Ross Headifen

Stop Akamai Technologies from downloading

My wifes computer furiously down loads data from Akamai technologies when ever it is connected to the internet. THis slows down the machine, fills it up with a lot of MB that I can't tell go where. We are also paying for down load traffic so it costs us a small fortune every time we connect to the internet. Web searches show Akamai tech is not a virus. Lots of people ask about how to stop it but no one answers the question.
We have windows update turned off, only alert for new updates. No other updates are on either. We don't do much with the web apart from email and a few webpages for travel planning etc. So I can't see why Akamai is trying to down load so much. It down loads all the time and there sems to be no end of the down load in site. Will this go on forever? My own computer does not have this problem at all and they are both the same age, running Vista. There must be a way to control this. Any help appreciated.

The firewall should stop this I would have thought, but NO. We run zonealarm Pro too and it doesn't pickup this incoming traffic either.
THe traffic is coming in through SCVHost.exe Process 1200 and in their it lists the IP address of Akamai Techologies. But that changes too with different log on sessions.

There must be a way to control this?

THanks Ross

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Answer

Don Varnau

Volunteer Moderator

Hi,

Your antivirus program or security suite *should* have automatic updates enabled. It's very important that virus/malware definitions be kept current.

A program on your computer is requesting content which Akami servers are delivering. Determine which program is requesting the content.

- - -
Start Internet Explorer without add-ons by right-clicking the IE icon on the desktop. Choose Start without add-ons.
or
from Start> Programs> Accessories> System tools> Internet Explorer (no add-ons)
If the traffic stops, a browser add-on is responsible.

For troubleshooting information see:
IEBlog Troubleshooting and Internet Explorer’s (No Add-ons) Mode:
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/07/25/678113.aspx

- - -
From Start> Run, type in msconfig then hit Enter. Go to the Startup tab. Examine programs that are loading at startup to see if one of them is causing this traffic by updating or through some other process.

- - -
When you see the Akami traffic, open Task Manager via Ctrl-Alt-Delete. Look at the Applications tab, then the Processes tab. Examine those applications and processes. Could one of them be causing the traffic?

- - -
Fiddler2 (freeware) from http://www.fiddler2.com should be able to identify the program which is requesting content from Akami servers. There's a bit of a learning curve, but the program is not terribly difficult to use.

- - -
More on Akami:
http://www.akamai.com/html/about/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akamai_Technologies

Hope this helps,
Don

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