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Anybody know of a background traffic monitor?

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hawleyj:
Hi - I have an ongoing and frustratingt problem for which I have never found a solution tool.
I am unfortunately stuck with dial-up internet service and slow dial-up at that. I periodically observe that everything (primarily FireFox and Thunderbird) slows down for no known reason. I can see that there is steady incoming traffic by popping up my internet connection monitor but everything seems to be stuck in molasses. The mystery is that when I get so disgusted that I close any and all programs that should be accessing the internet the incoming traffic continues, often for megabyte after megabyte after megabyte. Somebody is sending me stuff but I cannot figure out who or what.
Let me eliminate the obvious possibilities. I keep my computer quite secure, do real-time av/malware, etc and periodically perform full "bad stuff" scans without ever having found any type of infection. I also have windows update set to manual so it isn't Microsoft pushing crap on me without my permission.
What I have been looking for literally for years is a utility that will do for my communications something similar to what all the process viewers/monitors/tamers try to do for cpu hogs. I need a utility that will tap in and process my inbound (outbound would be nice too) packets and show me 1) what it is, 2) where it is coming from, and 3) where is it going (accumulating in memory, going to file(s), ???)  and generally provide as much info as possible (tied to a whois for instance), to help me figure out what this traffic is so I can control or prevent it.
It seems like such an obvious utility that I am always amazed when I do a web search and cant find anything that seems to do anything like that.
While I need it to monitor my dial-up connection, it would seem to be a great utility for broadband connections as well.
Any suggestions or leads? They wold be REALLY appreciated.

f0dder:
We've just recently had a somewhat related topic - perhaps that's of some help :)

terribleterryc:
One program that could help is Firefox add-on NoScript.  Especially with dial up.  You think you are connected to say ebay but four other sites ride along as part of package.  I use it to restrict flashing ads on ebay and other sites.  Somewhat of a pain to use it would be better than being bogged down.

springro:
I find Show Traffic to be helpful, especially to see if a specific IP is hammering you.

"Show Traffic" monitors network traffic on the chosen network interface and displays it continuously. It could be used for locating suspicious network traffic or to evaluate current utilization of the network interface.
--- End quote ---

Find either at http://sourceforge.net/projects/showtraf/
or the homepage at http://demosten.com/showtraf/ 

Doesn't solve the which program it's going to, but it will help identify if something is overloading your connection.

laternser:
I stumbled on this question long after it was posted.

There is an perfect and free dial-up monitor
called RxTx available at cnet's download.com

http://www.download.com/3000-2155-10125432.html
(can stay on top in corner, gives statistics and chart)

The person that wrote this gem did a superbe job.

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