gHacks technology news » netlimiter http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:02:10 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Netlimiter 2 Monitor http://www.ghacks.net/2008/07/04/netlimiter-2-monitor/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/07/04/netlimiter-2-monitor/#comments Fri, 04 Jul 2008 08:34:08 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=5205 Do you know which applications and processes connect to the Internet on your computer ? If you use a firewall chance is that you had to define rules to allow certain programs the right to connect to the Internet. Sometimes however users think of this as a burden and use low security settings to prevent that they are being pestered all day with questions from their Firewall.

Netlimiter 2 Monitor is a sweet software that displays all open processes and applications on the system detailing their incoming and outgoing bandwidth along with ports, IP addresses and process numbers. That’s basically the same amount of information that my previous favorite Currports is displaying.

The first difference is that Netlimiter Monitor has a history function where it is displaying which applications connected to the Internet before on your system. Great for quickly checking out if an app is among the list that should not be there.

traffic stats

It’s definitely a great application if you want to evaluate the bandwidth usage of a process or software. I used it to keep an eye on Skype to see if my computer was used as a Skype supernode.

The Pro version of Netlimiter adds some interesting functions like Traffic Shaping, Network support, Network Tools like Whois and Traceroute, Remote Administration and Advanced Rules.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/07/04/netlimiter-2-monitor/feed/ 0 Find out if your computer acts as a Skype Super-Node http://www.ghacks.net/2008/06/26/find-out-if-your-computer-acts-as-a-skype-super-node/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/06/26/find-out-if-your-computer-acts-as-a-skype-super-node/#comments Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:41:12 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=5121 Bandwidth usage can be extremely different for Skype users which can be attributed whether computers are being used as Skype Super-Nodes. A Super-Node is basically a computer that is running Skype and not preventing the software access to the ports 80 and 443 which are used to route traffic from other Skype users who are behind a protected system.

The major problem with being a Skype Super-Node is that the bandwidth usage per hour will be much higher which might cause concern for users with Internet accounts that are having bandwidth limitations.

A great way for finding out if your system is being used as a Skype Super-Node is by installing a software that logs the bandwidth usage of Skype when the application is running. One tool that can do that is the trial version of Netlimiter which can be used for 30 days before it has to be registered.

Netlimiter logs all incoming and outgoing connections and their traffic consumption and it is possible to display the traffic consumption of a specific application as well.

skype traffic

The best way in my opinion to find out if Skype is acting as a Super-Node is to start it and let it run for a few hours without using it actively. Bandwidth consumption is obviously higher if you make calls or transfer data with Skype and it is more difficulty to find out if Skype is acting as a Super-Node if you have to analyze the traffic in direct and indirect traffic.

The above screenshot is showing the incoming and outgoing Skype bandwidth for most of today and as you can see it’s less than 500 Kilobyte. Super-Nodes can use hundreds of Megabytes.

The easiest way to prevent Skype from being a Super-Node is to block access to the ports 80 and 443 in Skype. You can do that under Tools > Options > Connections. Just uncheck the option “Use port 80 and 443 as alternatives for incoming connections”.

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