When your computer is always connected to the internet, you have a capped internet connection with so many Gb monthly, or you just want to control what is happening with your network, you need a monitor that evaluates your bandwidth situation.

Why monitor

There are different reasons to use a network traffic monitor:

• Capped or limited use of Internet
• Collect data about the speed of your Internet if you are think it’s too slow according to what they promised you.
• Trackdown suspicious network activities. Normally trojan horses and other malware.
• Measure speed and identify network problems in your own network.

NetWorx

There are many problems that perform this job, but NetWorx is a good option, it’s simple, free and it comes full of options.

With the program you'll be able to monitor your network, or a specific connection (for example your Ethernet). You can check the incoming and outgoing traffic, and the statistics on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

Interesting Features

This program brings a series of interesting features:

• The Reports can be exported.
• You can actively see your upload and download information.
• It has different testing tools to test your network.
• Different kinds of alerts inform you, for example, when the Internet is disconnected or when its activity exceeds certain levels.

Other Programs

Although this is a nice program, this is not the only one that exist for monitoring your network:

• BitMeter 2: is another bandwidth meter, it allows you to visually monitor your internet connection by displaying a scrolling graph that shows your upload and download speed over time.
• Bandwidth Monitor: this program monitors bandwidth usage through the computer it's installed on. The software displays real-time download and upload speeds in graphical and numerical forms, logs bandwidth usage, and provides daily, weekly and monthly bandwidth usage reports.
• SurplusMeter: This is a Mac app to help you monitor your broadband usage. You can specify which day of the month your internet contract starts, and you can add your monthly download cap. SurplusMeter will start tracking what you use
• Nagios: This is probably an overkill, but this program is a powerful open source system and network monitor and also infrastructure monitor application. Nagios works for servers, switches, applications, and services and is considered as the defacto industry standard In IT Infrastructure Monitoring.

Problems

The big problem with these kinds of monitors is that if you use different computers through the same modem, the monitor won't be able to get the whole picture. To avoid this problem, the best (cheap) option you have besides a modem with a monitor, is to use the modem as a Bridge, and actually use a single computer to be the only connection to the Internet. On that computer you can have your router and wifi connections, so your computers will go online through a single place.

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