Who or what is your computer talking to right now? You may think that just because your web browser or email program is not running your PC is offline. Think again. If you have a broadband connection then the chances are it is constantly chattering away, sending and receiving data. Most of it is innocuous and your Firewall and security programs should block the really bad stuff but there’s a lot of other, sometimes mysterious communications going on in the background, which could be slowing your connection down, or maybe even malware sending your personal details to heaven knows where.

Here’s a way to find out what’s going on. Go to Run on the Start menu and type cmd then press OK and this will open a DOS like Command window.

At the flashing cursor type the following: netstat -b 5 > netlog.txt,/b>. then press . Give it a couple of minutes then press Ctrl + C to stop logging, then type netlog.txt and a text file will open in Notepad. Check the log and if you see anything suspicious Google the name or enter the IP address in the browser address line.