This particular blog entry is more of an experiment than anything, why not join me - read on to find out more about how to earn passive income using your laptop/computer, phone or tablet whilst it's idle.

Most of us probably have a device which is turned on all the time (and connected to the internet), probably a mobile phone or a tablet. In my case, a phone, and also my office network attached storage which is essentially a desktop computer. Wouldn't it be great if you could earn money passively, for nothing except sharing a bit of your Internet? Read on....

[don't forget to subscribe to my newsletter using the Join VIPs button, there'll be a followup to this blog entry at the end of March to see how I've fared in a month!]

Earning passive income from your spare Internet capacity has never been so easy!

Whilst you may have heard of Crypto coin such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and others - this isn't about using your devices resources to 'mine' for those - typically this requires a lot of processing power and the cost to reward is now very difficult to achieve without specialised and expensive hardware.

I came across a YouTube video whilst browsing YouTube as I often do which sparked my interest - here's the link if you want to watch it in a popup window - Watch now - although this deals specifically with setting up the apps to run on a Raspberry Pi computer (which of course if you have one, or want one, you could follow that tutorial - if you go with that don't forget to use the original authors referral links to support him) - if you want to know a little about the apps that you can earn money with, there's a little in the first few minutes (1m 24s -> 3m 40s), and then skip to about 9 minutes 20.

I'm going to be looking at the apps he talked about for running on mobile phone and on my NAS. I will only outline how to get started on your mobile phone which should be sufficient for beginners, but all of the apps/sites in question explain how you can install on Windows or similar. The apps all basically do the same thing which is to share some of your spare Internet bandwidth without slowing you down. They are able to pay you modest commisions because they actually direct traffic through your connection from their paying clients, typically businesses or researchers who want to see what things look like from different countries or Internet Service Providers for example. I've explained a little more with the help of EarnApp in the section below.

I will be looking at EarnApp.com, HoneyGain.com and Peer2Profit.com just as the author of the YouTube video did. By clicking the links in my article you may earn me a small commision and in some cases yourself a bonus when and if you sign up. Signing up is free for all of the apps.

Up first is EarnApp.com

The first one, which is an easy signup process is EarnApp.com - I started off by visiting their website to signup. I used my Google account to login - this is a great way to signup quickly and easily if you have a Google account.

To explain what EarnApp is, it's probably easiest to quote from their online FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section, this is how they describe what they are:

It’s a new way for you to make money from your PC and Linux/Raspberry Pi if you are a user, or from your apps if you are a developer.

Everybody has an internet connection. But not everybody is using their full potential. Why not make some extra money? EarnApp helps users make money with unused internet bandwidth, but it’s not just about the money. With this app, you are making positive contribution to the society by using your unused bandwidth for good!

So in a nutshell, you allow EarnApp's selected business partners to use some of your internet bandwidth by requesting traffic through your Internet connection. If you've heard of VPN's (Virtual Private Networks) you could think of it as something similar. Participating businesses are able to download (or request web pages) through your connection. The reason they wish to do this is that typically if they use their own Internet connections they don't get to see the information as a normal everyday user, which can mean that whichever research they are conducting could be innacurate.

In general, companies use publicly available information (for example, product prices) for detailed research and financial analyses. But in many cases, when companies use their own IP [internet] address to browse the Internet, they can get inaccurate data. So getting the web page from a user’s IP [internet] address helps companies see the web as regular users see it – which ensures complete and accurate data.

With that brief overview of the why and wherefore, let's take a look at how to setup on my mobile phone.

If you use my link to EarnApp.com I'll earn a commision after you start using them yourself. You can share your own referral link with your friends and earn a little more yourself too!

The app isn't available on Google Play Store and isn't yet available for iPhone/Apple devices. Therefore, to install on an Android mobile phone such as mine, I need to visit the website on my phone and then click on Android in the supported platforms window that appears once you've got there! You may get a warning that the file maybe harmful, providing you've downloaded directly from their site you can ignore that warning and go ahead and download anyway. Once the file has downloaded, click to install/open and go ahead with the installation. Your phone may prevent or warn against installation from unknown sources, you'll either have to agree to install anyway or change a setting to allow installation from unknown sources.

Once the app is installed, and you run it you will see a screen similar to this one at which point click on Start using the app. You can visit your EarnApp dashboard either on your phone, or tablet/laptop/computer (which is a little easier to see) to see that the device was added, and of course an earnings summary.

In my case the device was called something like sdk-android-9008d09f020f4395z2ecz020459c7d6z which wasn't a very memorable name, thankfully you'll see a pencil icon which allows you to edit the name, so I renamed mine to Cubot Max3 which is the make and model of my phone. You can also click on the device name to find out what the pay rate is - mine started off at 10cents per Gigabyte but once a bit of traffic had been served it increased to 25cents (the rate depends on your geographic location) - not a great deal but we'll see over time how that works out (be sure to check back in about a month for the next article where I'll share with you my progress).

I also installed the 'app' onto my NAS server using what is known as a docker image - explanation of this process is beyond the scope of this article but if anyone wants to do the same feel free to contact me. Here's a brief overview of my EarnApp dashboard:

Once you've got your devices setup, don't forget to go to the Auto Redeem option to tell EarnApp where to pay your commission. The current options are to a Paypal account or an Amazon giftcard. The minimum for payout (for Paypal anyhow) was $2.50. 

HoneyGain.com to earn passive income

HoneyGain seems at face value to be more generous than the other apps, for example, if you use my referral link you'll automatically get a $5 bonus just for signing up. You can also win extra credit to your earnings simply by visiting your dashboard each day and trying your luck at their Lucky Pot (they should've called it Honey Pot in my opinion!). Additionally, if you run the app on your Windows or Mac computer you can earn more by allowing the Content Delivery Network option (CDN) [click the link to read more about this]. 

Content Delivery is Honeygain's latest feature, allowing users to share their internet connection for bandwidth-intensive content such as images, videos, audio, heavy websites, IPTV, VoIP, etc.

HoneyGain's minimum payout is $20, after just about half a day and my introductory bonus of $5, I'm up to $5.23 - come back in a month or so for the second blog entry on this to see how I get on (signup to the newsletter to make sure you don't miss it - use the Join VIPs button). When you reach the threshold you can request a payout - you can have a payout to your Paypal account, Bitcoin wallet or JMPT (no idea!). I guess if you've ever traded in Bitcoin, that might be quite a good idea as theoretically your money in BTC could increase, but conversely could decrease too - I'm opting for Paypal!

Although HoneyGain say that you can have up to 10 devices on the same account, I have found that with just 3 devices (my phone, NAS and my desktop Apple Mac computer) that my phone is suspended with a message stating that there are too many devices on this network. In my case it is probably preferable to have the NAS and Mac in use as they connect to my network directly rather than WiFi and so will offer better connection to the Internet. This is just something to be aware of if you intend to setup 3 or more devices. 

HoneyGain is available for a range of platforms which include Android (mobile phones/tablets), iOS (ipads and iphones), macOS, Windows, Linux (Docker) - to download and install on your phone, just visit HoneyGain.com and click on the download link you'll see at the top of the screen, scroll down and click on Android or iOS. Of course, if you want for Windows or macOS click on those!

You will earn 3 credits for 10MB of traffic that goes through you. So for 10GB, you’ll earn 3USD

You will earn 6 credits for every hour Content Delivery is Active and running (not ‘In Queue’).

Here's a brief glimpse of my earnings at the time of writing this blog entry - come back in a month for an update!

Peer2Profit.com and earn passive income too!

As I write this article, almost approx. three quarters of a day in, I've earnt about 7 cents with Peer2Profit - I think this is probably going to be the most difficult one to earn with, it's going to take more time. Having said that, in common with the other 2 apps you don't actually have to do anything, at the end of the day free money is, well, free money!

Interestingly, from the Dashboard there is an 'income calculator' which can give you an estimate of monthly earnings, this suggests that my current 2 devices could generate up to $8 per month.

The app for Android can be downloaded either from their site, or you'll actually find it in the Google Play Store as well. Sadly it is not available for iOS (ipad and iphone) but is available for macOS as well as Windows and Linux. 

What happens next? 

• In about 1 month I'll write another blog entry to update you on how it's gone
• If it's been going well, I may well see if there are other similar 'apps' and I'll write about them in that blog entry too
• Try them for yourself, what have you got to lose? And please use the links on this page to signup, I'll earn a bit from that too and in the case of HoneyGain you'll get $5 too!
• Get free money!