People are just realising their Wi-Fi is instantly faster when they switch off hidden data-draining apps

SUFFERING with sluggish Wi-Fi? Well, there could be four data-draining apps to blame.

Unsurprisingly, they are popular apps that require the most bandwidth to run.

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Like today’s smartphones, PCs and laptops have ways users can see which apps are eating up their data the most.

In Windows 10, open the Settings app and type “Data usage” into the search form to the overview of your network status.

Then tap “Data usage” to see which apps have used the most bandwidth over the past 30 days.

For Windows users, according to USA Today, there are two primary culprits:

• OneDrive cloud backup
• Sling TV

Streaming files, images and videos to the cloud can consume a significant amount of data.

While any streaming or on-demand app – be it Sling TV or Netflix – inevitably requires a decent amount of Wi-Fi to run.

For Apple’s Mac users, there is a Network tab in the Activity Monitor app which offers a glimpse of your apps’ appetite for data.

There are two that stand out:

• Google Chrome
• iCloud

“When Apple first added iCloud-syncing to Photos, it was a nightmare, because Photos would grab every single bit available,”  Glenn Fleishman, a Seattle-based author of multiple books about home networking, told USA Today.

“If you were uploading gigabytes of pictures, your network might be unusable.”

Apple has since fixed that, but if you’re running an old version of iCloud on an old Mac, you may be experiencing the same issues.