I'm looking for some pretty techy answers so if this isn't your forte, feel free to pass this post by...

The Background

Since July of this year, my internet connectivity has suffered from some serious latency issues. Before that, as far back as Christmas, I've had no problem at all. Using some 'ping' tracing, I've discovered a few things:
- it's not the local computer's card: solid short times
- when it appears, it's at the router itself: quick hiccups
- it propagates out to the net: I see it after the first hop and after the forth hop on the ISPs domain and each time, the latency accumulates.
And it's probably noticeable because I'm limited to a very small and slow rural provider.

The Insight

It dawned on me last night as I was digging around for other reasons for this, some people's solutions were conflicting software. Updates or uninstalling solved their problems. I realized then that it was around this time (July of this year) that I bought and installed CS5 and I wondered if there was a conflict. Not one in the classic sense of functionality or startup issues, but with background internet usage colliding with normal use.

The Question

Does anyone know the Five Ws of Adobe's phone home policies? Things like regular check-ins, software update checks, valid license checks, or anything else of note?

My plan from this point is to test connectivity by turning the computer off and using the Wii -- specifically Call of Duty, where I've not had the best ping times either -- and seeing if there is improvement in the middle of a session or not. That may shed light on something.

What your looking for can be found on your own computer, as long as you have already installed photoshop.
Follow the address at the top of this image and open the host file with 'notepad'
Here you will find all the addresses that photoshop uses to 'phone home'
Hope this helps :

Check to see if you have 'Bonjour' in your program files. Certain Adobe products (+ other mfgs) include this without you knowing.

I had this happen to me, my computer definitely slowed down, and it took some research to figure out how to get rid of it.

Here's some of what I found:

How To Uninstall or Remove Bonjour mDNSResponder.exe
Bonjour, also known as zero-configuration networking, enables automatic discovery of computers, devices, and services on IP networks. Bonjour uses industry standard IP protocols to allow devices to automatically discover each other without the need to enter IP addresses or configure DNS servers.
If you’ve installed software by Apple such as iTunes, software by Adobe such as Premiere Pro, Skype, Gizmo, chances are there’s already a Bonjour folder in your Program Files. This service starts automatically and runs a process named mDNSResponder.exe which cannot be ended by Windows Task Manager. If you do not want Bonjour to be in your computer and want to uninstall it, sometimes you can’t find any uninstaller for it! Even if you go to Control Panel’s Add or Remove Program, you can’t find the uninstaller there as well.
Here’s how to safely uninstall Bonjour and remove mDNSResponder.exe:

Just follow the few simple steps below to remove Bonjour fro your computer.
1. Go to Start > Run > type the command below and hit OK.
“%PROGRAMFILES%\Bonjour\mDNSResponder.exe” -remove

2. Navigate to C:\Program Files\Bonjour
3. Rename the mdnsNSP.dll file in that folder to mdnsNSP.old
4. Restart your computer
5. Delete the Program Files\Bonjour folder
The first command will stop and remove Bonjour Service from your computer. To confirm, go to Start > Run and type services.msc. Look for Bonjour Service name. If it’s not there, you’ve successfully removed it.

Thanks, JW, for info on how to delete Bonjour file..

Thanks, folks.

I'll see what I can discover on my Mac. I'm sure there are similarities.

Hit it with a hammer!

I've had that bonjour program on my computer as well. It came with one of those mac routers I believe. I removed it as well, as I read online it wasn't necessary to have it installed.

For what it's worth, Bonjour can be disabled but Apple does not recomment it:

"Mac OS X v10.6 uses the mDNSResponder process for unicast DNS (Domain Name System) functions, as well as Bonjour functions. Disabling the mDNSResponder process will also disable unicast DNS resolution, and without unicast DNS resolution, Mac OS X v10.6 cannot resolve hostnames such as www.apple.com."
Ref. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3789

I need my DNS resolution so I'll be approaching this from the "test while the Mac is shutdown" theory (when I can find the time; man, I'm busy).

But I thank you for the direction. I'm glad it helped the Windows folks out there.