Keeping Under Your Data Limit -- Finding My Data Hogs

I spent a couple of weeks at our vacation house in Washington State.  We don't have wired internet access there (Comcast kept raising the rates) so this time, I relied on a wifi hotspot.  I only had 2 Gb of data to use in the two weeks that I was going to be there.  I was there a few months ago with a friend for a few days, and we used up 1 Gb of data way too fast -- I had to buy more. 

We weren't streaming video or doing anything data-intensive, so I was surprised.  I did not have time to figure out which of my devices and applications were the data hogs, but this time I tried to figure out who was sucking up the data. 

Here are the programs on my MacBook that were using a lot of data.  I recommend turning off these applications -- or preventing them from uploading updates -- if you are in a similar situation, where your data usage is a concern. 

I am not an expert on how to gauge network traffic.  I browsed some tips on the web and used Mac's Activity Monitor to see what processes on my MacBook Pro were most active.  I wish that there were a tool for me to see exactly how much data my various applications are using.  

Disable all updates on the Mac in System Preferences.  Otherwise, your Mac will try to download the entire new operating system while you are asleep, and BAM! all your data will be used up. 

Dropbox: Dropbox is a huge user of data.  Just turn it off and don't use it.  I have Dropbox on my Mac, iPad, and my smartphone -- so it used data to sync across all these devices.  

Programs and applications:
Adobe Reader is a data hog.  It is constantly uploading updates and doing other stuff.  I recommend simply closing it down and not opening or using it.  Use Mac's Preview instead. 

Firefox and Chrome browsers, from what I read on the internet, can be data hogs. 
In Firefox for the Mac, one goes into Preferences to dis-allow updates. 
In Chrome for the Mac, I found that the easiest way to disable updates was to use Terminal.  There's a good article on the web about this:

https://support.google.com/installer/answer/147176?hl=en-GB

If this is a temporary change, make note of your current settings first by executing the following in the Terminal application:

$ defaults read com.google.Keystone.Agent checkInterval

To change how frequently Google Software Update checks for updates, execute the following in the Terminal application:

$ defaults write com.google.Keystone.Agent checkInterval

where  is the elapsed time in seconds between update checks.

To disable Google Software Update from checking for updates, execute the following in the Terminal application:

$ defaults write com.google.Keystone.Agent checkInterval 0

To re-apply the current settings (after changing it to something else) execute the following in the Terminal application:

$ defaults write com.google.Keystone.Agent checkInterval

where  is the value from the read command above.

So here's the short note I have for myself before and after a trip:

For Chrome: enter in Terminal:

$ defaults write com.google.Keystone.Agent checkInterval 0

Upon returning home to an unlimited data plan: 
enter in Terminal: 
 $ defaults write com.google.Keystone.Agent checkInterval

 (my frequency was 18000)