
Ask HN: How to minimize unwanted net usage by processes to a trickle? - vram22
Hi HN,<p>I have this problem sometimes of what seems like excessive Internet bandwidth usage. Sometimes I have to use a metered connection, so the issue becomes more important. Leaving aside things like malware (which may happen, and for which I do have anti-virus software installed), what are ways to reduce Internet usage (other than that directly initiated by the user) to a trickle, so as not to waste money? Thanks in advance for all answers.<p>I&#x27;ll mention one way that I am exploring: NetBalancer for Windows. A friend also told me about nethogs for Linux. Not tried yet.
======
vram22
>of what seems like excessive Internet bandwidth usage

To clarify, I meant, excessive usage by process not directly started by me.

Also, a couple of other steps I took earlier:

\- I disabled Google Drive client on my machine.

\- I disabled Dropbox.

Disabling Drive is okay, because I don't use it. But disabling Dropbox is not
so good, because I use it. However I decided to do this for now, until I
resolve this problem, because I saw in Windows Task Manager that Drive was
using a lot of bandwidth, even when I was not saving anything to it. So did
though Dropbox may be doing that too, and did the same for it as well. I think
I saw Dropbox at one point using a lot of bandwidth too, but not 100% sure.

