There’s a lot of people out there who doesn’t care how their software run in the background. Many of them are not even aware that this softwares like antivirus, antispyware and firewall connects to the internet by default. Just imagine all of this softwares run at the same time while your checking your mails, writing your blog and downloading mp3’s from itunes. Each of this software updates in the background making their use of your bandwidth unnoticeable. And the result is a bandwidth competition that takes place everyday against your browser and your other main routine activites.

Some examples you have to watch out:

ANTI-VIRUS
By default Grisoft’s Free AVG has an update plan that periodically checks for internet updates between 8:00 AM and 9:59AM

FIREWALL
Zone Labs security software automatically notifies you when an update is available. No specified time and day of checking for updates. What if it checks 24/7? whoa..

BROWSER
Microsoft Explorer automatically checks for Internet Explorer updates by default. No specified time and day of update. Im not sure if this option still works, if im not wrong, this is already integrated in Windows Automatic updates.

OPERATING SYSTEM
Windows Automatic updates checks for updates everyday at 3:00AM by default.

MEDIA PLAYER
Winamp has this feature that reports anonymous usage statistics by default.

INSTANT MESSENGER
Yahoo Instant Messenger has a dedicated yupdater.exe program that installs and checks for updates by default.

My Solution, is to disable this settings right after you install a software. Make it a habit to configure first this update settings before you make any changes to your software, for the reason that this feature is often neglected.

OR

If your the security sensitive type, you can schedule when this software establishes a connection to the internet and update itself.