The problem
I wanted to see what was using the internet on my own PC: which app, how much, and who it talked to. With Cloudflare WARP on, most monitors count the same traffic twice, once under the app that sent it and again under the VPN that carried it. So I built my own to replace GlassWire, one that counts a VPN once and stays quiet unless something is worth knowing.
What I built
- Overview: the day, week or month at a glance, with the top apps, what's moving right now, this month's total and the latest alerts.
- Apps and Connections: every app that used the internet, with downloaded and uploaded totals, and for each one the hosts it talked to by name.
- Firewall: block or allow any app in one click, through Windows Firewall rules, so a block holds even when the app is closed.
- Devices: the devices on your Wi-Fi, recognised from what they announce about themselves (their name, maker, kind and system). You can rename them and get told when one leaves or comes back.
- Alerts: an app going online for the first time, a new device joining, and a daily or monthly data limit at 80% and 100%, each as a plain Windows notification.
- Updates: Settings > About finds a newer release on GitHub and installs it.
Decisions
- A service and an app. A Windows service reads the kernel's network, process and DNS events and keeps hourly totals in SQLite. The WinUI 3 window only asks it for data over a local pipe, so recording never stops when the window is closed.
- History from the first day. On install it imports the 30 to 60 days of usage Windows already keeps, so the charts start full instead of empty.
- A VPN counted once. Traffic that went through a VPN's adapter or its local proxy is marked, so app totals count it once, while data limits count what crossed the connection, as your provider does.
- No third-party native code. Smart App Control refuses unsigned native libraries, so the tray icon, SQLite (Windows' own copy) and the installer's folder picker call Windows directly.
- Updates that check themselves. The updater installs a new version only if the file matches the checksum GitHub recorded and is signed with my certificate.
- Calm by design. Fluent glass with adjustable blur, light and dark themes, plain wording, and 147 automated tests.
Where it stands
Built in October 2026 and open source on GitHub. Version 1.1.0 ships as a single installer on GitHub Releases. The installer is signed with my own certificate rather than a commercial one, so Windows warns before running it, and Smart App Control blocks it on PCs where it is turned on.