Finding programs that contact the internet

Hi

I have Vista Ultimate and a "always on" Broadband, is there a program out there that will scan my PC and tell me which programs I have installed that will connect to the Internet, or attempt to connect, to update or what ever.

There are times when my Internet runs so slow and I cannot see why, this happens with FireFox or IE7

thanks

Daniel

There are quite a few ways to figure out which programs are connecting to the internet and where they connect to.

My first solution would be a good firewall. Comodo Internet Security is perfect for this. Its free, and shows you all the programs that are trying to connect.

There are commands for CMD that you can use that will help too. Please let me know if you would like to do that, I will help you with those commands.

The problem with a firewall is that if it blocks the connection the program still tries and this takes resources?

I think.

The CMD options would be of interest.

regards

Daniel

No problem.

To start the command prompt, press the start menu, select run, and type cmd into the run box.

In the command window, please type the following:



That should take care of your problem.

Thanks that works, I'll start looking up what each .exe is.

regards

Daniel

Hi

I ran the CMD entry as above and got some info I do not understand, can I post it here for some help?
Will that share personal info, such as my IP address and location, and can it be used maliciously?

thanks

Daniel

Dont worrie, I (Or any other tech here) would never post, or ask you to run malicious code, or code that gave away any personal information. The code is perfectly harmless.

However, some of your personal information is contained in the information that it showed you. Therefore, I would not recommend posting it here as anyone can see it.

But I will post some from a test machine of mine, and explain what you are looking at.


When you run the command, you will get somthing similer to this:

That is the top information that you will be seeing. It shows the server that you connect to for access to the internet.




Above is a list of process's, and what IP's that they are connecting to.

Example:

This shows that "firefox.exe" is connecting to "63.216.248.9".



Do you understand? If not, please provide detailed questions that you have about what you dont understand below.

Hope this helps.


EDIT: I envite anyone who knows more about this to correct me if I am wrong. I am not great at networking, so the above info may be incorrect.

Thanks Jerry, an excellent explanation.

Now I know what I am looking at and so far have found nothing unexpected, I'll post back if I do find anything.

regards

Daniel

Not a problem friend! Glad I could help!

I will change this topic to solved. If your question has not been answered, please let me know and I will remove the solved label. If you must ask a new question to be answered, please do so in a new thread.

Hi

this is more of the same issue, not that there is a problem, I'm just trying to understand what is happening.

When I type netstat -b at CMD I get about twenty of these
TCP 127.0.0.1:50357 Gaming:nfsd-status TIME_WAIT
I understand that this is my PC, Gaming is my PC's identity on my network, but what is happening, why are there twenty of these entries.

thanks

Daniel

Unfortunatly, I couldnt tell you. I would have to actually look through your computer to see which apps are doing this.

All I know about it is that this is showing which ports are open by programs.

When I break this down:


I can tell you that this:

is local host...

And this:

is an open port.

Hi

do you know what "nfsd-status TIME_WAIT" means?

thanks

Daniel