Watch that data go... (Codebox BitMeter II)

Member Name: grahamt

Product:	Codebox BitMeter II
Date:	12/11/08 (115 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Instant visualisation of network data activity ; Free

Disadvantages: No separation of Broadband and Network data statistics

Have you ever clicked on something in your browser and nothing seems to happen. You expect some data to be downloaded from the Internet but how can you know what is actually going on? OK, you can click on the networking icon in the System Tray and watch the numbers but I always prefer something a bit more graphical.

When I used to use a dial-up connection I relied entirely on Jon Grieve's Dial-up Network Monitor. I would have liked to have carried on using it but unfortunately Jon has not developed a broadband networking version. What I was looking for was a very simple small graphical display of uploads and downloads so that I could tell when data was actually being transferred and at what rate.

I tried a few and finally thought I had found what I was looking for in Nikola Dachev's NetGraph2. It seemed to do everything I wanted but was very flaky. Frequently it would crash for no apparent reason. My attempts to contact the author (he appears to be a Bulgarian) met with no success and so, increasingly suspicious, I dropped it from my essential tools when I rebuilt the laptop.

What I have now found that seems to do a good job and is stable is Codebox's BitMeter II. The developer seems to be responsive to requests. The only one that I would make would be to enable the display window to remember where it was last positioned on the screen and to open there thereafter. It does do it, sort of. The problem appears to be that at normal shutdown the new position is forgotten. If you reposition, exit Bitmeter and then restart it, the new position is remembered. The developer believes the problem is related to a "corrupted" version of .Net 1.1. I'm now on .Net 3.5! However, as there are no other issues, I've left it as-is.

Like others of its kind, BitMeter opens with a small window showing a graphic display of the upload and download data rates as a moving barchart. You immediately get a picture of what is happening, not only on your broadband connection but also for any data flowing across a home network between computers.

Below the graphic window is a numeric display of the current data rates. Together they are small enough to be able to keep on top all the time but stay out of the way of your other windows. I must admit I regularly refer to it to see what's going on (or not as the case may be). However, BitMeter does provide a "Click Through" option so that you can click an icon beneath the display if you need to.

The graphic window is backed up with an icon in the System Tray that shows data activity. Hovering the cursor over the icon pop up a little numeric display of current data rates and totals since the application was started this session.

The normal right-click brings up the menu where, for instance, you can choose your Settings for BitMeter. Two of the menu options relate to data history. Statistics and Statistics Grid display windows showing respectively a graphical and a numeric indication of total data throughput in the "Last few hours", "Last few days" and "Last few months". The numeric display takes the format of a spreadsheet. This data can be exported.

There is, though, no separation between data flowing out over a broadband connection and that over a home network. I believe this enhancement has been requested. In my case this isn't a problem as my Virgin Media broadband access has no limitations. However, if you have an ISP data limit then then BitMeter enables you to indicate these limits and to be alerted should you be in danger of breaching them. This will only be of use though if you are only connected to your broadband router.

BitMeter is a great little gizmo, one of the best of its kind I have ever used. It is now lined up in my list of essential utilities, the ones that get installed on a new build right from the start.

Best of all, it's free.

Summary: The almost perfect network activity monitor

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