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General discussion

behind-scenes Internet activity

by TheBeas Jul 7, 2006 10:56PM PDT

I have ZoneAlarm protecting my DSL connection. My PC is a 1.2G P3. I've noticed something that concerns me.

Sometimes, my Internet connection slows and I can see in ZoneAlarm that something is happening in the background. This is not an infrequent occurence, either.

I've run (numerous) spyware killers, Norton AV and Ad-Aware. But even after cleaning, I still see something happening in ZoneAlarm behind-the-scenes.

Is there any way to track what sites are being automatically connected by my PC?

Thanks for any help you can provide.
Beas

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Not a lot of detail...

by GeeBee Jul 8, 2006 2:34AM PDT

...to go on there.

A mysterious "something is happening in the background". You also don't detail which version of Zone Alarm you are using, but generally doesn't it list all the applications you allowed to connect in the past, and show little icons of what are actually connected? You can also remove all those unknown "Programs" listed by ZoneAlaram, and it will pop open and ask you if you'd like to allow when they (and the mysterious task) try to access the internet next time.

You can either then "deny access" and check you have still got internet use, to narrow this mysterious connection down.

Most people have Windows Auto Updates, and automatic software checks (looking for newer versions) as well as Anti-virus (to keep security up to date), and chat programs like MS Messenger on by default too. All will look relatively mysterious and slow your transfer speeds.

Good luck,

GeeBee.

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