Zen Internet Support Forum

Hi All,

This is my first post - and I'm not a techie so please go easy on me.

Firstly this is almost certainly not a Zen issue - but I would be very grateful for any input.

I am running Vista Home Premium and use a WIRED Speedtouch router.

I have recently noticed that my downlad usage has jumped significantly but I haven't changed how I use the Net. I recently upgraded to Norton IS 2008 and thought disabling auto-update might help - but it didn't. Between 11pm yesterday and 7am this morning I downloaded 150mb - that's over 4Gb per month when I'm not even at the pc. Given that probably 100's of services connect to the net, I can't easily track which is the offending item.

So my question, does anyone know how I can monitor which applications are connecting to the Web and how much data they consume?

Is there any logging in Vista - and if so, please can I have some idiot proof instuctions.

Thanks in advance

 

Gavin

 

Hello Gavin,

I am not a Vista man yet, but a couple of bits of general advice:

1. make sure your firewall is turned on and you are in control of what applications are allowed to access the Internet.
2. try using a freeware tool like Netmon to give you an idea of what is using your bandwidth, especially Trojans
3. a really good firewall like Agnitum's Outpost or ZoneLabs' ZoneAlarm will give you control and stats - but these are paid-for software products

Let us know what you find.

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

My firewall (Norton IS 08) has automatically configured access controls for several programs and I'm not sure if they're all 'kosher'.

Re Netmon - I had a look on download.com, google etc - but several it returned several hits.

Please could you send give me a link?

Thanks again

You will find a variety of free network monitoring tools, including Netmon, on this web site

http://www.snapfiles.com/Freeware/network/fwnetmoni.html

Hi M8,  you need to watch your usage patterns for say the week, do you have any app's that may have been updating, is your vista installation fairly new?  ie has it been patching. I'm not sure if you have wireless capacity, if so turn the function off. The vista firewall will now monitor outgoing connections, so look what is allowed to pass there. have you had any large e mail attachments, or for example using u tube etc??

Yh, make sure that your wi-fi is secure or turned off if you dont use it. Somone could be using it to download some illegal things…

Hi,

YES! I have to totally agree with Shahvikram123 if your using a wireless router but only using it in a wired mode someone could still be tapping in and using your bandwidth without your authorization. YES! make sure WiFi is disabled or secured.

**Actually the MS Windows Vista firewall is a much better (improved) product than in previous windows versions such as XP, the Vista firewall is quite a reasonable firewall so I would advise using this and NOT buying or using any other. You just need to familairize yourself with the Vista firewall and make sure its configured correctly.

**YES! look out for Spyware or Malware and especially look out for unknown or unfamiliar programs that want web access. Look out for root kits & Trojen Horse infections. So make sure you DON'T rely totally on Norton for ALL aspects of your machines security I think that would NOT be such a good idea. There could be Trojens that Norton would not detect in my opinion.

Ivan 

Think he might have fixed this in the past 3 months :)