Is Your Computer Connecting To Websites Without Your Knowledge

If you are worried that some hidden or unknown programs on your Windows PC are secretly making connections to websites in the background, you can use a simple DOS command to detect and prevent such suspicious activity:

1. Open the Windows Start Menu and search for Command Prompt. Right-click and choose "Run as Administrator". Alternatively, you can cmd in your Windows Run box to quickly open the command prompt.

2. The command prompt will by default open itself in the Windows System directory. Use the cd command to switch to the root directory

c:\windows\sytem32> cd \

3. Now type "netstat -b 5 > activity.txt" and press enter. After say 2 minutes, press Ctrl+C.

4. Type "activity.txt" on the command line to open the log file in notepad (or your default text editor)

Which Programs are Connecting to the Internet?

The file activity.txt will have a log of all processes (or Windows programs) that made a connection to the Internet in the last two minutes. It will also show which process connected to which website during this time.

And not just the web browsers (like iexplore.exe or chrome.exe), the log will also show your IM clients, download managers, email programs or any software that requires a net connection.

Scroll though the activity.txt file and look for any process names or website addresses that you are not aware of. If you track one, open Windows task manager (or Process Explorer) to find the location of the executable on your computer and close it.