Looking for a Bandwidth Limiter for Chrome/Firefox

[zir_blazer]

As title says. Currently, if someone in my Network uploads something, or downloads from some servers which manage to saturate my connection Download Bandwidth, lag is extremely notorious in online games, so I'm looking to fix that.
Based on my previous experience with uTorrent, if you can cap the offending computer at 80% of the connection upload/download speed, it is usually enough to make the connection usage not even noticeable to other computers instead of the lagfest that it becomes when someone uses 100%. However, while uTorrent had a built-in Download/Upload speed limiter, you have Web Browsers like Chrome and Firefox which do not, so if someone decides to upload a Youtube video, it hurts everyone else and even if they are aware, they have no way to limit it, just cancel the upload.


Some googling produced the following results:

Once in a time, a Firefox Plugin called Firefox Throttle existed for this exact purpose. The Plugin was discontinued. A Plugin to provide the speed limiters would be great, but I blame developers for being shortsighted since this should be part of any modern Web Browser, unless they actually think that people only uses one computer per connection.

There is an application called NetLimiter which can set individual Upload/Download settings per applications, but it is a 30 day trial. This one seems to be functionally the best. Again, wouldn't this would be useful as part of the OS itself instead of requiring a third party, commercial application? Would prefer an Open Source equivalent.

Finally, trying the QoS controls of my Router, but I never messed with that. This one seems to be the best since its external, but I don't know if the Router can limit Bandwidth per machine the way I'm intending to. Should check if the Firmware has options for that, which I didn't since the Router is provided by the ISP with their custom Firmware.


Any suggestions?

 

[zir_blazer]

*BUMP*

No one? I'm kinda dissapointed, since now that there are a bunch of Internet using devices in every house, saturation of the connection due to lack of bandwidth limits always causes huge lag for the other ones (And a few insults if that happens on critical moments of a match, too). I was expecting solutions for this to be more readily available.

 

[lxskllr]

Have you checked your router options? That's the best place to do what you want. I'll look for localized solutions when I get on a real computer.

 

[Ketchup]

Have you checked your router options? That's the best place to do what you want. I'll look for localized solutions when I get on a real computer.

Agree. My router has a QoS Priorities section where I can put in an application by name or type and set it's priority.

 

[ninaholic37]

Does turning off images save bandwidth in Firefox? Or do they get downloaded but just not displayed? I think when you have an adblock, the ads still download but just don't display, is that right? Or does the adblocker change the html/javascript before any other content is loaded? I am curious about this as well.

 

[WackyDan]

You should probably look at setting up an old machine as a proxy. That may be your best option and most easily enforceable option as well.

 

[Mushkins]

For this to be effective, it really needs to be done at the router level as others have said. It depends on your router how granular you can get with QoS.

 

[zir_blazer]

NetLimiter trial does the job moderately good for now.

QoS seems to be enabled on the Router, a ZTE H108N provided by my ISP with its custom Firmware. The only interesing thing besides an On/Off option, is the QoS Queue Config, where there is a place to limit the Upstream Bandwidth. However, it doesn't state if its by individual machine, global or what. I should try to get the manual, but I doubt it will explain a lot. Since QoS was always enabled, I suppose that in basic Routers it doesn't exactly shine, or requires further configuration.

 

[Mushkins]

NetLimiter trial does the job moderately good for now.

QoS seems to be enabled on the Router, a ZTE H108N provided by my ISP with its custom Firmware. The only interesing thing besides an On/Off option, is the QoS Queue Config, where there is a place to limit the Upstream Bandwidth. However, it doesn't state if its by individual machine, global or what. I should try to get the manual, but I doubt it will explain a lot. Since QoS was always enabled, I suppose that in basic Routers it doesn't exactly shine, or requires further configuration.

QoS being on or off is completely meaningless unless you configure the rules for what gets bandwidth priority. It sounds like it's enabled on your router, but there are no rules configured. In this case it will treat all traffic equally as if it were completely off.

 

[mikeymikec]

There was a Firefox add-on I used on my wife's PC to ensure that she didn't consume all our upstream bandwidth when she wanted to upload videos to FB, but I think the author stopped updating it some years ago.

+1 Other suggestions of doing it on the router. I just thought I would relate my experience so that you don't make the same mistake and hope it continues to work.

 

[DragonBorn]

Does anyone know a tool like this for Safari on Mac?

 

[Prizm4]

wouldn't this would be useful as part of the OS itself instead of requiring a third party, commercial application?

I agree. It is ridiculous that even in 2015, Windows (or even web browsers) don't have basically functionality to control bandwidth. I shouldn't have to log into my modem and piss-fart around with settings when I only want to limit something for half an hour. And most typical users wouldn't know how to do this anyway.

Any time I upload a video to Youtube, it kills my connection while it uploads. ADSL needs a bit of breathing room - if it's uploading at full speed, nothing can download.

NetLimiter is the only program I've found so far. It's bloated and overly-complicated for most users but it works.

 

[ImpulsE69]

It's because everyone has unlimited 2Gbit connections.

I use netlimiter for Steam. You can pretty much set a specific cap for every app on your system with it.