Silent Wi-Fi Thieves: Gadgets and bad practices that slow down your Internet connection

Cell phones, computers, televisions. Everything, nowadays, uses the connection to Internet. But there are some devices and bad practices that affect signal quality and there is a special category for them: hidden WiFi thieves. Silent assassins who, without realizing it, steal more bandwidth than they should.

The main problem usually has to do with a practice that derives from how you pay for the internet in Argentina: there is no limit to the data consumed, but services such as Personal, Telecentro or iPlan are contracted for speed with no restrictions on the number of gigabytes that they be consumed

This results in the fact that few users log the amount of internet they consume per month. However, this does not mean that the quality of the connection we have cannot be affected by these devices and bad practices.

Here are the most common problems and advice from Adolfo Fioranelli, network and communications expert, CEO and founder of IT Consultants, who divides this problem into three key players: not harmfulthe malignant seeds and the harmful.

Streaming Services: The Vampires of the Internet

“In the first group, the ‘non-harmful’ ones, we find applications of streamingsuch as Netflix or YouTube (among others) which check the bandwidth of the connection and automatically improve the quality of the video to the maximum allowed “, explains the expert to Clarín.

“This is a big problem when the resolution of the device playing the video does not come close to the quality we are receiving, for example there is no point in putting the video quality in 4K to see it on a cellphoneIt doesn’t even make sense on a notebook, because you won’t be able to appreciate the high definition that 4K video offers us and it consumes a lot of bandwidth, ”he continues.

Therefore, Netflix, for example, usually doesn’t play in such high quality if the device doesn’t have Ultra HD resolution. But YouTube can do it, so that’s a factor to watch out for.

Devices like chromium castingjust because they are connected in sleep mode (“Idle”), they can consume up to 450 MB per daywhich can be problematic if they are consuming when we have to carry out a task that requires a greater connectivity response.

Others like Google Home or Alessia by Amazon they are also considered connectivity vampires.

Recently, Clarín tested the Xbox Cloud Gaming service, a system for playing video games in streaming: this is undoubtedly a great broadband vampire, with the clarification that we know when we are using it.

Background updates

Windows frequently updates the operating system. These are unavoidable, as many of them are security patches for the user, on which the proper functioning of the operating system depends.

But there are other updates that may not be as necessary, at least when working and requiring connectivity – a good example is the video game.

Services like Steam can run game updates in the background, so if you’re not using the app and are in a work environment, it’s best to keep these services closed.

torrent

“In the second group, those who they are not entirely harmful, we find them all torrentwhere through an application I connect to a Torrent network, usually to download applications, music, movies or other types of files”Continues Fioranelli.

“Here the problem is double, on the one hand because to download the file I am looking for I connect to dozens of computers that participate in the network and then, tens or hundreds of connected computers from the same network to my computer to download any files available on my shared computer for the network. The problem is that the Torrents will consume all the bandwidth they find it available, ”he explains.

Also, I warn you that as yapa they can come with “surprise“:” Some of the risks are that no one guarantees us that the files I’m downloading are what I really expect and may have ‘surprises’ like virus or trojan“.

Security cameras

The environmental monitoring cameras work connected to the Internet. These devices record everything they register and upload it to a cloud.

Due to the type of business they perform, these cameras can require a lot of bandwidth to do their job.

In this case, it is best to review the configuration to see what quality are you recordingas this can slow down the network.

malware

“In the third group, the harmful ones, we find viruses, trojans and all kinds of malware, here we are leaving out that they are harmful and cause damage to the system and put my personal files at risk, if it is a trojan that makes my team form part of a botnetthe offender will have full control of my computer and will also be able to use it carry out illegal activities from it”, Warns the expert.

In this case it is better to always have an antivirus installed, but also to have the good habit of not installing unofficial extensions in Google Chrome and not to open files unknown to anyone.

How to avoid the silent killers of the web

Fioranelli recommends monitoring everything connected. Based on your experience, these are the steps to follow to have a digitally sanitized connection.

• For the first type, simply check in what quality I play the videoalways set it appropriately on the device I will play on instead of choosing automatic.

• The second type, from Windows Process Manager, check which applications are running and you can detect torrent apps easily. (Opens from Start / Type “Task Manager” or “Task Manager”).

• In the third type, legal and up-to-date antiviruses are the tool ideal for detecting and eliminating them.

“In some home routers I have the ability to check which devices are connected, but not much more, in some I have the ability to monitor and block through the firewall, but we don’t always have control of the router that the Internet provider gives us ”, he adds, as additional information.

And remember that it is important to have a good password for WiFi: “On the one hand, it is convenient to have a long password to prevent a neighbor from being tempted to ‘steal signal from us’ being a silent and unknown killer of our broadband, it is also convenient to frequently check which devices are connected to avoid surprises. “

How to monitor the internet at home

To find out which applications consume the most Internet bandwidth, you can use applications designed for this monitoring.

GlassWire, for example, is a tool that, in addition to “seeing” which programs use the Internet, allows you to block unsolicited access (the so-called firewall).

You can also monitor outbound traffic as well to which each application connects.

With this scenario in mind and the tips, checking out what the internet is consuming at home is never a bad idea.

Especially since following this closely you can find bigger problems, such as viruses and computer security vulnerabilities.