Free Internet Usage Tracker?

What is eating up my internet usage? Skype? YouTube? Facebook? RuneScape?

• Last month, my family and i had to pay an additional $40 on our internet bill because we were WAY over on our download/upload limits. This month, we hit the maximum overcharge of $60. My parents have threatened my brother and i that, if we do not stop this insane usage, we will have to pay the overcharge. Our monthly usage is 25GB so we do have a little wiggle room but not much. Below I'm going to list some of the programs that we use, can anybody rate them from highest usage to lowest usage? (numbers would be great if you could provide them) 1.Facebook (normal facebook usage) 2. Youtube ( a couple 2-3 minutes videos) 3. Skype chat (without video or audio calls) 4. Skype call (audio only) 5. Skype call (standard video call per hour would be nice) 6. Runescape (low world population, low player density areas, non-member if that makes a difference) 7. Minecraft (without server) 8. Minecraft (on server, average of 4 people) 9. Textplus for the iPod (we both use this heavily, i would like to know how much this uses) 10. A google search (just for comparison reasons) I'm pretty sure that my brother's skype and minecraft server usage is what is eating through our internet. I have read that Youtube uses a good chunk as well, but can anybody order them from highest usage (with numbers per hour or per second or per minute) to lowest? I don't have any money to pay the bills so i need your help!!! Josh.

• Answer:

  Without fully knowing how much you actually use the things listed above this would roughly be your highest usage items to your lowest usage items in order. 1. Skype call (standard video call per hour would be nice) Video calls are easily your highest bandwidth of all listed. 2. Youtube ( a couple 2-3 minutes videos) 3. Minecraft (on server, average of 4 people) 4. Minecraft (without server) 5. Runescape (low world population, low player density areas, non-member if that makes a difference) 6. Skype call (audio only) 7. Skype chat (without video or audio calls) 8.Facebook (normal facebook usage) 9. Textplus for the iPod (we both use this heavily, i would like to know how much this uses) 10. A google search (just for comparison reasons) You also have to understand that most of what you listed only happens in short bursts as the bandwidth is used for that moment. Such as Textplus. If you're sending an image then your bandwidth usage will shoot up just for that duration of the image uploading. Then it just goes back to normal. Now things like video chat is a constant stream of large data being transferred back and forth. More than likely your upload is seeing the biggest hit due to the fact that your typical speeds are not symmetrical and you likely have less upload bandwidth than download bandwidth. Youtube is streaming video and takes a bit of a hit on your download but Skype calls are hands down the biggest strain on your network speeds because it has to utilize your upload speed which you have the least of. This can prevent the initial requests out the internet from getting there quickly. So even though you have a lot of download speed available, if you eat up your upload speed then you can't make the requests out to the internet for what you're looking to download. Minecraft server could be some of your bandwidth issues as well. When you're a server, everyone else in the game is connecting to you so it requires your side to send out more data than the rest of the players involved. Regardless, the Skype calls are your biggest draw. Guaranteed.