NetLimiter 3 Monitor is Finally Available to Download!

NetLimiter is one of the must-have on my computer. Although the main feature in NetLimiter is to control the , but my favorite feature is actually the traffic monitoring. I can easily see what IP address is a process is connecting to and how much bandwidth it is using. Most of the free network/tools can only tell you the bandwidth usage, but not for individual process. This is very useful for example, when Steam is updating the software and it takes really long with only progress meter showing the update percentage but not the speed. After waited for a few hours, the update is still running and you have no idea how fast is Steam downloading. With NetLimiter, you can know whether the update is really huge or the server is slow in sending the updates to you. Other than that, you can easily know which process is secretly connecting to the Internet which is a good way to know if you are part of a zombie botnet. Interestingly, I installed a keylogger on my test computer that hides itself using rootkit method which will not show up on Task Manager. When the send the logs via email, the hidden process shows up in NetLimiter 3 Monitor.

NetLimiter 3, a major update was released on end of August 2010 and the official website says that the free Monitor version will be available in next few weeks. After waited for nearly 7 months, the NetLimiter 3 Monitor is finally available to download!

Below is a sample screenshot of NetLimiter 3. As you can see, with one look you will know which process is using the Internet and expanding the process shows the destination IP and port that it is connecting to. Unfortunately the Monitor version does not come with the built-in Whois, Traceroute and but you can still perform all those tests externally in

NetLimiter 3 installation is normal like installing any other third party software except you will be prompted twice to install Locktime adapters and reboot is required in order to start the device software. NetLimiter 3 will run as after installation and will expire in 27 days (weirdly it’s not the standard 30 days trial). When the Pro version expires, you can revert it to the Monitor version by at the NetLimiter’s website for free. In a few minutes you will receive an email from NetLimiter Support with your registration name and registration code which can be used to register NetLimiter 3 Monitor.

I noticed that there is a bug with the limited features in NetLimiter 3 Monitor. When you check on the DL Limit checkbox to limit the download speed, the following error prompts:

Feature not supported.
product-id: 6
feature-name: Limiter
(Check event viewer for more details)

The Limits feature is supposed to be disabled and not usable in the Monitor version of NetLimiter but it still works. I tried downloading Firefox 4 installer and noticed that the download speed stayed around the limited 5KBps but once I uncheck the limit, the download speed immediately increased to 400+Kbps. The same thing also happens on Outgoing / Connection Blocker. Once checked, the process can no longer connects to the Internet. Only the Chart feature is successfully disabled.

[ Download NetLimiter 3 Monitor ]