The answer is yes.

What exactly do you mean by bandwidth? Do you actually mean monthly limitations imposed by your ISP? Thats not really bandwidth but yes transferring files to and from your computer either through a messenger program or through a downloading program like torrents or a download manager will all count towards your monthly limitations

If you actually mean Bandwidth proper, that is the rate that data can transfer to and from your computer, again yes if you are using all your bandwidth (data transfer speed) to upload or download files via a file transfer protocol etc then using a messenger or any other program that acesses the internet may reduce the maximum speed you transfer information.

In other words the more programs you have accessing the internet at any one time the less bandwidth you will have available for file transfers.

I meant, of course, the amount of my Broadband ALLOWANCE, the question is, does sending'receiving files via Messenger impinge on my allowance?

Terms like "Bandwidth" are bandied about as if we all knew what they mean, but usually we only have the vaguest idea what we/they mean:hugesmile:

Anything uploaded and downloaded through your isp counts towards the allocated monthly allowance.

Even if you try using a hide ip etc, it still gets clocked and counted. Your router/modem has firmware on it, that counts how many bites of information goes either way, when you connect to the internet you go through a server where information packets are counted.

If the various counts are different your ISP will probably go with the highest. I know that is what TalkTalk do, from personal experience.

There is very little you can do to get round it. The best advice is to screw them just a little each month, go slightly over your 80gig limit and they wont bother. Go over by about 8-9 gig for a couple of months and generally speaking they will send out an nice email/letter about fair usage.

Hehehe! thanks, wasn't considering screwing them, and not trying proxies or whatever, but going over by roughly 10% can't be bad! :devil:

10% every once in a while is okay, make it 3 months in a row and TalkTalk send you a nice letter.

Using a proxy is a waste of time, you still have to connect through your router and ISP server. so data flow is monitored.

If you wanted to get round the monitoring and get caught it will invalidate your contract, plus your line details go onto a blacklist circulated between ISP's.

I seems patently obvious that even if using a proxy for whatever reason, you are still going through your ISP, even if your IP number is masked.

Edit: PS. if I was going to go over limit on a regular basis, I'd rather pay them the extra Fiver!

My desktop just froze and this is the third time since Thursday that this has happened. But everything else works perfectly including the task bar. What can I do to prevent this from happening again?

Restore?

If a restore doesnt help, try Malwarebytes, just incase theres anything nasty lurking, update it first though.

http://www.malwarebytes.org/

I'll try that thanks.

Jess it's doin that thing again, when I click enter it spaces to far away and I don't remember how to fix it :sad:

What exactly do you mean by your desktop froze, do you mean an animated wallpaper on your screen, or the icons(shotcuts) didnt work when you click them?

They didn't work when I clicked them. They didn't highlight or anything. The same thing happened to the background.

e_e there is boxes at the top and you click the second one.

Ok if you have tried running a scan for malware and its came up clean:

What browser do you use?

Does the problem occur before you open your browser or only after you have opened it?

Is it all icons or only some, if its some is it ones you havent used in a while?

Did you instal or upgrade anything just prior to this problem occuring?

Or have you run any optimizer programs recently and this is one of the results?

I hate people like you Terry lol. Who bloody know what they're talking about when it concerns computers. Haven't got a fecking clue myself.

Firefox.

I'm not sure. The last time it happened I opened up Windows IE by accident.


Its all. Everything on the desktop.


Yeah, the Ashampoo software that was posted here recently.

No.

Okay I just opened up Windows IE and guess what happened? My desktop is now frozen. So its definitely the IE browser that's causing the problem.

Change to Opera

IE has caused me many problems in the past so I just disable it on all my computers.
Never try to delete it because it can damage your system.

I recommend you disable IE after you have downloaded an alternative browser so you can't open it accidentally.

You do this by Clicking on Start > Default Programs > Set Program Access And Computer Defaults > Click on Custom > Scroll down to Default Browser and next to Internet Explorer uncheck the box that says enable access to this program.

That will prevent you opening it by accident. :)

If you don't have an alternative browser then I recommend Google Chrome or Opera

I have a problem with my laptop sometimes freezing on sites like Digital Spy,do you have any ideas?I would be most grateful for any help.:xyxwave:Also I have two other computers and NONE of them will install windows updates!

OKay, thanks. :xyxwave:

If you want to turn on windows update then go to
Start > Control Panel > System and Security > Windows update. :)

Hmm it's probably a problem with DS itself, that site gets so much traffic every day I'm not surprised.

What happens when it freezes? Does your browser stop responding?

My computer just froze again, but this time nothing was working. Not even the mouse.

I didn't open IE this time either.

Did you scan it with malwarebytes?

You could try a system restore, and restore it to before you installed the Ashampoo program.