Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2017 November 30

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November 30

Download manager detection

Wonder how file hosts manage to detect if you're using a download manager like let's say Free Download Manager or IDM, and would either throttle down or outright refuse to download if detected. Is it due to the referrer or user agent used? Or is there something else being checked? Blake Gripling (talk) 00:43, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

• Off the top of my head, beyond what you mentioned, rate-limiting sounds like the obvious: you (seen as an IP address that is static within a timeframe of seconds) are probably a bot if you are requesting more than (say) 10 URL per second (excluding the subqueries, e.g. to load https://en.wikipedia.org/ you are redirected to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page, which itself loads a ton of stuff e.g. CSS pages - all of this is taken care of by the browser, but the website knows which page includes which requests, can check the referers and timing of the requests, etc.). Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 18:37, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Windows 10 Not Locking

I am running Windows 10 on a desktop Dell. In the Power and Sleep settings, I have set 10 minutes for When plugged in, turn screen off. (Of course, a desktop is always plugged in.) I have set 45 minutes for When plugged in, PC goes to sleep after 45 minutes. In the past, it was locking when it went to sleep, so that I had to re-enter my password. However, recently, after I accidentally pushed the power button and consequently restarted the machine, it is no longer locking up after 45 minutes or any amount of time. Is there some other option that I need to look at? Robert McClenon (talk) 00:46, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

• It could be possibly from an application preventing sleep. There may be some settings that I am not aware of but you could simply press Windows Key and L simultaneously when leaving computer.Trick on (talk) 17:53, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

User:Trick on - Thank you for your comment. I don't want to lock the computer when I leave it. I want it to lock when it senses that I have been gone for a while. It was doing that until recently. Is anyone aware of a way that I can determine what application is preventing sleep? Robert McClenon (talk) 17:58, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

I do now have an idea what the problem may be. I switched which of two web browsers I was using for what, and maybe one of them is the problem. Does anyone know of either Firefox or Chrome preventing sleep when a script on a web site is playing around? Robert McClenon (talk) 17:58, 30 November 2017 (UTC)