Using Glasswire For My Online Radio Server

GlassWire Help
1

Ok first off hello I am new to this forum but I wanted to ask a few critical questions and maybe offer up some details. I run an IceCAST server that according to my host I get 0 listeneres every single day now, thats right I am paying money for a server and accroding to my hosting software my results are complete empty. I don’t get a single person listenering to my radio staion accoring to my remote hosting software.

But? that is whre Glasswire comes into my life. according to my glasswire data results under graph my Radio Station encoder exhailes data at abotu 468KBS also it says 20KBS so I am a little confusued but sometimes the data graph goes down to 11KBS at night when I assume my auduence is sleeping. and I get consistent spikes I found out that I could have an audience but they must all be using a VPN of somekind, I don’t know for sure. because when I asked Quara if a (live) music server takes up data even with no listeneres I got no answer. I assume DJ’s could use Glasswire to see if they have anybody listening to their broadcast at all like I do. With all the VPN’s people use it’s impossilbe to be sure.

My question is related to this

and I wanted to know if the host attached to my physical server hardrive 's apps are listeners? I mean the encoder is designed to send out data from my player app to the intenert and my player app had 68 hosts attached to it yesterday and aobut 53 the day before and about 51 day before that and I am going by from 12:am to 12am next day not any extensive time period my encoder had about 14 for the most part different on each day.

What I am asking is can Glasswire be used to see if you got any listeners at all? I am running at 11KBS at late at night for the most part and 20KBS, there are always bumps indicated that people might be tuning into and off of but I’m not sure. I have been running some heavy Facebook ad Campaign with positive results since August 2021 when I fist started please let me know. I am trying to see If I got any listeneres at all because my hosting software is failing me

2

I just wanted to reply that my stream is only 64kbps and the encoder runs at 468kbps on one part of glasswire and

and 20kb/s sometimes 11kb/s on another part or glasswire

3

Hi can someone confirm IF my understanding of this is true?

because my host told me to ask a member of the Glasswire team

“they think I’m crazy” when I tell them I have 9000+ listeners but my stream was running at 5.1GB PER SECOND a while back under the glasswire secruity center on only my broadcasting encoder and that was only on my actual encoder app on the server PC.

they keep saying how I am beliveing a pipe dream and that their servers detect everything I told them to install glasswire but they still think I’m crazy

Is this information correct???

QUOTE:
Hi since my help question never was answered I’ll bring up this topic again only this with with a suggestion instread of a question.

First off I use Glasswire as a way to see if I have any listeners to my online stream, by checking how much data my broadcasting encoder and it’s music player is sending out and taking in.

But most I use Glasswire to track what my encoder sends outward. Glasswire enables me access to a hidden world online data tracking center (I think?) where my encoder sends out my stream to my host first then to the internet and Glasswire is installed on my actually streaming computer and it reports back how much data is getting sucked out of my stream world wide (I Assume?)

by somehow by passing my host survalance sistem. for some reason my host cannot see the data comming out of my PC (but Glasswire Can?)

I would like to have less confusing data bandwith tracking options wiith Glasswire for example Glasswire. I Do have the paid version by the way paid in full in January 2023.

and I am somewhat confused about how much data my stream is using or at least if the data getting used and what I am seeing is actual people tuned into my stream I don’t understand how it says in the graph I am using 20/KPS and sometimes 11/KPS or 10KPS, and it says 468.9.KPS in the last 5 minutes and when I move the slider the 468.9/KPS increses in number it is too confunsing.

and then under security tab it says 8/KPS but when I click on my encoders data transfer rate it reads today 2.0/GBPS of data getting used.

Mind you that according to my streaming service provider I have 0 listeners, but if glasswire is telling the truth that probally would not be the cast more like over 125,000 listeners to be exact.

Glasswire’s stastistics are all over the place and tell a different data transfer rate under each and every section of it, it it currently too cunfusing and I would suggest a way to make the app more easier to understand and not play a guess game

here is the former topic it so far has recieved no reply except from myself I need answers on that too

4

Hi @Aspersimgamer

Thanks for your messages. Using GlassWire for an online radio server is very niche and your question is very specific, and as we are such a small team we don’t have someone who knows the ins and outs of radio streaming. I don’t know if we have other users who use GlassWire for this or if there are any expert s on radio steaming in our forum who can help?

As for using GlassWire to count the number of listenerd you have, the answer is both yes and no, GlassWire registers app connections (remote hosts) and the amount of transferred data. Each listener has a dedicated connection, so the number of connections should be close to the number of listeners. But the radio server can connect elsewhere too, for example, for update checking/downloading or something else.

I hope this helps?!

Best,
Katie

5

thank you for your informative reply Katie :slight_smile:

I’ll keep you updated if anything changes the way I use glasswire is I look at the bandwith of my broadcasting app under the SECURITY portion of glasswire and then click on the app and look at how much data is going outward towards my host, I calculate listeners on my 64k stream by deviding whatever the outgoing data under SECURITY is showing me for my broadcasting app to my host. I devide whatever data is going outward by 512 Kilobytes per listener and determine my listeners minus 1 connection for the data going only to my host comptuter.

in which for some reason they tell me they cannot see any connections to my server at all on their end. and their my host, yet I for some reason I can see lots of them it. But they won’t install Glasswire on their computers so maybe that is why they can;t see what I see

Note: If you are reading this and own a 128kilobit per second Stream you need to devide the data trasfer rate as 2.1MB megabyte per listener and if all your data transfer rate is telling you under SECURITY in Glasswire is only 2.1/MB then you got nobody tuned into your broadcast at that moment in time.

YOU ALWAYS TAKE OFF ONE LISTENER IN CALCULATION OFF BECAUSE WHETHER OR NOT YOU HAVE LISTENERS IT IS ALWAYS COSTING YOU DATA.

a 64k stream 24/7 takes about 687.8MB a day and about 21GB - 22GB of data a month even without a single listener

8 kilobits = 1 Kilobyte

1000 Kilobytes = 1 Megabyte
1000 Megabyes = 1 Gigabyte
1000 Gigabyes = 1 Terabyte

1 Like
6

I want to bring this topic up again since my host says everything I told them in this post was wrong.

I had Glasswire installed for about 6 months now and I got the PRO paid version of this software. I do update it.

I wanted to see if KEN agrees with what I said in this post, Since I have noticed that even when my server is playing no music for 3 hours due to a player app error. I still have assuming over 15,000 listeners 8.2GB of outgoing data through my encoder then to my stream host.

according to the Security tab on Glasswire. On the monitor for my encoder I sometimes notice a pattern of data spikes but most times the spikes are random and connected to my outgoing media host. Nap host. Still according to my host I have ZERO listeners per hour while my outgoing Secutiy data Calculation of my encoder to my host on Glasswire goes up and down, but mostly up

I NEED An answer because I do play what I think is vary nice music on my server and it would make sense to me with all my paid facebook advertising and my admin relay results that I do have access to.

with my host that the 10,000 listeners on a daily bases on my 24/7 broadcast does actually make sense to some degree. but my host tells me I am stupid and need to shut my mouth because it is not true. I don’t know what to believe, because people use VPN’s now adays to hide their IP’s from servers like mine

and as far as I know there has to be a device with a public IP in order for any of the (connection) results to show up on my server results both live and stationary

7

To explain what I said in that last post more clearer try to read this entire thread if anyone can, Glasswire has a special section where it displays a graph of data spikes and current data transfer rate of the device that is installed on,

I do know that the data usage that get sent out to only my host at the end of the 24 hour period is different everyday usually ranging from about 667MB-673MB since as I observed a 64k Stream often streams at between 55KBPS - 71KBPS as the data is not outgoing at 64KBPS per second at all times.

but this was according to win 10 task manager and viewing before Glasswire was installed on my server.

On the Security tab like I just said I believe it displays all the (live) data usage going out of my computer originally then to my host then to other hosts or the Internet then to my listeners

8

I think to understand the answer to your question you’ll need to understand a bit about just what is a connection and just what is a listener. Just because you have a connection to a host doesn’t neccessarily mean they are a listener.

Unforturnation information is akin to currency and power. The more information someone can get the more they can monetize it. Many of those connections you are seeing could be fly-bys from bots and crawlers. These are just applications running on a server like Google, or Bing or Yahoo or any of the other search engines AS WELL AS malicious bots and “users” looking for weakpoints and openings. ALL of these connections WILL use data. IF you are on a public server, especially one on a popular hosting service you WILL be a prime farming point for these fly-by bots and searchers. That is why many web log analysis apps have a filter for many common bots that are in use and have been in use since pretty much the dawn of the internet.

Here is a good guide to these robots and how logs avoid giving false traffic impressions.

Unfortunately being a new forum user I can’t post actual links so I’ll try my best.

Do a search for “what is robots.txt” and you’ll see an article from Google Developers.

To determine if you are just constantly being hit by bots and weakness probes you’ll have to spend some time in front of GlassWire and dig into the individual connections. Where is it coming from? How long does it stay connected? Is there a pattern to the connection times of particular hosts?

And then there is just the directory services of shoutcast/icecast as well. Even those services have their own crawlers that index your station and list it in their directory. So you would see THOSE as connections as well.

Long story short, as I said, just because you have a connection to a host and you are seeing data spikes doesn’t necessarily mean you have LISTENERS. IF you see consistent connections from certain hosts/IPs that stay connected for any decent length of time, for instance during a live broadcast, podcast or themed playlist, then there is a good chance that connection MAY be a listener.

Seeing that I JUST found GlassWire myself, though having been involved with computers and IT professionally since 1982 I can understand that GlassWire is more of a security analysis tool than a log analysis tool. You would have to use the tools provided by either your hosting provider or from the software you are using.

Shoutcast/Icecast have web interfaces that will show a connected listener VERSUS a flyby bot. I don’t happen to have a streaming server active at the moment to give you an example. But a Google Image search using the search term “icecast active listeners gui” you’ll see some examples of what I am talking about showing active listeners.

I hope this helps and gives you a better understanding of what to actually look for when analyzing your statons performance and activity.

1 Like
9

I can Agree SonjaDC as even a non computer expert that I have seen bots on my station many times in the past mostly from Russia IP’s.after I looked them up. Problem is according to my highest level of research on the Internet and speculation as well as my confidence being in honest.

Most of my Listeners if any use a VPN. the last time I had l listeners actually display on my actually host site for (longer) extended periods of time was in December of 2022,

it was an axios connection user agent that when looking up the forward IP revealed nothing but looking at the IP backwards revealed that sometimes the long extended 1 connection at a time usually from a massive media companies in Florida, China, Seattle, Croatia India Iran and even somewhere in New York some times and even from colleges and some other types of secret connections I don’t want to mention.

I did look at these IP’s excessively because I could not figure out what they were, but I never harassed of hacked these IP addresses in any way, all I did was look them up on a public server available to the public many times as they used to be repeated long term connections that used to be visible on my host they either stopped connecting entirely or got a more secure VPN.

A VPN is suppose to hide your IP address and me and a staff member of my hosting company did a test. He connected to my server using a standard connection, I saw him and an IP address, I then told him to turn on a Super secure VPN and told him to reconnect. and then he said he was on the server but then I could not see him therefore proving my VPN listener theory. Thank you for reminding my about bot connections because I was getting those often visible too on my host in the past as well

10

Even if someone is using a VPN you STILL will see a connection. You just won’t see that person’s IP from their ISP. But you WILL see a connection from the VPN end-point. If someone from the UK was to use say Express VPN’s Dallas server you wouldn’t see a connection from the UK, but you WOULd see a connection from the Dallas based IP. Just because someone is using a VPN doesn’t make them invisible, just harder to track back. BUT that CAN be done mond you. It just takes knowledge, the right tools and usually co-operation from the VPN host, Law Enforcement and the Judical system of the VPN’s host country. your BEST tool to see if you have actual listeners is to use you streaming software’s logs and built in tools. Even so, those logs still need to be interpreted properly. My Wife ran a stream for over a year. Looking through the CentovaCast softwares logs we would see MANY connections, but only during live streams times and seeing active long term connections could we see what was a bot, a probe, a fly-by versus what was really a listener.

As I said before, GlassWire is more of a security analysis tool than a log analysis tool. You REALLY need to be looking at your Icecast/Shoutcast logs and not just at raw connection data to REALLY get a sense at how your station is performing listener wise. AS WELL AS have active feedback FROM your actual listeners. If you had a 1000 connections once month, but only 3 of them stuck around for more than a couple of minutes then you can ONLY claim that you had 3 ACTUAL listeners that month. The other 997 aren’t really countable. Even if another 7 connections were someone listening but they only sdtayed connected for a minute or two before moving on, you REALLY CAN’T count that you had 10 listeners that month. You had 3 listeners, 7 “visitors” and the rest were “junk” connections. But by looking at your Icecast/Shoutcast logs, seeing sustained connections with REAL measurable data flow to those sustained connections can you say you’ve had a listener.

To get a real measure of the performance of your station you should be enaging your targeted audiance and hearing what they have to say about their time while listening. THAT is a TRUE measure of your station’s sucess or failure. Raw data is just tat, RAW data. You need to sift through it and find what pertains to your goal.

11

If everything your saying is correct then I have 0 listeners just about every single day now even though people autonomously visit my stations Facebook page and read it’s posts and have about 900 followers to my page, including check ins from other radio stations to my Streams FaceBook page.

Not to mention the 10 possible relay client connections every minute on my ICECAST admin panel but 0 listeners, and yes I broadcast 24/7 with blind success or possible zero success at all. I have been running this station non stop for about 2 years now and my listeners have only continued to decrees after the big boom when I first started in 2021. I don’t trust Centova Cast results because I am also a paid sponser for a streaming website only among about 10-18 other Sponsors that I compete with on Stream Finder. Plus I am the only paid sponsor on Stream Finder that actually displays the name of the song and the artist playing (live)

Yes I am aware that I am virtually competing with 1000’s of other ICECAST stations that unfortunate according to my research in spite of ALL my efforts "(edit) if what you said was 102% true my station is 99.9% less successful then virtually every last one of the other stations on that frequency. I don’t play commercials and have a 21,000+ song playlist and 9000 DJ clips I work vary hard but still 0 listeners are displaying on my server according to Centova Cast I even pay for a yearly license and everything

I invested a lot of my money and time into this 24/7 broadcast, and the only thanks I ever get is new viruses on my server that I know exist but run multiple scans every single day to defeat them.

My Log? well it does display 1 unknown invisible connection multiple times a day, I assume it’s that one relay of my station I had going 24/7 from towards the beginning of my broadcasting time of 2 years

(edit) when I meant invest I stricly meant spending not getting any money in return, I said many times including on my Facebook page I run a Charity server, but I would like the respect to have my broadcast heard, I pay the money to promote good music and to help society but not gain an earthly profit off it. that’s all

someone might say I have a personal problem and that is? I hate how most popular radio stations keep playing the same songs over and over again and I want to make a example of how a radio station should be that’s all, it’s personal

12

The point I’m trying to get across is that you CAN’T gauge the success or failure of your radio station by logs or connections alone.

You need to ACTIVELY engage your listeners and followers. You need HEAr their feedback. What do they like or dislike about your station. What music do they want or don’t want to hear. Is your station broadcasting at an acceptable qualit bit-rate. You CAN’T tell ANY of this just buy trying to analye logs and counting connections. It’s like someone standing in the doorway of a store with a clicker and counting the number of people who walked on BUT not seeing the fact that NO ONE is BUYING anything but saying they are successful because a million people walked into the store yet NOT one sale was made.

Do you see what I am trying to convey? YES, I understand you’ve invested time and money into your server. We have done the same, we have a PAID centova subscription ourselves, so I DO KNOW what it entails to run a station and how it feels after investing time/effort/funds into something and NOT seeing a return.

TALK to these 900 followers of yours. HEAR what THEY have to say about your station. Only THEN can you gauge if what you are doing is paying off for you. Logs alone will NOT do that.

AND if what you say, “the only thanks I ever get is new viruses on my server that I know exist but run multiple scans every single day to defeat them” then there is something SERIOUSLY WRONG with your providers infrastructure or the security of your server! THAT is someting you REALLY need to worry about MORE than how many listeners you have!!!

Just my 2 cents (or buck 50) on the subject.

13

I also just wanted to say SonjaDC that I am not using the auto DJ feature in Centova Cast so maybe that is why I don’t see the connections on Centova Cast since most people use the Auto DJ feature but what I offer is a 24/7 (live) broadcast and simulated 24/7 radio show, I listened to many live and auto dj ICECAST stations and from my research few are doing exactily what I am doing.

I am not going to argue with your points, and thank you because I currently am running a feedback post on Facebook with many likes but no comments currently

also I want to convey that running a local shop business is different then running a charity online radio server that everyone in the world has 24/7 access to almost, according to Centova Cast my average listen session is about 20 minutes per person and that does not measure up to the people who are actually visible on the server every day my listener time average changes and makes no sense to the
actual recorded time session of both the log and server.

I run a server that runs under multiple apps and online Platforms if you just look up
“The Angel Classic Rock Mix” radio station you can get multiple search results to multiple apps and databases that will let you listen for (free)

14

I think you are ABSOLUTELY missing the point here. You have it stuck in your head that you are right, the metrics are wronjg and your provider is wrong.

A facebook like counts for sh-t. You can have a 1000 likes, but 900 of them were just some random person scrolling through, seeing the post pressing like but not really reading or caring what the post was about. a “Like” is just a reflex action on facebook. You NEED ACTUALL MEASUARABLE COMMUNICATION FROM YOUR SUPPOSED LISTENERS!!!

YOU NEED SOMEONE SAYING, IN ACTUAL WORDS!!! “HEY I LIKE YOUR MUSIC, LOVE YOUR SATION, KEEP IT UP!”

I “like”, a connection, a visitor, a statistic does NOT mean ANYTHING!!!

You need to HEAR from this supposed HUGE audience of yours and HEAR what they have to SAY! ONLY THEN can you say if you are successful or not!

It is obvious that you really do NOT understand how these logs, metrics and the concept of feedback works. You are right, everyone is wrong is stuck in your head. You probably should hire a marketing person to help you. But then again, if they don’t tell you what you want to hear they are wonrg, you’ll fire them and then tell everyone how bad they were.

By the way, whether you are running AutoDJ or “live” will NOT change the connection counts in the logs!!! By that statement alone it shows you REALLY have NO idea or concept of wht it is you are doing or even how to measure what you doing.

You’ve also show that you are NOT willing to listen to ANYONE’S advice if it isn’t what YOU want to hear. So no matter how many people try to tell you what is happening as long as they are not saying you are awesome, then they are all wrong and you are right.

I am DONE with this thread, I am DONE with trying to “assist” or answer your questions.

Good Bye!

15

Thank you and yes I did take your advice, and I don’t know why you sound so upset because I took everything you said into account and listened to it, I know about fake likes have a great day or night and I’m sorry you lost your station. because as one man quoted on his own ICECAST
“you never know who is listening”

I make no money for doing this so I don’t care anyway

BTW I advertise for my own provider meaning I in quote “Say who I am working with and say good things about them in my broadcast”

16

proof

here is exactly what I am seeing. I posted this for everyone including the glasswire staff to see exactly what I was talking about. Nap.casthost 8287 is port connection that sends data to and from my host. however I DO Believe everything SonjaDC and Katie_GlassWire said about this possible not being 100% accurate, I also wanted to repeat what I said earlier that

I also use Centova Cast and the actual ICECAST admin panel too and the ICECAST panel actually reveals more then just Centova Cast alone. I use ALL my tools and even run ads on Facebook and also have sponsorship of a site that uses a VPN for all it’s clients including those who do not have one

Or I could have all bots on my station, but that would mean a hell of a lot of bots. please do not argue on this thread yes I was already told that VPN’s are visible under a different location and IP but that is not what my instincts tell me. According to what I observed VPN’s are getting more and more anonymous these days