Even after you’ve upgraded your Wi-Fi, your online experience can still leave you feeling down if one device, app or service hogs the bandwidth that’s been stressed since the pandemic forced so much work back into people’s homes.
To find out which one’s at fault, start with the tools your computer already offers.
In Windows 10, open the Settings app and type “Data usage” into the search form to get to Win 10’s overview of your network status, then click or tap “Data usage” to see which apps have used the most bandwidth over the past 30 days. On my laptop, Microsoft’s OneDrive cloud backup leads this summary, followed by Sling TV.
Apple’s macOS doesn’t offer the same cumulative view, but the Network tab in its Activity Monitor app does provide a real-world view of the data appetites of your apps. On my desktop, Google Chrome tops this list.
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Specialized network-diagnostic programs such as Little Snitch (Mac, $45 with free trial) and GlassWire (Windows, free to $99 depending on features) can surface more details, although it helps to be somewhat versed in networking jargon.
“One of our first customers was having network issues, and he found his PC was connecting to a different proxy every few minutes due to malware,” emailed Jon Hundley, the Austin-based developer of GlassWire, adding that the customer’s antivirus software hadn’t detected the malware.
Legitimate software can also run amok if it’s not coded to play nicely with others.
“When Apple first added iCloud-syncing to Photos, it was a nightmare, because Photos would grab every single bit available,” emailed Glenn Fleishman, a Seattle-based author of multiple books about home networking. “If you were uploading gigabytes of pictures, your network might be unusable.”
Apple fixed that, and cloud media services now generally try to adapt to their circumstances instead of demanding otherwise.
“Most streaming services have rate-adaptive software,” Fleishman said. “The software, recognizing less throughput (or running its own tests to figure that out), drops down to a lower bit-rate encoding until such time as it can stream at a higher rate again.”
To see whether the bandwidth hog exists outside your own computer, you’ll need an app that talks to your Wi-Fi router and reports which devices or apps consume more of your connectivity.
The xFi apps that Comcast shipped in 2017 to accompany the cable-modem gateways it rents, for example, will report each device’s percentage of the past 24 hours of bandwidth usage. (They don’t track this over a month, making them unhelpful for staying under Comcast’s data caps.) This Philadelphia-based firm says about 20 million subscribers have xFi-ready gateways but didn’t estimate how many had downloaded xFi apps.
These and other router companion programs also often require some painstaking configuration after installation to add human-readable names to devices that may only be identified by network addresses.
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The payoff comes in a clear view of who or what binged on your broadband. Fleishman wrote that he checked the app for his own router and spotted some suspects who in retrospect should have been predictable: “my kids! (probably video streaming and games).”
And that’s the other reason to put your router’s app on your phone or tablet: Using it to take a device offline just might motivate that device’s user to finish their homework.
Rob Pegoraro is a tech writer based out of Washington, D.C. To submit a tech question, email Rob at rob@robpegoraro.com. Follow him on Twitter at @robpegoraro.
