What can cause Samsung Internet browser background usage to suddenly spike?

[Android Central Question]

I have a Samsung galaxy S7 running android 8.0.0. I have gotten this phone a long time ago and everything is normal. Then this morning, it says that my data usage has reach its cap. Now, I'm confused on how this happened and want to try to get to the bottom of this.

Last night, my wifi was down for a while and I had used my phone as a hotspot for a very short while to finish something on my laptop (I made sure to both disconnect and close my laptop as well as turn off hotspot afterwards). In the app breakdown, it shows that hotspot and tethering used 85.65MB was only.

I also did so light browsing on the internet app. Just browsing amazon and ebay for some gift ideas, nothing special. After I got the warning, I checked and it shows that Samsung Internet used 3.66GB, with 301MB used in the foreground and 3.37GB used in the background. I don't understand how the internet browser can use so much data in the background. When I opened my this morning, there were 2 tabs open in the browser, one of which was an error page saying it couldn't load. None of my other apps show any abnormal usage.

Lastly, I used avast to check my device which came up clean so it likely wasn't a virus or anything.

I have data turned off now and is stuck with no data for the rest of the month, but I'm concern for next month. So anyone have an idea what could have happened to my data?

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! I'd wonder if some app you visited caused another pop-up (or pop-under) tab that was running video ads. Check your browser history to see if there's anything unusual.

Please register on this forum, which will allow you to engage in discussion more easily, as well as post images. https://forums.androidcentral.com/ask-question/409154-join-android-central-community.html

 

[mustang7757]

Also restrict apps to use data

 

[aphim]

Unfortunately, I do not believe I have access to the browsing history anymore since after receiving the notification, I had restarted my phone, disabled data, force stopped samsung internet and cleared it data and cache. (My first thought was I got some kind of malware/virus or some form bug with the app/device so I tried to remove and restart everything i can).

I did notice 2 other things. I had "allow background data usage" checked for samsung internet (I have since disabled this feature). And that the cache for the app was a decent size before being cleared. So a background pop tab page running video ads could be a possibility. Only thing would be that my phone times out after a certain period and I'm pretty sure I manually went to home and put the device to sleep last night. So can the ads still drain data in that state?

 

[B. Diddy]

I'm not sure if a pop-under could continue streaming whatever it's streaming when the phone is asleep (since I don't the think the browser can keep the phone awake indefinitely, unlike an app like YouTube). But if it was working while you were actively using the phone for a while, that might be enough to use up a lot of data.