I know there are applications that measure network traffic in kbps, and can gather statistics thereof. I have one running.
But I would like to know if there’s one that will tell me where this traffic is originating; what application is using the network; where it is downloading from or uploading to; and whether it’s over the internet or through my internal network.
I can’t seem to locate something that does this, and it surprises me as it sounds like something that would be sought after and very popular.
I’m a Unix/Linux guy mostly, so I’m not likely to be aware of any useful Windows-specific tools. However, I’m aware than one of the most popular GUI-based protocol analyzers under Linux is (or at least used to be) Ethereal, and that there’s a Windows port of it.
This is a tool that will allow you to examine network traffic in detail. From your description, it sounds like you may be looking for something that offers a more comprehensive examination of your network traffic. This isn’t that, last time I looked, but it’s something that, with a little work, might allow you to get there.
FWIW, I usually use tcpdump for such tasks – a fact offered because I figure that knowing the name of it might allow you to more easily search for Windows analogs.
I’ve mentioned only freely available software; there are many companies out there who will be happy to sell you commercial protocol analyzers, with a variety of features, if that’s what you’re looking for.
After further investigation I found things called Packet Sniffers that seemed to be what I was looking for (like Ethereal, or the Windows spin-offs like Wireshark), but I have tried this TCPView first and it’s pretty good. It seems to be a more advanced version of what you can get on the Task Manager, pretty much what I wanted, though not entirely comprehensible to a layman like me.