Time for basic usage allowances to be increased?

[#1]

Apart from that as far as I know  products from the BBYW range are only available to customers who already have another BBYW product.
One possible way of reducing traffic would be to enable the Internet Firewall which stops unwanted attempts to connect to ones router before they are sent down the line.
https://portal.plus.net/support/security/firewalls/broadbandfirewall.shtml

[#2]

Isn't the Firewall set on and to Low by default? There is also the Safe Surf option if you don't use P2P which will also stop some traffic.

[#3]

I'm pretty sure the default was "off" when I joined 5 years ago but it's possible that it has changed.

[#4]

Today switched on the computer for the first time and went to the Members Centre to check yesterday's usage.
Interestingly the Think Broadband software indicated IP Address 212.159.8.2 (portal.plus.net), the login page (?) gobbled up about 1.5Mb of data.
Good news the Community welcome page has gone from consumming 3Mb down to 1.5Mb, looks like Christmas has come early.
Using the good computer peak usage on Saturday was down 85.73Mb but that was with restricted use of the internet.
On Sunday I thought I'd step up the gas slightly and managed to clock up about 40Mb over 3.5 hours.
Then the big test I went on C4 Demand to watch the beginning of a programme...the 4 ads at the beginning (2 minutes) gobbled up almost as much data as what I had managed to use in the previous 3.5 hours.....be careful out there.

[#5]

Just as a point of interest...firing up internet explorer 9, two home pages (Bing and a BBC text page), visting Plusnet usage, going to the Community pages, uploading my previous message has used Down and Up over 5Mb of data according to Think Broadband.

[#6]

Yesterday ran Malwarebytes on the bad computer and it found and deleted the following files...Adware.TryMedia and Rootkit.0access.
The computer then seemed to operate online ok and the usage dropped, by the end of the day the total peak usage for both computers was 148Mb.
After running Malwarebytes the bad computer was switched on and off a number of times to check the malware wasn't reinstalled.
This morning after switching on the bad computer it decided to go off to various websites and ramped up the usage by 10Mbs in a few minutes, running Malwarebytes it discovered Rootkit.0access again and deleted it.
Getting rid of this malware permently seems complicated, so looks like the computer is going have to be reformatted and operating system reinstalled.

[#7]

Do you have any antivirus on there at all? If not it may be too late to put it on and scan, but if so it'd be odd if that didn't pick up whatever keeps installing that file and removes it.

[#8]

What does running a full scan with you AV do if you run it after Malwarebytes, it ought to clear up anything left hanging around (what AV is it?), but it does seem this thing is quite a serious problem. If you google Rootkit.0access lots of info comes up.
You need to try and discover where you picked it up from, to prevent it again once you've cleared it. And I'd give anything else on your network a thorough check as well.

[#9]

The bad computer is not mine it already had AVG running on it which had flagged up a trojan horse 'dropper' which had apparently quaranteened.
The computer is not that old so suggested best to reformat and reinstall the operating system and software.
I've tried to persuade the person who uses the computer to keep track of what they do but when I point out it don't seem right, I get told it's normally like that...so can't be bothered to investigate.

[#10]

There is a danger that the affected computer could try to infect other PC's on your network, so my advice would be to say "please yourself as to how you run your PC, but until I'm convinced it's OK you can't connect it to my network".

[#11]

It has been unplugged from the network and only used with the others switched off and disconnected.
You'd think Microsoft would have a licence system that only software they have authorised can make changes.

[#12]

I think they have in Windows 8 and you should hear the screams about that

[#13]

Authorised by whom, if it's MS and not the Admin user, then MS can take a hike, I wouldn't be using Windows 8. But then, which ever, it will get hacked by those with that knowledge      (apologies in advance for the OT post).

[#14]

It's the system administrator who can do it I believe but they do seem to be locking down the boot options. Whether this only applies to ARM processors I am not sure
Of course they are only copying Apple

Quote

If you haven’t been following this fracas since it first started to emerge last year, it’s all to do with UEFI — a long overdue replacement for BIOS — and a feature called Secure Boot. In essence, Secure Boot stops a computer from loading an operating system that hasn’t been signed by the publisher (in this case, Microsoft or an OEM), and its signature added to the computer’s firmware. On an x86 Windows 8 computer, you’ll be able to sign your own operating systems (custom builds for Linux, for example), or disable Secure Boot entirely. On Windows 8 ARM computers, neither of these options will be available: You’ll have official builds of Windows 8, and that’s it.

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/114173-windows-8-secure-boot-calm-down-microsoft-is-simply-copying-apple

[#15]

Re-installed the operating system on the bad computer but for some reason it created a copy of the old files in a 'Windows.old' folder in the C: directory.
Just to give you an idea of allowance usage just to get back up and running.
Day 1
20Mb  Downloading & installing AVG & Malware Bytes
320Mb Windows Updates
Total usage: 340Mb
Day 2
271Mb Further Windows updates & Service Pack
150Mb Windows Live Essentials
27Mb Microsoft Office 2010 updates
75Mb iTunes
Various other programes & updates
Total usage: 802Mb
Thankfully this was done overnight, and there are further updates required!
Much of this software decides to set your computer to automatically update online.
If you have Adobe reader or Flash Player you'll know it often flags up yet another update is available.
Maybe Broadband providers need to bear the above in mind when setting their basic usage allowance.