NetGenius: questions and answers

Common questions about NetGenius. For how it works, see the NetGenius manual.

Some network activity is not shown

NetGenius does not show some network activity, such as copying files to a network drive or a shared folder, or playing a video from another device. This is normal.

In Windows, file sharing (the SMB protocol) is handled by the System process rather than by the application that asked for the file, and it usually stays within your local network. As this traffic cannot be attributed to an application, NetGenius ignores it. It does not use your Internet allowance and does not normally affect your privacy or security, so there is little reason to monitor it.

VPN clients

A VPN client takes the connections of other applications, encrypts them and sends them on through its tunnel. Depending on how the client does this, NetGenius may show either:

• the traffic of each application, and then the same traffic again for the VPN client; or
• no traffic for other applications, and all of it for the VPN client.

If traffic is counted twice, right-click the VPN client’s process in NetGenius and choose Skipped. NetGenius then ignores the VPN client and counts each application once.

If all traffic shows under the VPN client, NetGenius cannot see past it. NetWorx may work better here: it monitors traffic at a lower level and is compatible with more VPN clients, but it cannot block or prioritise applications. See NetGenius or NetWorx for how the two differ.

Virtual network adapters

NetGenius works at the level of the network stack where it can see which application each connection belongs to, which is what lets it block and prioritise applications. Virtual network adapters, and traffic that starts in the Windows kernel itself, are below that level, so NetGenius cannot monitor them.

To monitor virtual adapters, use NetWorx in its Monitor a network adapter on this computer or a remote router mode, which can monitor any adapter, virtual ones included. In that mode it counts traffic by adapter rather than by application.

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