| The next time you are waiting in line somewhere and trying to pass the time for 28 seconds, complaining about the speed of the Internet on your smartphone… keep in mind that there are a lot of countries in the world where there are no proper data connections. As smartphone manufacturers start building less expensive Android One devices in many of these countries, finding ways around the lack of data plans is important. Fortunately Cosmos for Android is an app that could help –letting users browse the web using SMS text messages. Sure it’s cumbersome, and definitely slower, but it’s nonetheless possible. How it works is simple in concept: visit a web URL using the app, which will then send a SMS request to the Cosmos backend. The response will be a compressed package containing the source of the website being requested (minus the interactive pieces, CSS, and JavaScript). It may not look pretty or quite as the web developers intended, but the jist of the content should be there. There are other considerations, of course –such as needing an unlimited text messaging plan, given the number of messages that are likely to be flying back and forth if you are using Cosmos. Having this extra SMS traffic may also delay other text messages Cosmos should be released by the end of the month. You may want to give the app a try even if you do have a data plan, you never know when you might be without 3G or LTE and needing to find out a piece of important information (you know, very important things such as settling a bet made around a campfire, or trying to find out the actual rules to a board game that you are playing at the cabin).
Surf the Web via SMS Using Cosmos for Android is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Surf the Web via SMS Using Cosmos for Android
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