NetSpeedMonitor

Being 24/7 connected to the Internet can be a fantastic feat, since it puts you in direct touch with a wide assortment of information, ranging from news and informative articles to games, contacts and media content.

However, sometimes your connection can be subjected to various unwanted events such as spikes, random disconnects or slowdowns caused by excessive bandwidth usage by either you or another user connected to your network. That's why you need a monitoring tool such as NetSpeedMonitor.

Don't think that this tool is that kind of surveillance monitor that enables you to pry into other users' activities. Rather think about it as a visual "equalizer" for your Internet connection that displays only basic information that can help you pinpoint issues, should they occur.

More so, you needn't even bother with its main screen since it can run silently in your system tray until you decide to summon it for various advanced operations. However, the toolbar is always visible so that you can at least keep track of your download and upload speed values.

Given that its release date was not exactly yesterday, you might expect it to be a bit buggy here and there and you wouldn't be completely wrong. Compatibility-wise, this application manifests some trouble whenever you try installing it on Windows 8.0 and higher.

However, if you are the patient, tinkering type, you can choose to run the installer in Compatibility Mode, which should make the setup process run as intended and the application behave as it should.

Visually-wise, NetSpeedMonitor doesn't exactly strike us as stunning, but given its profile and how it stopped receiving update for a long time, this shouldn't be an issue, except for the more pretentious users who might expect flashy animations or other eye-candy elements.

More so, its interface packs a bunch of controls that can be easily comprehended and operated even by the most inexperienced of us, regardless of PC skills or previous experience with similar software as long as we keep in mind that almost everything this app's got to give can be accessed from the tray icon.

To sum it up, NetSpeedMonitor can be of real help if you want to keep an eye on your Internet connection and see what the current download and upload speed values are or view a list of connections that are inbound or outbound to and from your machine.