For some reason Firefox has been acting very strange lately. It began a few days ago while I was browsing. I noticed in Networx that something was using up all of my bandwidth and Comodo told me that Firefox was using 99,8%. I was just watching a video on YT and according to the bar the buffering was done. I closed the tab, but the download kept going until I closed FF completely. This same thing has been happening every few hours since. The first day Networx told me I had downloaded almost 10 GB, while I had only been browsing these forums and watched about 10 videos on YT (in 360p). I thought I had solved the problem by uninstalling FF and running a portable edition, but I just noticed it happening again. In just a few minutes it gobbled up over 500 MB. I've already done multiple virus scans, which turned up nothing. I always seem to detect it when I'm either on YouTube, or on a page with embedded YT videos, but this could just be a coincidence. My disk space also remains pretty stable, so I have no idea what's happening. Any help?
Weird. It does sound like some sort of malware if a totally clean Firefox install is doing that. Or maybe flash is playing up. Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling it?
It's a major PITA that I can't actively cause it no matter what I try, it just happens. A scan with Hitmanpro did reveal some nasty searchbar stuff that somehow snuck in (without showing itself apparently), so I deleted it and thought everything was solved but - of course - it just happened again a few minutes ago. This time I tried blocking all connections using Comodo to see if it would continue after I enabled it again (which it did), and I looked at the “active connections”. I jotted down all IP addresses that had higher transfer speeds than 500kbps and after a bit of Duckduckgo'ing (not very catchy, is it?) it turns out that all of them are registered by Google or YouTube (==Google). Some researching later I found out that these were exactly the same (or nearly the same) IP's that send data while normally watching a YT vid. It seems that my suspicions of it having to do something with YouTube were correct. I guess the problem lies with Flash then? (strange, because I've reinstalled and updated it, yet the problem persists…) I still have no idea how to fix this… I think I'm going to use Chrome for the next few hours/days to see if the same thing happens.
That might be a good idea… I'll try it out. Does it also change the behaviour of embedded videos though, or only vids on YT itself? EDIT: Now I'm 100% sure that it's Flash's fault. While using the HTML5 mode I came across a 5 second video that only wanted to use flash for some reason, and it immediately started again, downloading over 100MB in just a couple of seconds. I stopped it by manually terminating the connections from Youtube IP's. What the **** is causing this, and why is it only happening to me (apparently)?…
It's not just you. I have the same issue with Firefox and YouTube. In my case, it downloads at 50-60 Mbps, which will quickly consume my 20 GB daily quota if left unchecked. The IP addresses varied slightly, but all belong to Google. I don't experience this while using Chrome (I'm not using the inbuilt flash, though). Details: Win7 Ultimate 64-bit, Firefox 23.0.1 and Flashplayer 11.8.800.168
Unfortunately I still haven't solved this yet. At the moment I try avoiding the problem by watching all YT videos in Chrome and stopping all connections quickly when I accidentally do run one. It's inconvenient, but at least my daily internet usage is almost back to normal. For some reason this problem also seems to have driven NetWorx insane. A few days ago it showed spikes of 500Mbps downloading every few seconds and in the summary it told me I had downloaded 198GB in under 2 hours (which would be pretty awesome if it were true). Since then I've replaced it with a small, free (but wonky) program called NetSpeedMonitor. NetLimiter was my first choice but its driver somehow breaks my internet connection. I'm getting pretty tired of this mess…
It is weird. If bandwidth monitors are giving you impossibly high readings then are you sure that it isn't an issue with them rather than real data being downloaded? Can you check from a 2nd source, like you isp's usage meter? I remember I used to use Kaspersky and speedtest.net would give me ridiculous results unless in disabled realtime protection. Not the same issue, but shows odd conflicts can happen. Also, browser's download managers sometimes give very incorrect download speeds if the actual download rate is very irregular.
I asked myself the same question, but I don't think the issue's just with the meter. It's not just NetWorx, but all bandwidth monitors I've installed that report those speeds. I can trace the very connections that send the data with Comodo and can see their individual download speed, which roughly matches what the monitors tell me. Are all these tools faulty (or do they rely on the same broken windows function)? I don't know. And if that'd be the case, why does the problem occur only in Firefox, with YT videos? Someone else is having the exact same problem. I tried verifying with my ISP's usage meter, but I could only find a monthly total unfortunately. Not very useful. I think I'm going to reinstall NetWorx now (a week later) to see if those crazy readings still happen. (EDIT: …clearly it's still broken. )
While my readings weren't impossibly high, like his, I don't often see such sustained speeds. My ISP doesn't provide a means to check usage, but I verified the data from NetMeter using Wireshark. It downloaded lots of data despite nothing going on (I'd closed the video tab). I haven't performed any analysis on the data beyond checking the IPs and glancing at packet sizes, though.
