(This is on my T61 laptop with WinXP. Sorry if I said Win2k earlier.)
I updated my FF plugins and the FF crash on startup seems to be gone. I've still got the 2020 plugin disabled.
The mysterious ~ 200kB background download is still happening, but only when Firefox is running. I'm not seeing it with Chrome (which I'm using now).
I installed Wireshark. It's neat. With FF running, I did Capture -> Interfaces -> Intel Pro Wireless -> Start and let it run from a few seconds.
I don't know how to Analyze the stuff, but on sorting by the Source column I'm mainly getting stuff from:
12.4.198.133
174.129.88.133
174.37.113.144
204.9.177.195
204.9.178.11 - HTTP and TCP traffic (GIF 89a, content server, reassembled PDU, etc.)
64.207.133.176 - TCP segment of a reassembled PDU
64.215.158.100 - lots of mixed HTTP and TCP traffic
64.215.158.101 - TCP interleaved channel 546 bytes
64.215.158.102 - TCP interleaved channel 608 bytes
64.215.158.103 - TCP interleaved channel 608 bytes
64.215.158.108 - TCP interleaved channel 366 bytes
64.215.158.109 - TCP interleaved channel 639-641 bytes
64.215.158.111 - HTTP continuation or non-HTTP traffic
64.215.158.116 - TCP interleaved channel 1460 bytes
64.215.158.117 - TCP interleaved channel 606-641 bytes
64.215.158.94 - TCP interleaved channel 606-641 bytes
64.215.158.95 - TCP interleaved channel 1266 bytes
Most of the packets seems to be coming from the 64.xxx servers, which seem to be GlobalCrossing boxes according to a web Whois.
Now what?
Could I have a hidden BitTorrent process going when FF is running, or something? I do have an old BitTorrent program installed on this box, but AFAIK it is not running and I haven't used it in years. I notice there's a BitTorrent 1.0.0.1 and BitTorrent DNA 1.0.0.1 plugin installed in FF (but AFAIK they've been there for years). Nothing other than FF shows up in the process list as being active when this is happening, and nothing shows up in FF's Downloads window (ctrl-j) but I haven't tried loading all of the same 73-some-odd tabs in Chrome yet. (I am concerned that I have 123 processes showing up in the process list and I don't know what 98% of them are...)
What else can I do to figure out what is taking over my wireless bandwidth?
Thanks very much.
Cheers,
Scott.