought they were using wifi.
With that in mind, do you have any other suggestions?
 
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I'm not sure what is turning on your data, but to help reduce data usage until you figure it out you can install a firewall to prevent apps from using mobile data.

NetGuard is a good firewall:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.faircode.netguard

Set it to block data for all apps and allow WiFi, then leave it running.
 
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