All NetBalancer’s Current Features

Traffic Management

Bandwidth Prioritization and Limits

Allows you to control how much bandwidth each application can use by setting download and upload priorities or strict speed limits for any running process. High-priority apps (like streaming or gaming) get network preference, while low-priority ones are slowed down, ensuring important traffic isn’t bogged down by less critical downloads. You can also impose specific rate caps so that certain programs never exceed a defined KB/s limit, keeping your overall internet usage under control.

Technical Description: NetBalancer employs a kernel-level network driver to enforce both priority-based scheduling and hard bandwidth caps on a per-process basis. Users can assign predefined priority levels (e.g. High, Normal, Low) or exact rate limits for uploads/downloads via the interface, as shown above. A special “Custom” priority mode even enables simultaneous packet delay, dropping, and throttling – useful for simulating poor network conditions (NetBalancer 8.4 with Custom Priorities - NetBalancer). Under the hood, NetBalancer uses high-resolution multimedia timers for real-time traffic shaping, which greatly improves latency and ping stability when applying limits. This means even with throttling in effect, high-priority traffic maintains low latency and smoother performance.

Advanced Traffic Rules and Filters

Offers a powerful rule system to define exactly how and when traffic should flow. You can create custom rules that target specific programs, websites, protocols, or ports – even down to the data inside packets – and decide whether to prioritize, limit, or block that traffic. This gives you fine-grained control; for example, you might block video streaming on a browser but allow everything else, or set a rule to slow down file downloads during work hours.

Technical Description: NetBalancer’s filtering engine examines multiple attributes of each network packet and connection against user-defined criteria for maximum control. You can filter traffic by application process, protocol (TCP/UDP), local or remote port numbers, IP addresses/subnets, or even network adapter/Wi-Fi SSID. The system now exposes packet content to rules as well – for instance, the rule language can inspect the packet’s payload (bytes in packet.body[]) to apply different limits based on data patterns or content type. When a packet matches a rule, NetBalancer can assign it a specific priority, impose a bandwidth limit, introduce a delay, or outright block it. Complex scenarios are supported by linking filters with rules via IDs and combining multiple conditions, all processed by the driver in real-time.

Geographic Prioritization & Blocking

Enables location-aware network control by letting you set different policies based on where your internet traffic is going in the world. You can choose to block or slow down connections to specific countries or regions, or give priority to local/regional servers. For example, if you want to restrict downloads from overseas servers or prioritize traffic to servers in your country, Geo rules make it as simple as pointing and clicking on a map.

Technical Description: NetBalancer integrates a geo-IP database to determine the geographic location of remote IP addresses for all your connections. It provides the ability to assign limits or priorities based on these locations. In practice, you can create a rule that matches traffic going to (or coming from) a particular country or continent and then apply an action (like “Limit to 1 Mbps” or “Block”) for those connections. The system’s Explore panel (see UI Enhancements below) visualizes this by mapping connections on a world map, and it allows interactive control – you can click on a country on the map and set its traffic priority or block status directly. Geographic rules work in tandem with other filters, and the engine ensures these location-based policies are enforced just as swiftly as any other rule.

IPv6 Support for Rules

Fully compatible with modern internet protocols, ensuring that NetBalancer can manage IPv6 traffic as effectively as IPv4. This means if your applications or websites use IPv6 addresses, you can still apply all the same limits, priorities, and rules without any gaps in control.

Technical Description: NetBalancer has native IPv6 support built into its traffic filtering and prioritization system. All features – including process monitoring, rules, and filters – recognize IPv6 addresses and networks. For example, you can create a filter to target an IPv6 address range or apply a global rate limit to all IPv6 traffic, and NetBalancer will handle it with the same precision as IPv4. By supporting IPv6 at the driver level, NetBalancer ensures no traffic (whether IPv4 or IPv6) bypasses its control, maintaining comprehensive management even as internet protocols evolve.

UI Enhancements

Process Monitoring & Connection Details

NetBalancer provides a live overview of all applications using your network, along with their current download and upload speeds. You can drill down to see each individual connection a process has open – including the remote IP address or website it’s connected to and what port or service it’s using. This real-time list updates continuously, so you can literally watch which programs are consuming bandwidth and even see details like where they are connecting (with country flags for easy recognition).

Technical Description: The user interface lists every running process and tracks its network usage in real time. Expanding a process reveals a connections panel showing each active network connection that process has, with columns for remote IP, resolved country, port, protocol, and more (as illustrated above). A search/filter box allows users to quickly find specific connections (by IP address, country name, port number, etc.), making it easy to pinpoint traffic of interest. The UI updates these statistics live, querying NetBalancer’s service which monitors socket connections at the OS level. You can right-click on any process or connection to take actions like setting a priority/limit or even terminating the process. This detailed monitoring UI is backed by Windows network APIs and NetBalancer’s driver, enabling deep visibility down to each TCP/UDP stream.

Detailed Traffic History & Statistics

NetBalancer keeps a long-term history of your network usage, so you can analyze how much data each application has used over time. You get various charts and graphs – for example, you can view usage per process for the last hour, day, or even since NetBalancer was first installed. This historical view helps identify trends (like which apps hog the most data) and lets you zoom into specific time windows to see what was happening with your traffic at that moment.

Technical Description: All traffic data is continuously logged by NetBalancer, allowing detailed download/upload statistics for any process since the software was installed. The software’s dashboard includes interactive charts that can display network usage over different time scales (seconds, minutes, hours, days). Users can select a time range and the chart will accurately show the traffic totals for that interval. For finer analysis, hovering over the timeline gives instant per-second or per-minute usage details at that point. NetBalancer can retain a large window of history (up to 1000 data points for each time unit, as per earlier versions’ improvements, and it also provides options to clear or truncate logged data if needed. These historical graphs and statistics are rendered via the UI based on data stored in a local database, enabling in-depth retrospective analysis of network behavior for each process.

System Tray, Toolbar & Mini Window Display

To keep you informed at a glance, NetBalancer can show your network traffic stats right on the taskbar. It has a tray icon (near the clock) that can indicate current upload and download speeds, and even an optional toolbar that sits on the taskbar showing live traffic graphs. For even more visibility, there’s a small floating “traffic mini-window” you can enable, which stays on top of other windows – this mini-window shows real-time download/upload speeds and a tiny graph, and you can customize its appearance (colors, graph type) to your liking.

Technical Description: NetBalancer offers multiple UI elements for at-a-glance monitoring of traffic outside the main app window. It adds a system tray icon and a taskbar toolbar that update in real time with network throughput information. These can display numeric speed readouts or simple graphs so that users always see current bandwidth usage. Additionally, the “Traffic Mini Window” is an always-on-top widget that visualizes live traffic; it can show un-normalized (raw) throughput and supports different graph styles (for example, a bar graph mode). Users can personalize the mini-window’s look — including its graph color scheme — through the settings. All these UI elements draw data from the same monitoring engine, and they’re optimized for modern displays (high-DPI support ensures the tray and mini-window graphics scale cleanly on high-resolution screens (NetBalancer 8.6.1 [Updated] - NetBalancer)). This trio of UI features ensures that whether minimized to the tray or busy with other tasks, a user can always keep an eye on network activity.

Geographic Network Explorer (Map View)

NetBalancer includes an interactive world map that plots all your active connections in real time. This “Explore” panel gives a geographical perspective to your network activity – you can see where in the world your PC is connecting (for example, you might see clusters of servers in particular countries). It’s not just passive; you can click on a country or server pin on the map to get more info or even apply rules (like block or prioritize traffic to that region) right from the map. It’s a visually intuitive way to understand and manage your traffic based on location.

Technical Description: The Explore panel introduced in NetBalancer 11 visualizes network connections on an interactive globe map. Each active connection from your computer is represented by a line or marker on the map, showing the remote server’s geographic location. The map uses geolocation data (country, city coordinates) for each remote IP to plot these points. It’s fully interactive: users can pan/zoom around the globe and click on a connection’s endpoint to see details like the application using it, the remote host, and data transferred. From the same interface, NetBalancer allows setting priorities or blocks for that location – for instance, clicking on a country and applying a block rule will immediately affect all connections to that country. The Explore panel also features a geo-traffic timeline, highlighting which locations your PC communicated with over recent history and how much data was exchanged. This geographic UI is built on top of NetBalancer’s rule system, meaning any action you take on the map translates to underlying geo-based filters. It provides a unique, global view of your traffic and a convenient way to manage network behavior by region.

Multilingual Interface

To cater to users worldwide, NetBalancer’s interface can be displayed in many different languages. You can switch the UI to your native language (options include major languages like English, Spanish, Chinese, Hindi, Russian, and many more) so that menus and settings are easier to navigate. This makes the software accessible and comfortable for non-English speakers, as everything from dialogs to tooltips will appear in the language you choose.

Technical Description: NetBalancer has comprehensive internationalization (i18n) support in its UI, with translations available for a wide range of languages. As of version 12.3, it includes support for over a dozen languages, such as Deutsch, Español, Français, Italiano, Polski, Português, Română, Türkçe, Ελληνικά, Русский, Українська, हिंदी, 中文, and others. The application’s resource files are translated so that all interface elements (menus, labels, messages) appear in the selected locale. Users can change the language on the fly via the settings, and the program will dynamically load the corresponding localization. This multilingual capability was added in response to global user demand and is actively maintained (community or official translations are updated as needed). It ensures that NetBalancer can be used effectively by non-English-speaking users, enhancing usability and adoption across different regions.

Security & Privacy

Full Traffic Encryption

NetBalancer takes your privacy seriously – all data it handles outside your PC is encrypted. Whether it’s communicating with the NetBalancer website, syncing your settings to the cloud, or any internal messaging between its components, everything is secured. This means your personal information, sync data, passwords, and all bits and bytes that NetBalancer sends or receives are protected from eavesdroppers, keeping your network control activity private and safe.

Technical Description: End-to-end encryption is enforced for all NetBalancer communications and stored data. The website traffic and any sync service data exchange use HTTPS/TLS protocols, ensuring that no plaintext travels over the internet. Likewise, the NetBalancer client encrypts all internal traffic and sensitive data (including configuration sync, credentials, etc.) using strong cryptographic hashes and algorithms (TLS 1.3 is specifically employed). In practice, this means even if someone intercepts the traffic between your NetBalancer app and the cloud service, they would only see encrypted gibberish. Passwords are never stored or transmitted in plain form, and all sensitive on-disk data is also secured. This comprehensive encryption strategy guarantees that using NetBalancer to monitor or shape traffic does not introduce privacy leaks or security vulnerabilities.

Integrated VPN Support & VPN-Aware Rules

NetBalancer now integrates VPN capabilities to enhance your online privacy and security. You can connect to VPN servers directly from within NetBalancer, hiding your IP address and encrypting your internet traffic for a safer, unrestricted browsing experience. The software’s rules are also VPN-aware – meaning you can easily set it so that certain programs only access the internet when you’re on a VPN, or implement a kill-switch that blocks all traffic if the VPN disconnects. This gives you fine control to ensure sensitive applications only run under the protection of a VPN.

Technical Description: NetBalancer includes a built-in OpenVPN client integration, allowing users to connect to VPN servers without external software. Initially, the app provided its own list of VPN servers to choose from, but even after discontinuing the bundled VPN service, the VPN functionality remains – users can import or add their own third-party OpenVPN configuration files into NetBalancer and connect through those. Once connected, NetBalancer’s UI and map will indicate the VPN link, and all traffic is tunneled through the VPN. Importantly, the traffic management system is aware of the VPN’s state: the rule engine exposes a vpn status variable that rules can query. For example, a user can create a rule (or use a provided template) that says “if VPN is not connected, block all traffic” – effectively a kill switch ensuring no data leaks outside the VPN. Conversely, you can prioritize or allow certain traffic only when a specific VPN server is active. This context sensitivity extends to the scripting engine as well, enabling very flexible policies tied to VPN usage. In summary, NetBalancer’s VPN integration not only lets you secure your connection easily, but also tightly couples with its rule system to maintain privacy (e.g. network lock) whenever the VPN is down or not in use.

Automation & Scripting

Command-Line Interface and API Automation

NetBalancer can be fully controlled outside its GUI, which is great news for power users and IT admins. It provides a command-line tool and web-based APIs so you can script and automate network management tasks. For instance, you could write a script to automatically change priorities at certain times of day, or integrate NetBalancer’s controls into your own applications or management systems. This automation support means you’re not limited to clicking around the interface – you can make NetBalancer respond to events or schedules hands-free.

Technical Description: NetBalancer offers a rich automation interface through both a command-line utility and a RESTful web API. The command-line tool (nbcmd.exe) allows running various commands and setting parameters from Windows Terminal or batch scripts – for example, one can script commands to set process priorities, create or edit rules, or export/import settings without opening the GUI. This facilitates scheduling via Windows Task Scheduler or integration with other admin scripts. In addition, NetBalancer’s synchronization service provides web APIs (accessible via HTTP requests or through the NetBalancer Cloud dashboard) enabling remote control of multiple machines. These APIs cover operations like adding rules, changing limits, tagging computers, etc., programmatically over the web. Using the web API, an organization could integrate NetBalancer with their existing infrastructure – for instance, automatically applying bandwidth limits to certain servers during peak hours. All automation channels are secured and require authentication, and they mirror the functionality available in the GUI. This dual interface (CLI and API) ensures that anything you can do by clicking can also be done via scripts or remote calls, which is essential for advanced and large-scale use cases.

Programmable Rule Scripting (C#)

For the ultimate in flexibility, NetBalancer lets advanced users write their own mini-programs to decide how traffic is handled. Instead of just using the preset rule options, you can write a rule in C# code that runs for every network packet and makes decisions. This means you can create very complex or specific behaviors – essentially if you can logic it out in code, you can have NetBalancer enforce it. It’s a feature aimed at power users who might say, “I want to do something that the normal interface doesn’t let me” – with programmatic rules, you can implement those custom policies by scripting them yourself.

Technical Description: NetBalancer’s Programmatic Rules feature allows users to define traffic rules entirely in C# code. These scripts are compiled just-in-time and executed for every packet, using a function to determine if the packet matches certain criteria and what action to take. The scripting environment exposes packet properties and context (e.g., protocol, ports, application, even VPN status via vpn.connected) and provides functions like normal(), limit(), block() etc., to assign priorities or actions to packets. Because the code is highly optimized a programmatic rule can process on the order of one million packets per second on a single CPU core, roughly equating to 10 Gbps of throughput in real time. NetBalancer ensures safety by sandboxing these scripts: they are prohibited from performing any I/O operations (no file, network, or registry access) and cannot use reflection, preventing abuse or privilege escalation. This feature effectively turns NetBalancer into a programmable firewall/shaper, where users with coding skills can implement bespoke logic that goes beyond the built-in rule sets. All the support code and examples for programmatic rules are provided openly (under MIT license) to encourage customization and transparency.

Cloud Sync and Bulk Management

NetBalancer isn’t limited to a single PC – it can sync settings across your devices and let you manage them collectively. By logging into a NetBalancer account, all your rules and preferences can be synchronized to the cloud and applied on multiple computers. You can organize your PCs into groups using tags (for example, tag some machines as “Office” or “Family”) and then issue a single command to apply a rule or limit to all tagged devices at once. This bulk management is a boon for IT administrators or anyone with several computers, as you don’t have to configure each one by hand – set it up once, and propagate the changes to all your machines in one go.

Technical Description: NetBalancer provides a cloud-based sync service that enables central management of multiple installations. When signed in, a user’s NetBalancer client will upload and download configuration changes (priorities, rules, settings) to keep all their devices in sync. An important feature of this service is the use of tags: you can assign custom tags to each of your computers (e.g. “Lab PCs”, “Work Laptops”, etc.) and then execute bulk operations targeting those tags. For instance, an admin could tag 5 computers as “Team A” and then issue a single bulk command (via the web interface or one of the linked clients) to set a new download limit on all “Team A” machines simultaneously. These bulk commands are processed by the NetBalancer cloud, which sends the instructions to each tagged device’s local service. All sync traffic is encrypted (as noted in Security & Privacy) to protect the configurations in transit. The result is a coordinated network control system: changes made on one device (or on the web dashboard) can automatically propagate to others, ensuring consistent policy enforcement across a fleet of PCs. This makes NetBalancer suitable not just for individual use but also for multi-computer environments, simplifying network administration tasks through automation and synchronization.