I would like see the devs faces when you go and tell them "Here's a set of patches to run BOINC on Tops-20. Would you check them in?" :)

Sometimes anti-malware products can use that technique to 'innoculate' your system, to prevent it accessing known bad sites.

Going back to your original question, did you actually see that extra traffic go down your DSL line, either as a router traffic log or by a usage report/measurement by your ISP? If you were relying on measurement tools internal to your computer, they, too, may have been fooled by all that loopback traffic.

We used to get regular reports from users of Zone Alarm, which indicated network activity as if it was external, where nothing was actually happening.

I just used SpeedTest.net. It didn't help anything. I am only getting (don't laugh) 1.0 Mbits / sec. Should be around 1.5 Mb/s. Must be COMCAST delaying my innocuous traffic.

I didn't see the packets going down the line, just that streaming media was getting slower.

I was trying to see if anything on my system was using the DSL when it shouldn't have been. I've ran Zone Alarm before, I'll reinstall it to see if that can give me some better diagnostics.

-JD

I've ran Zone Alarm before, I'll reinstall it to see if that can give me some better diagnostics.

No need for this.

Get this simple program (NetMeter) - it can show graph of in/out traffic of any of your network interfaces:
http://www.metal-machine.de/readerror/index.php?action=tpmod;dl=item26





(just put NetMeter.exe in empty directory and run it - I use/tested it on Windows 98, XP, Vista, 7)

ADSL lines are sensitive to Upload traffic (i.e. minimize Upload traffic to get good Download speed)


More simple/small tools you may like:
TCPView
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897437.aspx

CurrPorts
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/cports.html

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- ALF - "Find out what you don't do well ..... then don't do it!" :)