Rosie-L

Hi all.

Sometimes if I have a web page loaded into a Firefox tab, and if that webpage contains a video, the little activity thingy on the tab never stop cycling.

I guess this is something to do with the way streaming video works.

But what I'd like to know, is this an indication of constant Internet activity?

I might not want to watch the video straight away so I'll leave the tab loaded. Am I thus experiencing bandwidth usage all the time that the activity doover is running around in its little circle?

TIA

- Rosie

koala

It usually means that Firefox is having trouble loading a small part of the web page (possibly an advert or image). Hit the Esc key on your keyboard to stop the activity thing on the tab. It shouldn't affect the streaming video or unnecessarily increase the site's bandwidth usage.

Rosie-L

Thanks, but that's not really what I'm after. I'm not concerned with the reason it happens -- as you say it never seems to interfere with the playing of the video anyway.

It's bandwidth usage that I'm concerned with -- is this an indication of constant Internet activity? If Firefox is "having trouble loading a small part of the web page", then I assume it is continually retrying, and thus there would be continual bandwidth usage. Maybe not much, but it could mount up over say 24 hours?

I'm concerned about this because I have been experiencing some unexplained bandwidth consumption, and I can't find a good utility that will report on the bandwidth used by different Internet-enabled applications over a period of time.

For those of us saddled with a monthly bandwidth restriction, this sort of leakage is important.

koala

I use Bitmeter (freeware) to monitor bandwidth usage. The graph, which can be hidden when not in use, shows up/down speeds in realtime and if you right-click the system tray icon there's a statistics grid that tells you how much bandwidth has been used over a daily, weekly or monthly period (useful for ISP caps).

The pic below shows my current bandwidth usage as an example.