Bandwidth limiter for Android, Windows, and iOS

[JDat99]

So my internet sucks. I play games. My family uses loads of unnecessary bandwidth. This should be enough to see why I need apps to limit bandwidth. I have found one for windows (NetLimiter), but it costs money and I would prefer the apps to be free. If anyone has any suggestions, that would be great! I have 3 Android phones and an iPad aswell as 3 Windows computers all connected to a 14 mbps down 1 mbps up connection.

And yes, I know what QoS is, but I seriously just need something to throttle the bandwidth partially.

 

[failboat]

An app on one device will only do it for that device. You need QoS (traffic shaping) on your router. pfsense is free.

 

[USAFRet]

So my internet sucks. I play games. My family uses loads of unnecessary bandwidth. This should be enough to see why I need apps to limit bandwidth. I have found one for windows (NetLimiter), but it costs money and I would prefer the apps to be free. If anyone has any suggestions, that would be great! I have 3 Android phones and an iPad aswell as 3 Windows computers all connected to a 14 mbps down 1 mbps up connection.

And yes, I know what QoS is, but I seriously just need something to completely throttle the bandwidth.

"completely throttle" ? Do you pay 100% of the internet bill?
If not, why should your gaming trump everyone elses' use?

What you're looking for needs to be done at the border device, the router. Not on each system.

What speed do you pay the ISP for?

 

[bill001g]

Netlimiter only limits traffic from applications on YOUR machine not traffic from other devices. To even need a program like this would mean you were doing something stupid like trying to play games and say running torrent downloads. It would be easier to just not do stupid stuff rather than buy a program to try to solve it.

Your main problem is that your internet connection is fairly small. It does not take much to overload this with multiple people attempting to use it.

Your first problem is to get a agreement on what "unnecessary bandwidth" is. Someone is not going to get the bandwidth they want. QoS and other software on the router is not some magic bandwidth multiplier. All it does is enforce a usage agreement. It does not do anything different that if you could yell down the hall and say get off the internet I am trying to play my game.

Unless you pay for the internet connection I suspect it will not be as simple as declaring your game more important than other people usage.

 

[JDat99]

So my internet sucks. I play games. My family uses loads of unnecessary bandwidth. This should be enough to see why I need apps to limit bandwidth. I have found one for windows (NetLimiter), but it costs money and I would prefer the apps to be free. If anyone has any suggestions, that would be great! I have 3 Android phones and an iPad aswell as 3 Windows computers all connected to a 14 mbps down 1 mbps up connection.

And yes, I know what QoS is, but I seriously just need something to completely throttle the bandwidth.

"completely throttle" ? Do you pay 100% of the internet bill?
If not, why should your gaming trump everyone elses' use?

What you're looking for needs to be done at the border device, the router. Not on each system.

What speed do you pay the ISP for?

No, I don't pay for my bill. But my dad runs a business and our internet constantly lags because of my mom's phone. Don't assume stupid stuff like that, it's not like my dad will care if it takes 2 seconds longer to upload something either. He would rather have it like that than have me complain about it lol.

 

[JDat99]

Netlimiter only limits traffic from applications on YOUR machine not traffic from other devices. To even need a program like this would mean you were doing something stupid like trying to play games and say running torrent downloads. It would be easier to just not do stupid stuff rather than buy a program to try to solve it.

Your main problem is that your internet connection is fairly small. It does not take much to overload this with multiple people attempting to use it.

Your first problem is to get a agreement on what "unnecessary bandwidth" is. Someone is not going to get the bandwidth they want. QoS and other software on the router is not some magic bandwidth multiplier. All it does is enforce a usage agreement. It does not do anything different that if you could yell down the hall and say get off the internet I am trying to play my game.

Unless you pay for the internet connection I suspect it will not be as simple as declaring your game more important than other people usage.

My game isn't more important than other peoples usage. My dad runs a business and also lags when my mom is watching netflix or using facebook. I just want something to have a more balanced connection between our devices. Something not to completely kill a connection, just limit it a little bit so the rest of the house can use the internet. Probably should not have worded it like I did.

 

[USAFRet]

No, I don't pay for my bill. But my dad runs a business and our internet constantly lags because of my mom's phone. Don't assume stupid stuff like that, it's not like my dad will care if it takes 2 seconds longer to upload something either. He would rather have it like that than have me complain about it lol.

In a few short years, you can move out and pay for your own uberspeed ISP plan.

If my son went behind my back and throttled all the other systems in the house without discussing with me first...his gaming would have about a 24 hour life expectancy.

 

[bill001g]

Good luck finding a rule that says "limit it a little bit". Technically you can't actually limit the traffic being downloaded . The ISP is in full control and if they decide to drop game traffic and send netflix traffic there is nothing your equipment can do about it. It not like it can undelete the game data it never received.

Any QoS setting on the router is attempting to trick the end device into requesting less traffic. It work sorta ok on larger connections on small connections you must set the limits much lower than you really need to get it to work. The rates are average rates and traffic is actually sent in burst so you get spikes of data unless you set the average rates much lower than you intend to limit.

If you try to limit netflick traffic too much it will cause the video to stall a lot and most people do not tolerate much of that.

 

[JDat99]

No, I don't pay for my bill. But my dad runs a business and our internet constantly lags because of my mom's phone. Don't assume stupid stuff like that, it's not like my dad will care if it takes 2 seconds longer to upload something either. He would rather have it like that than have me complain about it lol.

In a few short years, you can move out and pay for your own uberspeed ISP plan.

If my son went behind my back and throttled all the other systems in the house without discussing with me first...his gaming would have about a 24 hour life expectancy.

problem with that is we live in an area were thats our best plan. we would totally be getting fiber if we could. and of course im going to clear it with him first, im not going to go do something like that without asking him.