Unexplainable internet access

[Rock5]

I opened my browser the other day on my Xperia X Compact. I didn't expect it to show a page because I had mobile data switched off and wasn't close to any accessable wifi, but it showed a page anyway. I checked my settings, and mobile data was off. I even turned off wifi completely, even though there were no accessable hotspots nearby, but I could still acces the internet.

What's going on here? Is the phone accessing mobile data without my permision?

I'd appreciate some help because I don't usually use mobile data and can't afford to be wasting credit on my cheap phone plan.

[pseudonym]

My initial guess is that you had quite a bit of data stored in your browser's cache. This was being displayed even though you had no active internet connection. Did you try to access a page that was entirely new? If you had tried to do so, you probably would have received a warning that there was no data access. It's also likely, that if you didn't explicitly close all your browser's windows, then the app might have been still running in the background, and might have showed you the last opened web page.

[Rock5]

Actually, I did try a random search on Google and got results displayed. So I was accessing the internet.

[pseudonym · Accepted solution]

That's strange. If I were you I'd put the phone in airplane mode if it were absolutely necessary not to enable a cell data connection.

You can try resetting your network preferences.

Settings - Network & Internet - upper right corner menu - Reset network settings

[Rock5]

Ok. It turns out I had not disabled mobile data. I could have swore that, with older versions of android, the mobile data was tied to the mobile connection icon. I didn't know there was a separate mobile data icon now. Just goes to show how much I use mobile data LoL. Thanks pseudonym for pointing me in the right direction.