Best Free Download / Upload Meter
The products in this category are required to provide a graphical representation of the network traffic going in and out of you PC. When I was reviewing possible contenders in this category I noticed two things. Firstly, it seems that each tool has a slightly different understanding of how to compute the bandwidth used (in and out). Secondly, most of them had problems to detect network devices under Windows Vista. Quality wise there were only two outstanding products that coincidently both worked under Vista as well. I decided not to bother with the others I found since they were either behind the two here anyways or they failed to provide requirement number one, the graphical representation of the bandwidth.
NetMeter - became finally number one in my eyes after a long time being undecided between this tool and NET Traffic Meter. NetMeter is a simple beauty, graphically as well as in regards to quality and usability. When NetMeter starts it stays on top of other windows awaiting your right mouse click in its window area. The first stop you want to make is the Option menu. You will notice that you have quite a load of features to choose from to make NetMeter measure what you want and present it to you as you want. Besides of the window properties (stay on top, show caption, snap to edges, transparency, etc.) you can also influence background, colors fonts and grid to fit your taste. Besides of the colored graph (showing upload, download and total as overlay bars) you can also display current and total DL/UL values as text. The second stop you want to make is the Totals submenu. The traffic that has been measured so far is presented to you broken down to daily, weekly and monthly statistics. This is a very nice feature if you want to double-check against you Internet provider's bill. Nicely done is NetMeter's projection of your estimated future usage based on the traffic you caused so far. NetMeter deteced all 22 physical and logical network devices in my PC running Windows Vista. This is amazingly good compared to a whole bunch of other tools not even detecting one. If you like you can only select your Bluetooth device and just measure how much traffic you use for sending ring tones to your mobile phone. The only odd thing I noticed was that the maximum value (can be optionally displayed as text) was always shown as 1.19 MiB/s. That is obviously wrong and also differs from 1.99 MiB/s which is the peak value in the Totals and Report display. I took it easy on the little guy and voted it first anyways.
NET Traffic Meter - seems to be NetMeter itself in a different skin at first sight. But there are differences, not that much but enough to let it come in second here. First I have to remark that I found two versions of this tool (not on the original homepage thought which seems to have been replaced by an advertisement site). The older version, 1.6 from 2004 turned out to be better and more capable than the newer version 2.1. The newer version wasn't able to detect any network devices in Vista anymore. 1.6 felt fine in the Vista environment and presented a beautiful bar graph of my upload and download traffic.Unfortunately no totlas are shown. Also using the right mouse button brings you to many configuration options, equally spread over design and measurement settings. A nice feature I found was the volume bar at the right that will show you how much of your allowed bandwidth you have used already. Of course you can set the allowed maximum (usually defined by your provider) yourself. NET Traffic Meter also offers statics about your usage and, just as NetMeter provides these values based on a daily, weekly and monthly period. The volume used so far can also be viewed in a diagram. Several text information can be overlaid on top of the main graph, like current DL/UL speed, network adapter monitored and totals. Also NET Traffic Meter had problems displaying the totals information. While first I had some (incorrect) values shown they turned into question marks later. Anyways, give it a try if you're not happy enough already with NetMeter.
BitMeter - leaves me a little undecided how to classify it. What it brings to the table in regards to features it lacks in regards to its graphical representation. The desktop meter is fixed in design and size (too small for larger screen resolutions) and its appearance is hardly configurable. I find that a big drawback for a metering software. On the other hand, besides of the usual traffic statistics, it comes with some nice features like the built in web server that you can launch so you can view your bandwidth usage in your browser at localhost (see screenshot). Another great idea from the people at Codebox is the stop watch. You can start and stop a timer that enables you to view your usage during a certain period of time. If you want to be alarmed by BitMeter when you reach certain thresholds of your bandwidth usage, that can also be set up. This might be handy when you need to have an eye on that based on your internet provider contract. I am a visual person and very receptive for graphical design, which I find specifically important for metering tools. Thus, even though BitMeter offers some very useful features it cannot compete against NetMeter in my eyes.
Product Details
NetMeter
Website: http://www.metal-machine.de/readerror/
Download link: http://www.metal-machine.de/readerror/index.php?action=tpmod;dl=item14
Author: ReadError [sic]
Current version : 1.1.3
File Size: 616 KB
License: Freeware
Operating Systems Supported: All 32 bit Windows versions .
64 bit capable: No
Any special system requirements: No
Portable version available: No
Additional software required : No
NET Traffic Meter
Website: http://www.trafficmeter.be (not the original anymore)
Download link: http://www.tucows.com/preview/363021 (it says 1.4, the setup program says 1.5, the About screen says 1.6 :-) )
Author: Kevin Chabot
Current version: 1.6
File Size: 1.8 MB
License: Freeware
Operating Systems Supported: Windows NT, 2000, XP, Vista
64 bit capable: No
Any special system requirements: No
Portable version available: No
Additional software required : NET 1.1 Framework
BitMeter
Website: http://codebox.no-ip.net/controller?page=bitmeter2
Download link: http://codebox.no-ip.net/download?file=bitmeter2
Author: Codebox
Current version: 3.5.7.41213
File Size: 1.0 MB
License: Freeware
Operating Systems Supported: Windows NT, 2000, XP, Vista
64 bit capable: No
Any special system requirements: No
Portable version available: No
Additional software required : NET 1.1 Framework
This category is maintained by volunteer editor George.
Delicious
Digg
Technorati
I would also suggest NETPERSEC, a good speed meter..
you can choose the interface you want to monitor...
Hi,
I didn't hear too much good about NetPerSec. Also, I could only find it on secondary sources. Obviously written by Ziff Davis but there is no official home page where you can read details or get support. It is about 8 years old when I see that correctly. So all in all facts that didn't make me too comfortable downloading and testing it. I also get the impression that it does not do anything better or new than the ones in the review here.
Best regards,
George
but none of these 3 can distinguish LAN from WAN
:S
Hi Lino,
that is true. All the tools measure at the local network interface, thus, not distinguishing where the traffic comes from or goes to. To measure WAN speed only is something you can't do on your workstation anyways. You would have to measure that at the router.
There are some online scripts out there that will measure your upload/download speed to/from the Internet. But those values always include your LAN speed as well since the measure point is still your workstation. But since today's LAN speeds are usually way above the WAN speed this results will come pretty close.
Best regards,
George
UL/DL METER ?
Hi,
it would help if you can be a little more specific.
Regards,
George
Net Meter is not Freeware!
I don't know where you get your information from, but NetMeter is definitely freeware.
SOT? Hi folks, I guess this is somewhat of-topic, but...
I just learned about Speakeasy http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/ from one of the Comcast IT guys that came out to my house. Nothing to download--just a site that let's you connect to various sites in the US to assess your download/upload speeds. Worth a checkout.
========
steve
Hi Kunkel,
thanks for the info. Speedtest is indeed a nice handy online tool that I use very often to test the bandwidth of all the different networks I have to work in (hotels, offices, etc.).
Best regards,
George
I completely swear by NetMeter on all fronts, including usability, resource-usage as well as performance. However, there is one other contender I came across when hunting for a bandwidth 'meter'.... BitMeter.
BitMeter provides similar functionality to NetMeter... and a little more. It also provides a web interface via an integrated web server for providing access to your statistics when you're away from the computer you're monitoring; this will certainly prove helpful when you're away on a holiday or a business trip and want to check if you're kids have been spending too much time on the internet. However, with more features comes the hunger for more resources, which is why I had to choose NetMeter. If you have a decently powerful computer, you're going to have a hard time choosing between the two.
Web: http://codebox.no-ip.net/controller?page=bitmeter2
Regards.
Hi rezkit,
thanks for this info. Haven't seen that one yet but from quickly browsing through it's website it looks very promising. Will review it soon.
Best regards,
George
Net meter is the best to monitor upload and download and it is free
by
Viswam Infotech
I think there is some problem with net metre .The program works fine but when i downloaded its size was 601 KB( it was mentioned 616 KB at the website ). Great review !! Thanks !!
There are somtimes different ways to convert the actual file size to KB. The actual file size is 615,355 bytes. Some tools devide correctly by 1024 to determine the KB size, which in that case is 600.93 (~601 KB). Some just devide by 1000 which in the computer world is actually not quite correct. However, both values give you a rough idea how big the file is.
It's quite normal to see these small discrepancies in file sizes (especially with small files).
FWIW, my dl was 604 KB.
Post new comment