Monitor Network Traffic and Limit Data Usage With NetBalancer for Windows

Heavy data usage:

This free network traffic monitor allows you to restrict the heavy data usage of an application.

The ability of Windows 8.1 to handle metered Internet connections is very limited. If you set a WiFi connection to “metered” (right-click the connection), Windows will restrain itself a little.

For instance, OneDrive settings enable you to determine what kind of data is synced with the cloud if you are on a metered connection.

Outlook, will warn you and will only connect to Exchange if you give your confirmation. This has a reason. Outlook is a real bandwidth hog. In my case, my wondering ended after I monitored my network traffic with NetBalancer.

If you keep Outlook running continuously, you might use up 1 gig of data within a day. Depending on your data plan, you might reach your limit just by running Outlook for a couple of hours a day

Monitor network traffic:

After you launch NetBalancer, you will get an overview of the applications that use Internet connections. In NetBalancer’s main window, you see their current bandwidth usage and how much data they downloaded or uploaded since you started Windows.

If you want to get an overview of the data usage for a certain time period, you can use NetBalancer’s Traffic Chart. First, you have to select Traffic Chart on the Window menu. Next, on the View submenu of the Traffic Chart menu, you can set the time period. Then, you have to click the Traffic Chart icon in the lower left corner of the traffic monitoring tool. The lower pane will then display a data usage chart and table for the selected time period.

Limit bandwidth of a program:

The simplest way is to limit the bandwidth usage of the application. For instance, Outlook syncs data at rates of 1 KB/s to 100 KB/s. After I configured a rule that restricted Outlook to 5 KB/s, the synced data stayed within reasonable limits and I could still send and receive emails. Below this rate, Outlook sometimes disconnected from Office 365.

To restrict an application in NetBalancer, you have to create a rule for the application. To do so, right-click the application and choose Create Rule. Next, you have to change the Download Priority and Upload Priority to Limited and then specify the corresponding rates.

Limit data usage of an application:

Another way to restrict an application is to limit the amount of data that it can download or upload. The section below “Select the traffic amount condition when this rule becomes active” allows you to set a data usage limit for a specific time period. If you want to ensure that the application doesn’t exceed this limit, you have to set the Download Priority and Upload Priority to Blocked.

It is also possible to limit the data usage of Windows as whole-that is, for all applications. For this, you have to create a NetBalancer rule without specifying a particular application. To do so, click the Edit menu, and then navigate to Rules. Next, you have to add a new rule that sets the Download Priority and Upload Priority to Blocked once the traffic of this rule reaches your data usage limit within the configured time period.