Who is this that's downloading lots of MB?

GlassWire Help
1

I have recently purchased Glasswire and although it is showing this host as downloading lots of MB, I am unable to disable it …
fg.download.windowsupdate.com.c.footprint.net

Any ideas ?

2

that sounds like Windows Update

3

You can look at who owns the IP address by using one of the many whois functions:

http://whois.domaintools.com/footprint.net

The registrant is Level 3 Communications, LLC which is a major Internet carrier. Presumably, Microsoft uses them as a content distribution network (CDN) to distribute Windows updates.

4

GWSD, are you using Windows 10 OS?

If yes, try to disable Updates distribution.

In Win10 you can do this by going to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update > Advanced options > Choose how updates are delivered > Turn off “Updates from more than one place”.

5

Thanks for the info everyone.
In a way I am a bit disappointed with GlassWire as I thought that by paying just over £100 for the full version, there would be an easy way of disabling unwanted downloads just with a click of the mouse.

My main unwanted download at the moment comes under the heading of …
Host Processes For Windows Services
a767.dspw65.akamai.net
188.29.166.177

I have checked out the option suggested by “repou” but everything on that list is already unchecked.

6

@GWSD

It sounds like you want to block Windows Updates. To solve the problem I recommend reinstalling our latest version with the “clean” option, then immediately going to the Firewall tab and choosing “ask to connect” mode, then don’t allow anything besides just the few apps you want to use. You can then go to “Block all” mode when you aren’t at your PC.

You can also disable Windows Telemetry https://blog.glasswire.com/2015/09/15/165/ by following that blog post.

I hope this solves the problem. Thank you for your patience.

7

Thank for this info, I have started getting results. I run two computers and am going to upgrade the 10 Home to 10 pro ASAP. I have to have “Host Process for Windows Services” enabled, otherwise I can’t connect to the internet. The trouble is that leaving this enabled allows other stuff to download too. I use a 3G dongle for my internet connection. Is it possible to enable this alone, and nothing else ?

8

@GWSD

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2015/08/26/windows-10-how-to-stop-forced-updates

Windows hides its updates with the host process so they can’t be disabled easily, but please try the options above and see if that helps. I wish Windows didn’t work this way also but there isn’t much we can do unfortunately.

We are considering adding host blocking in the future that will help with things like this.