BitTally

If you are a network administrator, then you may need to keep track of all the network and Internet traffic generated by computers. Thus, you will know what machine generates most traffic and also what protocols it is using to generate that specific traffic. Unfortunately, the network monitoring utilities available on the market are really difficult to use and not so reliable.

Fortunately, there are some utilities that manage to offer a good balance between functionality and ease of use. One such application is BitTally. This Windows program allows you to monitor the network traffic and used protocols for all the network computers, from any web browser. That's because BitTally actually installs a web server on the computer, allowing the administrator to view traffic information from any location connected to the Internet, including smartphones.

Before the application can be installed, the user will first need to install WinPcap, which is a driver used for monitoring network traffic. After the driver has been installed, the application can be immediately used. Accessing it can be done either by clicking on the shortcut created on the desktop or by manually entering the web server address in the browser. After accessing the server, the network administrator will be able to view various reports, according to various criteria. As such, the user will be able to view the generated traffic according to the user's IP address, network protocol used or country. Thus, one will be able to see if a user is downloading or uploading large files and, thus, generating a lot of network traffic.

The program is able to automatically detect network computers, but also other devices, like media players, print servers and so on, and show generated traffic for each of them. By accessing the options section of BitTally, one will be able to configure the program's functionality down to the smallest detail possible. Unfortunately, most options are command-line based and may pose problems to first-time computer users.