Windiows 7

[Ent]

Hi

Suddenly for no reason on my Windows computer it suddenly decided to download 117mb at least five times in the last two days. As I am on a mobile network this is a real concern.

I am feedup using third party Internet protection tools as they all are worse than the problem. Is there anyway I can I stop all access and allow on a case by case programs as Windows security is a joke. I want to use inbuilt Windows tools.

Any pointers?

Cheers

[wayno]

do you know what the downloads are? updates?
if you're not sure, set the update settings not to download until you approve them for download,
possibly its repeating security updates that arent caching properly and just repeating the downloads again

[GPSGuided]

Always change the setting of every program and OS to prompt updates with manual download authority.

[Ent]

Hi

I have no idea what program is doing what. Once on Windows many years I locked it down so I had to be asked. It was amazing what programs were accessing the Internet. Trouble is with frequent changes I lost the program or more correctly forgot all about it.

So what is the best way of doing this in Windows using the operating system rather than third party software?

Cheers

[ULWalkingPhil]

Maybe you have a virus. Go to this website. Www.eset.com.au scroll down the page and run the online scanner. Set options to scan everything.

[tastrax]

Try start, Control Panel, Windows update and change settings to "check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them"

[Ent]

Honestly life is near impossible with computers. Even this forum falls over more times than a United Football Club fan after a finals win.

Try troubleshooting the issue and this is what you will find.

1. Apple iPhone is near useless. There own data monitoring of cell usage is not a running total so you have to exit it, re-enter and then, and only then it updates. Apple obviously do not believe in running monitoring. Thanks Apple I will scrub my iPad order as retribution.

2. Why not use a data monitoring app? Well the nanny state of Fireblight Orchard has stopped any app running in the background so short of jailbreaking your phone all apps will fail unless you at least restarted manually every time you restart your phone. And like Apple itself they do not provide running monitoring.

3. Forget Telstra as their usage monitoring is 48 at least behind and by then the horse has bolted and the CEO will pay himself another bonus form your data penalty.

4. Microsoft, O'boy where does one start with a CEO that thinks the whole world loves WIndows Eight. Is he still CEO? They provide a network monitoring tool but it is in bytes per second so near impossible to read as it jumps around. Why not cumulative usage?

5. Sure there a literally dozens data management Windows tools but dig deeper and you will see most have issues once you bypass professional reviewers that just repeat marketing blab.

But with the above tools and much frustration I found when Firefox upgraded it was high jacked by ad ware and that was doing the issue. Killed Firefox and went to Chrome. O'boy that like IE does not handle this site's appalling reliability issue so if it losses the link it then trashes your post. At least with Firefox the back button was a back button.

It is all too hard at times. And in typing and re-typing this post eight megabytes has disappeared as Google updated itself. Heck I just downloaded it!

Cheers

[icefest]

I've upgraded to windows 8 now. I know many people hate it; I'd disagree.

In windows 8 you can set a network connection to be metered ie, it will not download updates etc over that connection.

Failing that, use a whitelist tool. That way you can set exactly which programs have internet.

I'd advise you to have a look around and compare programs yourself as you are the one who best knows what you need.

To get you started:

http://tinywall.pados.hu/
http://wokhan.online.fr/progs.php?sec=WFN

[Ent]

I've upgraded to windows 8 now. I know many people hate it; I'd disagree.

In windows 8 you can set a network connection to be metered ie, it will not download updates etc over that connection.

Failing that, use a whitelist tool. That way you can set exactly which programs have internet.

I'd advise you to have a look around and compare programs yourself as you are the one who best knows what you need.

To get you started:

http://tinywall.pados.hu/
http://wokhan.online.fr/progs.php?sec=WFN

Hi Icefest

Thanks for the above. Microsoft's ability to add then remove features from version to version is one of the biggest hates that I have of the evil empire. Data monitoring was straight-forward in XP but then MS decided to stuff it up and buried it behind yet another stupid level in Windows 7. I looked at Windows 8 and it has done the same thing with something as vital as the backup.

Windows 8 highlights the inept conceptual designers MS has. They in one foul stroke removed ease of use for their user base by totally stuffing up the interface to people familiar with a style. Just think of a IT department the day after they go to Windows 8. I can tell you it is not going to happen in many places unless there is a massive needed for wall mounted presentation screens. They completely failed to understand that while touch screens are brilliant for iPads they are useless for laptops and desktops. Try spending all day with arms outstretched. Glad you found MS improved the internet tools but I can not forgive them for again treating me with contempt.

Hell will freeze over before I convert to Windows 8. I am of the generation that was brought up with MS stuffing up every second release so skip every second or even two "updates". Dos 2.1, Windows 95, NT to XP and and Windows 7. This meant I avoided the 98 and Vista classic stuff ups.

As mentioned I did find out was what happening. Sadly Firefox has MS problems of getting worse from version to version. It once was a nice neat powerful browser but the last year or more has spent more time crashing and demanding updates than I would have thought possible. The last straw was adware that tried every-time I connected to the internt to download a 117MB of video but then fell over. I have no idea what the video was about but think this might of happened when I clicked on one of the websites that generate false finds and then bombard you with ads.

As for iPhone. It was brilliant as a hotspot but then an "upgrade" generated so many issues with laptops not finding it so forcing a switch-off and restart of the iPhone that Apple went from my "by without thinking" to "only buy as last resort" list. Their stupid up-grade stuff up has cost them a laptop and iPad sale as well as a desktop. Sorry, but as corporate USA only understands dollars therefore by not buying their products is the only way to convey to Apple that they need to treat customers better when their update bricks a device. If more people did this then Apple and co would need to respond with an ethical solution rather than their current approach of treating their customer as a cash cow approach.

Cheers

[Ent]

It never ceases to amaze me the stupidity and arrogance of marketers. For years I have been using Firefox happily but then was forced into an "upgrade". This upgrade made it so much easier for adware to invade my browser and run up 117MB downloads. Ok maybe a rouge website but due to my mega expensive ASUS laptop failing for no reason and ASUS claiming no problems I have been setting up a new laptop and rebuilding my ASUS netbook so decided to re-install Firefox on the new laptop.

Meantime I have been enduring the frustration of learning a new browser, Chrome after a rocky start I am beginning to like it. I setup my preferred webpages and started to figure out the bookmarks and the plug in for multiple file downloads. No doubt the interface is clean.

But when I installed Firefox on the new machine I was bombarded with install this, install that in the tele-marketing style. Then even though I did not install any of the junk I found Deltaware had taken over Chrome and trashed my settings without my permission or knowledge!!!! I then spent the next hour finding and removing this junk. Now to re-setup my preferences again.

So the moral of the story. Firefox the once great browser that put Microsoft in its place has been taken over by a CEO that thinks his/her marketing approach is their future. Guess what. Any machine I am asked to checkout will have Firefox removed with a strong call never to install it.

I only keep IE installed as Microsoft will stuff you around if you use another browser to visit their website. But I have no reason to keep Firefox.

In case people think, "oh there goes the Ent again", I found even on Firefox's own feedback page 85% rejection rate from users of many years. Heck, talk about stuffing up an organisation.

Too many business see customers as cash cows rather than customers and try cute marketing approaches such as bombarding users with on sell messages. My pet hate is anti-virus ware that is more painful than the virus. Amazing, when a brand of anti-virus does this in about a year it is dead as customers abandon it.

So please do not install Firefox unless you want your computer taken over by marketers. Yes, old versions are great but not the new Firefox. It is so sad to see a once great organisation implode due to an incompetent CEO.

Cheers

[perfectlydark]

I abandoned firefox a few years ago due to similar issues, clunky performance witgout any foreseeble benfits. Chrome was simple, easy and pain free. I always turn windows updates off (works fine out of the box) only run with a basic firewall, no antivirus, and only every now and then install a spyware remover to get a few things that slip through. If your not careless online its all you really need to do

[Ent]

Hi

I agree, I tried installing all the security "recommended" at one stage and it created more problems than it solved. Best was Microsoft's arrogance that in one update installed a security product that then argued with another security product locking the machine randomly.

However, with Chrome I found it draining internet usage. Went looking and found this site. http://www.grumpymiddleagedman.co.uk/20 ... bandwidth/ Like all good grumps he provided valuable information on Chrome but appears some terminology has changed in Chrome. I switched off what I thought were the options and Chrome's nibbling of the bandwidth appears to have stopped.

What is it with programmers? Do they all sit in fibre optic connected offices with unlimited bandwidth and do not even consider that their slack approach could blow people's bandwidth and make Telstra and Optus even richer?

Cheers

[Ent]

O'boy do I hate the disabling of the edit button. Roll on the nanny state!!!!!!!

Anyway more checking reveals that iTunes when you plug in you iPhone by cable steals one megabyte straight up. Have not found any way yet of stopping this theft. The trouble is iTune, antivirus, etc all nibbling and before long you have lost your data limit and done nothing! It appears Apple want to know what you have been listening to.

Yeap, when you have a USA President that thinks spying on his Allies is ok I suppose that Apple think spying on it customers to "assist" them in more sales is legitimate.

We will not need terrorist to make our life miserable when we have marketers running around with zero point zero ethics. O'well I suppose that otherwise they would be designing adds to sell cigarettes to third world pre-teen children and baby formula made with poison whiting agents to their mothers.

[icefest]

Do they all sit in fibre optic connected offices with unlimited bandwidth

Knowing google, probably yes.

I like the article, although I already run Network, netlimiter and netmeter. One to monitor LAN, the other for WAN and one to throttle certain programs. I did't realise netlimiter has a per app total though.
Thanks for the link.

--- LATER ADDITION.
I just saw your last post Ent, did you know that you can stop itunes connecting to the net with netlimiter.

[photohiker]

Not running windows as my main desktop, I don't see a lot of these problems

I do support some relatives who run it, however. They all get stuck in update loops and are prone to installing things that some web page tells them to. The most recent was the installation of McAfee over the top of a perfectly installed, running and updating AV setup. Apparently the person's bank had an advert telling them their computer was unprotected and to install McAfee to protect their computer! Sometimes they get so many toolbars on their browser, there isn't much room left for content. Perhaps the toolbars are the content

If you want to control your bandwidth, you have to TAKE CONTROL. IMHO The best way of doing this is digging up your old slow but operational PC and putting a locked down Linux firewall on it. Because it isn't some software running on your desktop, it is immune to the various microsoft shenanigans and you can see every bit of traffic on the network (and disable what you don't want). It's like having a gate on your internet connection.

I generally run FireFox, and I'm not seeing any install prompts for other software on either Mac or Windows. Perhaps this is specific to the installation (FireFox is picking up the remnants of previous installations?) Maybe start with a new user and clean install it. If you want to nail down sites that play nasty with javascript i'd suggest NoScript: http://noscript.net/

I don't mind Chrome, but I would say that all the browsers play leapfrog - sometimes one is ahead but the others catch up. I stay away from IE.

[icefest]

you can see every bit of traffic on the network (and disable what you don't want).

I'm only a basic user of UNIX systems myself, so it might be that I'm wrong.
I thought an external firewall can only determine traffic by destination IP and port number?

Running a pass through network driver on the local system (If I recall correctly, that's what netlimiter does) would be able to show internet usage linked to instances/processes and be more assistance in determining rouge apps.

That said, a robust external firewall is great, and you can even combine it with a NAS and print server.
I use both chrome and firefox (with noscript).
I do find that chrome ends up getting more day to day use due to its implementation of tabbed processes.

[photohiker]

Sure, if you want to know what process is generating the traffic, you have to look on the system itself.

I've not used netfilter. It does look good though. Note that if you want firewall control, you have to pay for a license. http://netlimiter.com/featurelistnl3.php I have a basic distrust of using windows programs to control windows programs. Once a virus or trojan is installed, all bets are off regardless of how good the software might be. Having had to clean these sorts of messes many times over I think I'm ready to say I'm too old for this xxxx

External firewalls come into their own when you want ultimate control of what passes in and out of your network. Its fair to say they are more worthwhile on multi system networks. They can be content aware and are very effective at fingerprinting malware on the network. They do require management.

[Ent]

So to use a laptop we need to become system engineers?

I have found on my new Toshiba laptop with the new Chrome settings the network nibbling has stopped. As for my Asus 90. Well it is a piece of very expensive junk with it failing as a unit and as components. Feed-up of been told it is a virus as the computer has been rebuilt at least three times and exhibits the same problems and a virus could never be found.

1. Video driver failing.

2. USB ports failing with one shorting out unless care is taken to insert plugs.

3. And the DVD/Blueray burner is about as bad something gets to still be called working. It fails burning disks but it is the media I am told. Yeap name a brand of disk and it has failed. Strangely never has had a problem with the technicians but strangely they never seem to be able to find the disk that they burnt.

Add in freezing for no reasons and that about sums up Asus finest. Given that it went back many times with nothing found wrong I can safely say Asus is a brand that I will never buy again. This is the first laptop personally for me that has failed with hardware that I have ever had. Had one taken out by a virus and another by an incompetent technician but never hardware failures on this scale. It appears nothing works on it for long. Even replaced the main drive with a SDRAM drive and it behave for six months but then started to fail. Probably substandard power supply and cooling as it attempts to cram desktop components into a laptop. Kick myself for buying something so weird but it was intended as a desktop replacement. No next laptops will be proper laptops and lot cheaper. Sure looks sexy and sounds great but junk to its core.

The new Tobshiba is in bloatware removal mode but is working a treat. The i5 does not appear to give much away to the i7 in performance and the back-lit keyboard is remarkably handy. Oh to get rid of the glossy screen.

Anyway, decided to play with Linux and dragged an old Acer Aspire 3500 out of retirement. Acer is not a brand that I respect as hardware they are prone to over heat and fail with Acer even been better than Asus at denying problems. Anyway, Linux looks like it will not install on it as I think Ubuntu does not like the video card in it.

Actually it was quite nice playing with an XP machine as it was quite lively and simple things worked better.

Now what swamp was I draining again? Arh yes, mapping. Trying out a new freeware Basecamp replacement. Oh, yes Basecamp users wonder why you hard disk is running out of space. In one of their "upgrades" they cache the photographs on my iPhone every time. Not a great iPhone camera user but gradually collecting a few pictures Found 30GB taken up by Garmin. Have not plucked up the courage to find the setting to stop this. Maybe another Dear Mr/Ms/Mrs Garmin letter but frankly Garmin Pc software is an example of programmers that simply do not use their own programs.

Cheers

[photohiker]

So to use a laptop we need to become system engineers?

Well, either that, or pay one to look after it.

Its the Microsoft Way. Don't knock it, without Windows, there'd be thousands of MS techs looking for work. There's a whole industry feeding off Windows. And then there is the MS Certified Professional training that is 'upgraded' every time they cough out a new version. Big money spinner.

[Ent]

So to use a laptop we need to become system engineers?

Well, either that, or pay one to look after it.

Its the Microsoft Way. Don't knock it, without Windows, there'd be thousands of MS techs looking for work. There's a whole industry feeding off Windows. And then there is the MS Certified Professional training that is 'upgraded' every time they cough out a new version. Big money spinner.

Or do what Dad does, call his son who once might have known but nowadays gets lost in hunt and peck game of "where did Microsoft hide this function in this version". Tried putting Linux on a laptop but it failed with video driver issues. Be interested how the support community works. Visited Garmin support forum re a Basecamp issue with the iPhone and trolls abound. Do not plug it in was the advice

Interesting with the monitoring tools the nibbling that goes on.

java 8.45MB (JOSM mapping so data actually used)
Windows svchost 2.87MB (Err no idea)
Chrome 2.77MB (probably data used to browse)
Dropbox 113KB, (this nibbles away and is a trap but its light appetite means it will stay as needed for Ent_World)
ASUS live update 8.6KB (maybe looking for another update to make the ASUS 90 even worst?)
Google update 3.38KB
AVG 1KB

Total bandwidth used 14.2MB used today.

But looks like I have stopped the drain. Now if I could just get the iPhone hotspot to work reliably by wifi. It can be faultless for days and then be a real pig. I do wonder the massive cost in data charges and slow performance due to "unnecessary" internet traffic. Like the landfills been filled by catalogues from "environmental aware companies"

Cheers

[icefest]

A couple suggestions:
Set liveupdate to only run once a week (or fortnight) with task scheduler.
Same for Google update
I think there is a windows setting where you can split all services to run in separate processes. Then you can use PID to narrow down what is downloading so much.
BEWARE this increases RAM and CPU usage substantially (use for debugging only)
Depending on how much you use dropbox you can set it to only run once an hour.

[Clusterpod]

Or forget windows update at all. Work on getting a stable setup, and then maintain that instead of constantly struggling to fix the new issues created by every new update.

As an ex computer-tech, about 90% of my glorious, food-on-the-table work was fixing problems that people created for themselves by installing some new toy or upgrading.

It makes no sense, but people can't help themselves. Some people expect their computer hardware/software use to be like buying a new handle for the shovel when it breaks. Install and use. Its not like that and will never be like that.

Looking at your list of data uses, theres nothing untoward there.

SVCHOST maintains windows services, so will be using data anytime any other application makes network requests.

If you don't want dropbox to use data, then pause syncing so it doesn't call home. When you have new files that want backing up, unpause, sync and then pause again.

[michael_p]

...Asus....

I had to return an Asus laptop my wife purchased as the hard drive controller was faulty. Should have heard the bull story the sales guys gave me, fortunately with nearly 30 years of experience I was able to show them the fault and they conceded. We got the Asus replaced with a Toshiba that has been running fine.

[michael_p]

As an ex computer-tech, about 90% of my glorious, food-on-the-table work was fixing problems that people created for themselves by installing some new toy or upgrading.

Nothing compares to PEBKAC errors for providing our daily bread.

[icefest]

forget windows update at all.

You would recommend ignoring windows update? Even the security updates?
:/

[sthughes]

Pfft a few mb here and there! Try plugging in you 4G iPad as a hotspot and leaving it - forgetting you have your computer set to back up over 600GB to an online server! Nothing like a good 4G connection to blow data in a big hurry!

I have no issues with windows updates, and I just install them all carelessly.

In relation to your iPhone hotspot woes; have you tried connecting by cable or bluetooth instead of wifi?? Works for me, and doesn't flatten the phone as quick

If you won't buy another Asus based on their reliability then it doesn't leave you many options I'm afraid!

Three year failure rates (no idea how trustworthy these are):

laptop-failure-rate.jpg (40.95 KiB) Viewed 22878 times

[Ent]

Hi

Asus I think is very much model dependent. Trouble is the crummy support. Having a bad computer quickly replaced is better than a more reliable model with zero support. Asus support very poor.

Nice to see Toshiba reliability good. Like my little beast.

The software monitoring interesting as mentioned and working well. Gradually liking Chrome.

Battling video driver issue on old laptop setting up as a Linux box. Now to learn how to install video driver. Good community support though. Unlike Garmin's forum which is troll territory.

Normally connected iPhone by cable but iTunes driving me mad with its bandwidth grab of one megabyte and never ending updates.

So gone to wifi. Also suits multiple computer environment.

Little Asus netbook finally updated. About eight days of updates. Works well with external monitor as 1024x600 screen just too annoying. Trying Open Office.

Cheers