The Consumer’s Corner

Are you an internet junkie like me? Do you start having withdrawal symptoms if you have to go more than a few hours without being able to at least check your email? Like me, are you too cheap to buy a decent data plan for your phone, so you can accomplish this task quickly and easily? Are you looking for a simple service that allows you to stay connected for just pennies a day, or less? Well, I found it for you. Welcome to Flurry!

Funny story. I upgraded my phone around a year and a half ago (Walkman w600i, don’t buy it), and I proceeded to play around with it, like I do all my new gadgets. Just one of my favorite past times. Anyways, I came across the preloaded Yahoo! Mail application, and thought I’d give it a quick try. Anyone that knows me well knows I’m not completely ignorant (if you think I’m ignorant, what does that make you, you’re reading my blog?); I knew that there was going to be some data charges. But in my mind I thought ‘Hey, it’s just text files, it can’t possibly cost that much!’ By about the second time I checked my messages wirelessly, I had became addicted quicker than a crack head and started doing it all the time. Long story short, my Cingular (now the new ATT!) bill was damn near close to triple what I was used to, and that Yahoo! Mail appication got deleted so fast I made lightning look slow.

That did not cure my addiction though, so I started searching. ‘There has to be a better way,’ I thought. And of course there was. What I found was Flurry, an amazing little java application for java enabled cell phones. So easy to set up, all you have to do is register for an account, and they’ll text message you the installer in an attachment. You can also transfer it yourself if your phone can connect with your PC, and that is of course much cheaper (free) if you have no data plan.

As a warning, upon setting up your account, your eyebrows will be raised. They ask you for your email address(es) that you wish to keep tabs on, and the passwords to those precious accounts. Now here’s how desperate I was; despite my long standing policy of never giving anyone my password, and my anality when it comes to security, I simply caved like a house of cards and handed over my information just as quickly as I could type it.

They seem to have been true to their word though, since that time (a year or so ago) I have not once noticed anything fishy going on within my accounts. They say your passwords are encrypted, and even they cannot read them. I somewhat doubt the last part, but even if they can, they have not opened my stuff so far as I can tell.

Flurry works by their servers opening, copying, and compressing your emails (only text, no html). That compression part is the big secret, it cuts way down on the amount of raw data that has to be transfered to your phone. By ‘way down,’ I mean that $50 data charge turned into a mere 75 CENTS! I’ve been able to read a whole day’s worth of email for around $0.02, at $0.01 per kilobyte on my ‘pay per use’ plan. Those numbers just speak for themselves, so there is nothing else I need to say about that.

The software itself is very simple to use, and should work on just about every phone still in operation. Flurry is able to check mail from nearly all of the big email services, and works with all the major cell phone operators. Other options they provide are things like texting you when you have a new message, but I just prefer to check manually. Those text thingies cost money, too (just ask Jill and her bff)! There are other toys to play around with like RSS feeds (hey, you can read this on your phone! Subscribe now!), and more. You’ll have to check them all out and get back to me, because I’m happy sticking with the basics for now. Oh, yeah, Flurry is ad-free freeware; the only money you’ll be paying is to your cell service provider. Now where’s my phone?

Official Site

–Jeremy Hobbs

cell phones, software, java, electronics, freeware

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 6th, 2007 at 7:14 am and is filed under Software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.