Does Gmail chow bandwidth?

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henkk78

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Hi,

Bandwidth usage on my network seems to be a lot higher than it should be!

I've tried eliminating various things, but am suspecting it comes down to Gmail, which I use constantly.

Is it possible that Gmail is using about 250 MB per day?

Henk
 
henkk78 said:
Hi,

Bandwidth usage on my network seems to be a lot higher than it should be!

I've tried eliminating various things, but am suspecting it comes down to Gmail, which I use constantly.

Is it possible that Gmail is using about 250 MB per day?

Henk
Click to expand...
Only if you're using the pop3 and downloading 250mb of email per day. Otherwise if you're using the web interface its pretty much like any other webpage.
 
I'm only using the web interface! How do I figure out how much bandwidth its chowing though?

(I'm using Ubuntu DD)

Henk
 
henkk78 said:
I'm only using the web interface! How do I figure out how much bandwidth its chowing though?

(I'm using Ubuntu DD)

Henk
Click to expand...
Wouldnt be able to tell you that - not too clued up on ubuntu.

What's your network like? Any wifi access? How many machines and are they all running ubuntu? If you've got a few constantly updating their software usage can add up.

Its possible that your using a fair bit via gmail if you're constantly downloading attachments.
 
2 machines live at the moment, both ubuntu... updates only get downloaded once requested.

definitely not 250 MB of attachments!

Looking at fairly constant usage of 300 MB per day. Could that just be from surfing? (16+ hours per day on the net just for this machine. 8+ on the other)

Henk
 
henkk78 said:
Looking at fairly constant usage of 300 MB per day. Could that just be from surfing? (16+ hours per day on the net just for this machine. 8+ on the other)
Click to expand...
Get yourself a decent hosts file which will block most ads and see if that changes things.

What kind of router are you using? Are you using it to initiate the connection or is it in bridged mode with each computer use pppoe?
 
I've had a similar problem here at work.

If you use Google Talk, it integrates into the gmail web interface. It could be that.
Also if you use google desktop and you enable indexing of multiple computers, it seems at times to dump a hell of a lot of data onto the internet.
 
You can use ethereal to monitor what's going on. Gmail does connect and update every few minutes, but it shouldn't be anywhere near 250MB
 
Ajax, which GMail uses to send requests to the server behind the scenes to check for new mail is lightweight. It should not be anywhere near 250mb.

I think there is a firefox plugin that lets you monitor your bandwidth for a website. Give that a bash, I am sure its something else connecting.
 
Well, I use gmail's web interface. I have it running here on my work machine from the moment I arrive in the morning, till I leave at night. I also have google talk running. I don't have desktop search running, though. On a slow mail day, when I'm very busy and don't do much surfing, I've seen my daily overall bandwidth usage (as measured by DU Meter) as low as 30Mb, and that includes all the code being checked in and out of our source system on our network. So I'm pretty sure gmail and google talk between them are not using up much in the way of bandwidth...
 
Gmail uses couple of megs of bandwidth per 12 hours being open, haven't measured it precisely, but I think it is under 10MB, provided you do not download big attachments ....
 
Gmail is definately not the cause of your 250-300mb bandwidth usage a day. I use my Gmail Web Interface aswell as Pop3 it. I would say that on ave, you looking at around 20-30mb trafic for the day that wound be like 25 emails sitting at 1mb big each or the same with 200-300 text based emails. To actually check mail, uses just about nothing. The gmail web interface is well designed and only refreshes certain sections of the page. web cache also plays an important roll in this. When you open a mail and later open the same mail, it will open from cache instead of using new bandwidth to open that doc or text you viewing again.

A good way to check what apps is running, if any unwanted programs running in the background, is to check your CPU time. Im not to clued up with ubuntu, but try console command "top", that should show you your CPU traffic aswell as what processes running. You can also try ip traffic monitoring using console command "iptraff" to monitor network status (bandwidth being used). These commands come from Debian Sarge (linux), so dont know if they'll work.

Good Luck Thou
 
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