Yale is a free network utility program that allows you to check the bandwidth usage of all your network adapters. Developed by The SZ, this handy little tool is a widget that displays the resources that are making use of your network and how much they’re consuming. The program can look similar to Task Manager’s Performance tab—albeit a bit easier to understand, as you can customize how the information looks and is displayed to you.

Your computer’s performance

Yale is pretty much just a system or network monitoring application, which can always be found on top of other active windows. Its basic function is to show you the bandwidth and resource usage of five key areas: CPU, Memory, Disk, Free Disk Space, and Network. These are in the form of line graph meters, which you can click to expand into a list of entries and their own usage meters.

Take note, however, that expanding a source tab can reduce your PC’s processing speed—whether internal or via your network. This will occur more frequently if you open so many of the tabs simultaneously, as every network packet needs to be analyzed by the program. Nevertheless, you can be sure that it will accurately display relevant information and you can even configure the graphs to look filled if you don’t like the thin line design.

This program’s interface will be visible on top of your windows by default, but you can always drag it to another spot or close it. You can also enable the "Window is click-through" option or just make the interface opaque by adjusting the transparency slider to fit your needs. For a different look, you can try out its dark theme. You can even hide selected source tabs if you don’t want to see their data.

Stay informed

All in all, Yale is a great little monitoring software that functions as a simplified Task Manager widget—but with more customization on how you’d like it to appear on your screen. While its insistence to be in front of other programs can be annoying, it’s easy enough to make it disappear and check back later. If you’re looking for an easier way to keep track of your resources and bandwidth, this is a highly recommended tool to try out.