How not to download so much

TangyZizzle

Long story short. I am not the billpayer in my household. The billpayer is in fact becoming a bit of a pain in the side. I want to know how not to download as much as I do because apparently we are gone over our limit already.

There's 3 computers in the house. A netbook, a laptop and a PC.

Netbook is used sparingly

The laptop is owned by a 17 yr old girl so its not up to much bar MSN, Facebook and the odd song download.

The PC(mine) is owned by a 20 yr old male so is most likely the culprit here. That said, I'v given up downloading torrents or in fact.. anything large since I got my original warning. For the past month the only downloads the PC could have amounted are from watching Youtube videos, MSN ..etc.

Help me cut down. Please, if you need to know more to help me - do ask.

JJJJNR

You could try turning off graphics on your browsers, then you'll only see text, I've my graphics turned off for most sites.

TangyZizzle

There must be better ways than that.

Spear

I'd suggest installing a traffic usage monitor and get a real number on your bandwidth usage. For all you know the laptop could be trojaned to hell and back and be spamming constantly. Or since music is being downloaded, it's client could be left uploading.

TangyZizzle

That's cool. I'm going to install a traffic monitor on both the PC and Laptop at the beginning of next month and at the end we'll see who the culprit is.

How would I check for trojans on the laptop? It's got Norton on it so I thought that would be taken care of, no?

Spear

TangyZizzle wrote: »

That's cool. I'm going to install a traffic monitor on both the PC and Laptop at the beginning of next month and at the end we'll see who the culprit is.

How would I check for trojans on the laptop? It's got Norton on it so I thought that would be taken care of, no?

Plenty of advice here for trojan checking:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055274237

MalwareBytes has proven popular for a good while now.

Citygirl1

There could be more users than you think.

I am the only person in my household, with a monthly 30GB limit on my Eircom package. A few months ago, I got a surprise, on receiving my bill, to be charged extra for going over this limit.

I use the internet quite a bit, but my browsing sounds like your restricted version - youtube, hotmail, general research and reading, occasional downloads.

On phoning Eircom I realised that at least one of my neighbours was hacking into my wireless connection. (the Eircom assistant was able to advise that there were two computers accessing the modem at that moment).

This was despite the fact that my modem was password protected. I was then advised that the security on the older Eircom modems (mine is 2007) was not great. They then updated the security settings, and we changed the password, which has resolved the problem.

Also, if your household is using Eircom, you should download their "usage meter" which allows you to monitor the usage throughout the month. I don't think though that this can be done for each computer individually. It will show the usage for the account as a whole. However, it would give your household a much better ability to track usage, and check the impact if, say, you were away for a few days.

Teyla Emmagan

Citygirl1 wrote: »

On phoning Eircom I realised that at least one of my neighbours was hacking into my wireless connection. This was despite the fact that my modem was password protected. I was then advised that the security on the older Eircom modems (mine is 2007) was not great. They then updated the security settings, and we changed the password, which has resolved the problem.

'Not great' is a bit of an understatement, those older models very easy to get around. I remember a program going around a couple of years ago written by someone out in UCD, could get you the password for any Eircom modem (up until they upgraded them of course...).

TangyZizzle

I cant find where to download this eircom usage meter.. help please?

Teyla Emmagan

See the link at Q3:

http://www.eircom.net/broadband/faq/#faqthree

ArdRi79

Its probably the P2P. Ive found the upload and download usage are combined to calculate your monthly usage on 3mobile broadband. I fell asleep one night with Bittorrent running and woke up to an 80 euro penalty from sharing...

Nasty. To avoid that scenario either avoid it completely (my eye) or be a leecher until you find a proper internet service provider. Im stuck half way through an 18 month contract with 3 (I got a free modem woohoo) and thats what Im doing.

TangyZizzle

Its not P2P. I havent downloaded any torrents since the billpayer came down hard on me. The 17 yr old laptop user uses youtube to MP3 converters to download her music.

ArdRi79

That could be it too depending on the amount of mp3's. You know yourself it involves downloading a much larger video file only to convert it to a small mp3. Youd probably get a whole album for the price of 1 video... if its whole albums your sis might be better off with p2p so long as she watches the sharing.

Tryin telling your sis something though. Mine would bury me and smear my face with jam hehe

TangyZizzle

I have tried explaining to her why torrent files would be better than using youtube converters. I know full well that what she is doing is taking up a whole load of bandwidth but she'll have none of it. "I don't want the whole album I just want THAT song!,"

Hal Emmerich

It's around 20MB to watch the average 3 or 4 min vid on youtube at 360p.

Tea_Bag

I'm calling porkies on the bill payer. what ISP are you with? most of them have a cap of around 20gb, which is easily enough for your current usage. find out your actual cap, and definitely install a bandwidth monitoring tool.

TangyZizzle

If I recall correctly, I was told our cap is 20gb and we've already used 30gb. Ill confirm that tomorrow.

jor el

Three people will go through 20GB pretty quickly, especially if getting music off Youtube is a common occurrence.

Switch up to a product with a higher allowance. Pay the difference yourself in order to keep the bill payer happy.

TangyZizzle

Total allowance - 10gb

You have reached 13% of your monthly usage allowance.

That's what the eircom bandwidth monitor is telling me. Remember today is the first day of the month. That's 13% in one day. Christ almighty.

Spear

TangyZizzle wrote: »

Total allowance - 10gb

You have reached 13% of your monthly usage allowance.

That's what the eircom bandwidth monitor is telling me. Remember today is the first day of the month. That's 13% in one day. Christ almighty.

10gb limit? Is that the lowest Eircom package? That's €46.79 a month normally. For €49.75 on UPC you get a 30meg package and a 250gb limit.

TangyZizzle

I just checked with UPC. It says that broadband isnt available at my address.

Spear

TangyZizzle wrote: »

I just checked with UPC. It says that broadband isnt available at my address.

Are you in a rural area? If so you may be out of luck.

If you're in an urban area other phone based providers may be of use then.

Smart Telecom:

http://smarttelecom.ie/home_broadband.aspx

€39.95 gets you 10meg and a 170gb cap.

TangyZizzle

Ah, I wasnt too sure what 'traffic included' meant. The billpayer at the moment is more open to a switch but doesnt like the prices Im quoting. They are currently paying 40 odd on a once every two months bill. Everything Im showing them is 40 odd every month.

DeepBlue

If you're stuck with eircom then you're probably better upgrading to the package with the 30 GB allowance as you'll probably be paying the extra anyway with penalties.

However if you can get an alternative it would be better to go with that. Almost anything is better than eircom price-wise.

Spear

TangyZizzle wrote: »

Ah, I wasnt too sure what 'traffic included' meant. The billpayer at the moment is more open to a switch but doesnt like the prices Im quoting. They are currently paying 40 odd on a once every two months bill. Everything Im showing them is 40 odd every month.

That sounds a bit odd, are you sure they're not including the line rental? I can't find any Eircom package, even their crappiest packages don't approach €20 a month.

TangyZizzle

Ill get the exact details of the billing tomorrow.

Razzuh

Getting back to your original question for a moment...
Some practical suggestions would be:

Avoid repeat downloading. i.e. download it and then look at it as often as you like without adding to your traffic. This isn't always user-friendly though. It would be particularly helpful with videos. Often, videos will stream and each time you replay it, it'll download again; it doesn't save to your hard drive.

Use Opera with Opera Turbo enabled. With Opera Turbo, data is sent through Opera servers and compressed before it gets to you, so the amount of data you receive is less, but you still get all the content. It's the same as using a normal browser. Not sure exactly how much of a saving this would produce, but it might be worth a try. It's really meant for people on slow connections.

Lavattack

Hey OP,

Suggest the billpayer takes a look at this

http://www.vodafone.ie/df/homebroadband/productdetails.jsp?productid=381057&producttypetab=HOMEPHONEBROANDBAND&categorytab=subcategory_1&perlicoid=115017


We switched to them and have have a great service and with 120GB limit you will be sweet. No surprise bills and we also have 3 computers in the house(2labtops and one desktop). We would be online for a total of maybe 20-40hours a day doing various things but never come close to going over the limits. That bill includes all free calls to landline also and 200 to vodafone mobiles with decent speed if available. (they can at least match your current Eircom speed as far as I know

TangyZizzle

The €52 a month bill is just too high for the billpayer Im afraid.

Lavattack

TangyZizzle wrote: »

The €52 a month bill is just too high for the billpayer Im afraid.

http://www.vodafone.ie/df/homebroadband/productdetails.jsp?productid=381054&producttypetab=HOMEPHONEBROANDBAND&categorytab=subcategory_1&perlicoid=115007

This one is €40 but with 4 times your current limmits, maybe better suited. Thats about all I know on the subject anyway...change providers as I have no idea of how to reduce/restrict downloads but seems you have got good advice there from the others

jor el

TangyZizzle wrote: »

Ah, I wasnt too sure what 'traffic included' meant. The billpayer at the moment is more open to a switch but doesnt like the prices Im quoting. They are currently paying 40 odd on a once every two months bill. Everything Im showing them is 40 odd every month.

Line rental alone is €25 a month, so it's not possible to be paying €40 every two months for phone and broadband, unless they're not paying line rental due to disability benefit or pension. If that's the case, then you can discount the line rental off any of the prices you see on the other options. So subtract €25 off any of the monthly prices quoted.

Either that or they are reading their bill wrongly.

Lavattack

jor el wrote: »

Line rental alone is €25 a month, so it's not possible to be paying €40 every two months for phone and broadband, unless they're not paying line rental due to disability benefit or pension. If that's the case, then you can discount the line rental off any of the prices you see on the other options. So subtract €25 off any of the monthly prices quoted.

Either that or they are reading their bill wrongly.

+1

No way a bi-monthly bill can be €40 without the government paying your line rental. If they do now and you switch, the same will apply with your new provider. Take the €40 p/m package I showed you. Take off the €25 for line rental and you get €15. Multiply that by two = €30 every two months. Ask the billpayer about it because I know for a fact that you cannot dodge line rental unless its because of a benefit of some kind. Not sure about other companies but just ask them do they get it covered. I know Vodafone do accept it.

Stokolan

With a 10 gig limit and payment of €20/month sounds like they are using some sort of mobile broadband?

TangyZizzle

It's not mobile broadband. It's a modem. The billpayer got onto eircom earlier today. The man on the other end of the phone was able to tell us that the last time someone was connected to our internet was between 6 and 630am. Everyone in our house at the time would have been asleep. It's now been established that someone else is connecting to our broadband wirelessly. We've been upgraded to a 30gb cap and told not to download anything that isn't totally necessary for the next 3 days and to keep an eye on the bandwidth we clock.

I think the fella she was on to has all but convinced her to upgrade to the 30gb package. Happy days.

Tea_Bag

TangyZizzle wrote: »

It's not mobile broadband. It's a modem. The billpayer got onto eircom earlier today. The man on the other end of the phone was able to tell us that the last time someone was connected to our internet was between 6 and 630am. Everyone in our house at the time would have been asleep. It's now been established that someone else is connecting to our broadband wirelessly. We've been upgraded to a 30gb cap and told not to download anything that isn't totally necessary for the next 3 days and to keep an eye on the bandwidth we clock.

I think the fella she was on to has all but convinced her to upgrade to the 30gb package. Happy days.

aarg I assume the eircom support changed your WEP password to a real encription, ie WPA2?

did you have to enter a new password to use the internet today?

TangyZizzle

She said they went through 101 steps over the phone before he told her that what they were doing wasn't going to work. He then walked her through another load of steps before telling her that he's switched her from WEP to WAP. Yes, we had to enter a new password today - one which she made up upon his request.

Tea_Bag

TangyZizzle wrote: »

She said they went through 101 steps over the phone before he told her that what they were doing wasn't going to work. He then walked her through another load of steps before telling her that he's switched her from WEP to WAP. Yes, we had to enter a new password today - one which she made up upon his request.

Eircom are an incompetant bunch of monkeys. whatever 101 steps he put her through was completely unnessisary im sure of it. all that needed to be fixed was the WEP password, which isnt a password at all, since it was cracked over 3 years ago!

i would have suggested changing the WEP password yourself, but i didnt think about it because i didnt think you were actually with eircom or using WEP (the low price and 10gb cap put me off)

you should be all clear anyway. unless the hacker got into your router itself (likely if they werent feeling lazy, but im sure hope to god that the Eircon guys got the billpayer to change that password too.

We've been upgraded to a 30gb cap and told not to download anything that isn't totally necessary for the next 3 days and to keep an eye on the bandwidth we clock.

dont worry about that bull****, you can use the internet freely again. dont be afraid to go on facebook or whatever

EDIT: on second thought, knowing eircom, ask your billpayer if she got the router password changed too?

Citygirl1

TangyZizzle wrote: »

The billpayer got onto eircom earlier today. The man on the other end of the phone was able to tell us that the last time someone was connected to our internet was between 6 and 630am. Everyone in our house at the time would have been asleep. It's now been established that someone else is connecting to our broadband wirelessly. We've been upgraded to a 30gb cap and told not to download anything that isn't totally necessary for the next 3 days and to keep an eye on the bandwidth we clock.

I think the fella she was on to has all but convinced her to upgrade to the 30gb package. Happy days.

I knew it!! This is exactly what I suspected, from my own experience, and highlighted in post seven.

The Eircom modems issued from 2004 to 2008 seem to have had very weak security - this is even acknowledged on their website. However, it shouldn't have that much work to upgrade the settings. In my case, this was done very quickly.

To be honest, I'd say you may not need a 30gb package. I personally have a 20gb package. Now, I am the only user in my house at present, but, with a usage pattern similar to what you described, I usually only use 4-5GB per month. In the months before I realised what was going on, my beautiful neighbours had driven it to well above the 20gb.

LaVail

Im the only user of internet in my house and I use a dongle from three..I cannot use the internet during the day time due to "congestion" so I do all my downloading late at night. I easily use up 30GB per month, dont ask me how I manage it but I do . If you are watching youtube a lot then that will eat into your allowance, I suggest never watching in HD and if you are only browsing videos then watch them in 240p .

Also if you are running out of GB towards the end of the month always leave 500MB because if you log on to check your email, microsoft update could start downloading in the background or whatever and if you are too close to your cap then that could end up being a costly update.

Disable torrent clients also as you dont want them doing anything in the background and if you can avoid clearing your temp internet files, cookies, cache etc then that will help save Mb's too by having information about a specific web site already on your pc for faster loading.

The above tips are for the heavy internet user and if you watch your downloading, streaming etc then you shouldnt have to rely on them at all.

LoTwan

What was the outcome & are you permanently upgraded to 30gb a month?

PS I love that you call your mother the bill payer :-). I hope my kids afford me the same respect online in 15 years time :-)

TangyZizzle

I thought I'd covered up the fact that she was my Mother pretty well. It would appear I was wrong :pac:

Well, we are 9 months into this month and have used 23% of our allowance(30gb) I do think she will permanently upgrade at the end of this month, especially since I am going to offer to make up the difference should we go over the limit in future.

TangyZizzle

I thought I'd covered up the fact that she was my Mother pretty well. It would appear I was wrong :pac:

Well, we are 9 months into this month and have used 23% of our allowance(30gb) I do think she will permanently upgrade at the end of this month, especially since I am going to offer to make up the difference should we go over the limit in future.

johnmcdnl

TangyZizzle wrote: »

I have tried explaining to her why torrent files would be better than using youtube converters. I know full well that what she is doing is taking up a whole load of bandwidth but she'll have none of it. "I don't want the whole album I just want THAT song!,"

show her how to check the song she wants :P

await reply of that's way to complicated :rolleyes:

TangyZizzle

johnmcdnl wrote: »

show her how to check the song she wants :P

await reply of that's way to complicated :rolleyes:

Jesus. I completely forget you could do that

TangyZizzle

I'v just pulled up the usage meter to have a nose at what percentage of our allowance we have used up. It's not there - Instead, it's now saying that our Total Product Allowance = Unlimited.

I'v consulted the bill payer about this and she does not know why we've gone from 30gb to unlimited. Any insight?

Voodu Child

TangyZizzle wrote: »

I'v consulted the bill payer about this and she does not know why we've gone from 30gb to unlimited. Any insight?

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056264241

TangyZizzle

So, what exactly are we going to be charged now when the bill arrives?