I have a feeling Yug that there is something they are not telling us about the downloads and are getting at us by stealth, I haven't seen anything put out to users or the public on this. 

Same as you, I keep Bigpond for better communication for travels etc, but may also look at another provider for the home front and just use prepaid bigpond or Telstra when away.

El Gringo wrote:

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Download and install this free usage monitor www.softperfect.com/products/networx/
It will let you see what you are actually using.
I run it all the time now as i had arguments with Telstra Bigpond some time ago regarding their method of billing.
Gives you daily, monthly yearly reports.
Small program, uses very little resources.

Cheers,

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Thanks El Gringo, will take a look at it.

Something is not right that is for sure.  

Yes, good program to use - get it here www.softperfect.com/products/networx/
The free one is all you need

Also get Spybot search and destroy www.safer-networking.org/dl/

I also use Crap cleaner to keep my system running at it's best.
there are some fakes around, so make sure you get it from here - again the free one is all you need.. www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download
I run it every night just before i shut the PC down.
Easy to do by right clicking on the re-cycle bin and click on run CCleaner.

Cheers,

Have you seen the amount of adds and cookies that appear nowdays. They addup and if you don't turn as many off as possible you pay for their advertising.

Bigpond's "my bigpond account" shows daily uploads/downloads, you don't need any other software IMHO, ESPECIALLY as Bigpond will use their data not some other software if there is a dispute.

Look to see your "usage pattern" and then you know what to expect if you surf the internet etc,  AND LOOK FOR ANY ANOMOLIES.

Also downloading mail is really an insignificant amount of usage when compared to internet browsing.

Hope this helps.

'

Have you noticed the size of any attachments to the e-mails you are receiving thru Windows Live Mail ? If you receive large attachments and don't open them, they are still downloaded and become part of your monthly GB allowance. Even though I use Bigpond at home and thru a WiFi modem when I travel, I don't use the bigpond mail server. We have a server in the U.S. used for our web site which we retained after selling the business in the Philippines, and I put a "Message Rule" on my e-mails. I still have a bigpond e-mail address but I never use it. It came with the deal from Telstra. I'm sure the Message Rule would work on Bigpond. If you don't know how to set up the rule and you want to try it, PM me. Under my signature on my outgoing e-mails, I insert the following:

Messages with or without attachments
larger than 1.5MB are deleted at the 
Server. I do not see them.

So if an e-mail is received at our Server and it is larger than 1.5MB, it is automatically deleted and not downloaded.

On a slightly different reason for extra downloads. I spoke to my son re this matter. I don't know if he is right but he told me lots of the "Apps" now used by Windows 8 and later versions get permissions to use location access websites etc and we just let them do their thing.

He told me to check my Task Manager and highlight the Start menu and see what was running. I was amazed there were four main programs that you need but there were SIXTY other programs running in the background.

I went through and disabled a lot that I thought should not be running.

My computer seems faster and that little gizmo someone suggested to download shows my upload and download has dropped drastically.

Be interesting now to see if I exceed my monthly download continuing my normal computer usage.

With a thank you to El Gringo who I think drew the software gizmo to my notice.

I find this utility to be really useful in identifying what application is consuming all the bandwidth - other just tend to tell you how much bandwidth is being used but doesn't tell you what applications are using it.

Thanks for the further feedback folks, yes Phantom I have the Windows automatic updates (if that is the one you mean) so maybe that is part of the problem, however sometimes they do urgent security updates so would rather rely on them to do it and do it manually myself and maybe forget to do so.  Good point though.

Looks like I will have to look at my settings too dING, I think mine does the urgent updates automatically (to close loopholes to hackers etc) but gives you the option of downloading other optional updates that my not apply to your pc.

Thanks Baz, just went in and changed a couple of settings, hope that will help now.

PS:  Liked that Prof Miller show when he was around, even his chocolate addy he did!   "Why Is It So".....

dING wrote:

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Most updates are not for the individual user

They are more designed for corporate user

I aways turn off auto updates and just leave on

The notifications so I can choose which ones I want

MS seem to have a habbit (no not a Hobbit) of

Sending out a up date once or twice a year

To crash your computer

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 Funny you should say that.

Prior to retiring my desk top computer (what did we call em?) had W98 and top quality nVidia graphics for design work and although it shouldn't have run XP properly I have XP installed.

One day, years later I received a message from Microsoft saying I had an illegal copy of XP, so rang my compter guy who installed it and he said don't worry ignore it, so I did. Heaps more messages and then MS said they would cut off my updates and again my computer guy said ignore again.

Well they DID TURN OFF UPDATES ON THE DATE THEY SAID THEY WOULD,,,, AND SENT ME 13 VIRUSES.

Just love em eh!!!!!