Android – java.net.ConnectException: localhost/127.0.0.1:8080 – Connection refused

Firebase Cloud Messaging FCM FAQ is the new version of GCM. It inherits GCM’s core infrastructure to deliver messages reliably on Android, iOS and Chrome. However they'll continue to support GCM because lot of developers are using GCM SDKs today to handle notifications, and client app upgrade takes time.

As of June 26, 2012, Google Cloud Messaging is the preferred way of sending messages to applications running on devices.

Previously (and now deprecated), the service was called Cloud To Device Messaging.

Update April 29th 2014:

My answer is kind of old by now and I guess you rather want to use some kind of high level library such as Retrofit.

Based on this blog I came up with the following solution: http://blog.tacticalnuclearstrike.com/2010/01/using-multipartentity-in-android-applications/

You will have to download additional libraries to get MultipartEntity running!

1) Download httpcomponents-client-4.1.zip from http://james.apache.org/download.cgi#Apache_Mime4J and add apache-mime4j-0.6.1.jar to your project.

2) Download httpcomponents-client-4.1-bin.zip from http://hc.apache.org/downloads.cgi and add httpclient-4.1.jar, httpcore-4.1.jar and httpmime-4.1.jar to your project.

3) Use the example code below.

private DefaultHttpClient mHttpClient;


public ServerCommunication() {
    HttpParams params = new BasicHttpParams();
    params.setParameter(CoreProtocolPNames.PROTOCOL_VERSION, HttpVersion.HTTP_1_1);
    mHttpClient = new DefaultHttpClient(params);
}


public void uploadUserPhoto(File image) {

    try {

        HttpPost httppost = new HttpPost("some url");

        MultipartEntity multipartEntity = new MultipartEntity(HttpMultipartMode.BROWSER_COMPATIBLE);  
        multipartEntity.addPart("Title", new StringBody("Title"));
        multipartEntity.addPart("Nick", new StringBody("Nick"));
        multipartEntity.addPart("Email", new StringBody("Email"));
        multipartEntity.addPart("Description", new StringBody(Settings.SHARE.TEXT));
        multipartEntity.addPart("Image", new FileBody(image));
        httppost.setEntity(multipartEntity);

        mHttpClient.execute(httppost, new PhotoUploadResponseHandler());

    } catch (Exception e) {
        Log.e(ServerCommunication.class.getName(), e.getLocalizedMessage(), e);
    }
}

private class PhotoUploadResponseHandler implements ResponseHandler<Object> {

    @Override
    public Object handleResponse(HttpResponse response)
            throws ClientProtocolException, IOException {

        HttpEntity r_entity = response.getEntity();
        String responseString = EntityUtils.toString(r_entity);
        Log.d("UPLOAD", responseString);

        return null;
    }

}