Skip to main content

How To Meter & Manage Computer Bandwidth Usage

Unlimited bandwidth is the dream of every geek, but unfortunately, it’s not always available. Caps are one way for service providers to squeeze extra money out of existing services, so there have been many attempts to introduce them, some of which have stuck.

If you’re on a cap, it’s important to know how much bandwidth you’re using. Sometimes a provider will give you a meter for free, but if that’s not the case, you’ll need to check out a few freeware computer bandwidth usage management tools.

Keeping Up With Downloads

Monitoring bandwidth manually is virtually impossible. Individual webpages don’t report their size readily, and even if they did, there are many variables such as streaming content, automatically refreshing news feeds, and more. Software downloads are not much better. Yes, you can usually see the file size, but sometimes those files are just downloaders rather than full installers, and even if it is the full software, it may need to download an update. How do you keep track of that?
The only way is to use a bandwidth meter that works by detecting everything, from every application, process and service on your computer.
computer bandwidth usage management
For Windows users, I suggest NetWorx. This free software offers a wide variety of features that will help you keep tabs on your Internet usage. It can report and graph your bandwidth usage by day, week, month, year, or a custom time period.
Also included is a bandwidth speed test and, perhaps most useful of all, a quota feature. This lets you set a daily, weekly or month allowance for bandwidth. An alert can be configured to appear when a certain percentage so you know when you need to back off the download button.

Mac Can Do It, Too

manage computer bandwidth
Mac OS X users can use SkoobySoft’s SurplusMeter. It’s a more basic tool than NetWorx, as the reporting options are less flexible and it doesn’t have an automatic quota alert, but it does its job and, like NetWorx, it is entirely free. Please note that SurplusMeter is not on the Mac App Store at the time of this writing. This utility has been around for a while, but it seems to work fine on my MacBook with OS X Lion installed.
Although these are very useful tools, I wasn’t able to find one that reports bandwidth for all computers in a home network collectively. Tools with this capability are available, but they’re focused on an enterprise environment rather than a home network.

Respecting Your Limits

Now that you have a bandwidth meter, you may be wondering what you can do to reduce the amount that you use. I do have a few tips.
computer bandwidth usage management
  • Don’t Watch HD Video – pixel count in an image goes up exponentially as resolution increases.  A video at 360p has 194,400 pixels, but one at 720p has 921,600 pixels, and 1080p is a jaw-dropping2,073,600 pixels. Compression techniques do reduce bandwidth consumption, but there’s no getting around the fact that low-resolution video is more efficient.
  • Buy Retail Versions Of Software In-Store Whenever Possible – yes, it’s convenient to purchase a new title of Steam, but a game with modern 3D graphics can easily weigh in at over 10GB.
  • Use A Firewall – and don’t provide software with permission to automatically bypass it. This will prevent programs from downloading automatic updates without your knowledge.
One tactic that doesn’t provide much benefit is Flash-blocking, script-blocking, or ad-blocking. Using browser extensions to stop this content often does not prevent the content from being sent to your computer. It just simply isn’t displayed. In addition, the amount of bandwidth used by Flash and its competitors is typically small unless it is being used to display high-definition video or play an online game.
Do you have any top computer bandwidth usage management tips? Well, that’s what the comments section is for! I quite like the software discussed in this article – particularly NetWorx – but readers are welcome to provide their own suggestions.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How To Hide Text In Microsoft Word 2007, Reveal It & Protect It

Sometimes what we hide is more important than what we reveal. Especially, documents with sensitive information, some things are supposed to be ‘for some eyes only’. Such scenarios are quite common, even for the more un-secretive among us. You want to show someone a letter composed in MS Word, but want to keep some of the content private; or it’s an official letter with some part of it having critical data. As important as these two are, the most common use could involve a normal printing job. Many a time we have to print different versions of a document, one copy for one set of eyes and others for other sets. Rather than creating multiple copies and therefore multiple printing jobs, what if we could just do it from the same document?  That too, without the hassle of repeated cut and paste. We can, with a simple feature in MS Word – it’s just called Hidden and let me show you how to use it to hide text in Microsoft Word 2007. It’s a simple single click process. Open the docum...

Boom, the startup that wants to build supersonic planes, just signed a massive deal with Virgin

Have you heard about Boom? Boom is a relatively new startup that’s aiming to build something pretty crazy. They’re not building an app… or a social network… or even some new gadget for the Kickstarter crowd. Boom wants to build planes. Really, really, really fast planes. Specifically, they’re trying to design and build a supersonic passenger plane that goes 2.2x the speed of sound. If all goes to plan, they’ll be able to shuttle people from New York to London in 3.5 hours, and SF to Tokyo in 4.5. Sound crazy? I wouldn’t disagree. It’s worth noting that the company is in the very early days for something as intensive, massive, and hugely expensive as designing and producing a passenger aircraft. They’re still working on their first prototype, and hope to fly it by late next year. But it’s also worth noting that the team behind the plane has some serious talent in its blood: the company’s 11 employees have collectively contributed to over 30 aircrafts — having worked on thin...

Fun Tools to Translate Your Name into Japanese Calligraphy

Japanese calligraphy is an artistic writing style of the Japanese language. Its Chinese origins can be traced back to the twenty-eighth century BCE. Calligraphy found its way into Japanese culture in 600 CE and is known as the karayo tradition. For Westerners, calligraphy is forever fascinating. However, it takes years to learn how to properly draw the signs. Two basic principles must be known to understand Japanese writing: there are different writing styles and different alphabets. Kaisho for example, is a writing style most commonly used in print media. Tensho on the other hand is used in signatures. Other writing styles are Reisho, Gyosho and Sousho. The alphabets include Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana. Katakana is used for writing foreign words. It can also serve to highlight words, in analogy to capital letters as we know them from the Roman / Latin alphabet (Romaji in Japanese). Each Kanji character has a meaning of its own, while Hiragana or Katakana characters merely repres...