gHacks technology news » connection speed http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:45:07 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 en hourly 1 Internet Connection Speed Analysis http://www.ghacks.net/2009/03/20/internet-connection-speed-analysis/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/03/20/internet-connection-speed-analysis/#comments Fri, 20 Mar 2009 12:43:21 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2009/03/20/internet-connection-speed-analysis/ While bandwidth prices are slowly declining it is still quite common that some Internet Providers try to influence the traffic consumption of their customers by manipulating, which usually means artificially reducing, transfer speeds. Up until recently customers had little possibilities to detect traffic shaping. The Internet connection speed analysis provided by the tool collection at M-Lab, Measurement Lab, tries to give consumers the tools at to identify connection problems.

Measurement Lab was founded by the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute, the PlanetLab Consortium, Google Inc. and academic researchers. It provides access to five tools some of which have been mentioned earlier at Ghacks. The tools in question are:

  • Network Diagnostic Tool – Test your connection speed and receive sophisticated diagnosis of problems limiting speed.
  • Glasnost – Test whether BitTorrent is being blocked or throttled.
  • Network Path and Application Diagnosis – Diagnose common problems that impact last-mile broadband networks.
  • DiffProbe (coming soon) -Determine whether an ISP is giving some traffic a lower priority than other traffic.
  • NANO (coming soon) -Determine whether an ISP is degrading the performance of a certain subset of users, applications, or destinations.

Only three of the tools are currently accessible on the M-Lab website. The Internet connection speed analysis can be directly initiated on the website without having to install third party software programs. The only requirement is the latest Java Runtime Environment to be able to run the diagnostics.

internet connection

Each analysis provides results and the means to interpret those results. To achieve best results a server closest to you should be chosen. The speed analysis provides the means to identify problems with the connection or certain protocols.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2009/03/20/internet-connection-speed-analysis/feed/ 3 Barebone Web Surfing With Finch http://www.ghacks.net/2008/10/13/barebone-web-surfing-with-finch/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/10/13/barebone-web-surfing-with-finch/#comments Mon, 13 Oct 2008 20:40:37 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=7608 We have featured some articles in the past that explained how to reduce the bandwidth usage while surfing the Internet which is important for users who have to cope with a monthly bandwidth limit and those who are stuck with slow Internet connections. (Reduce Opera Bandwidth Usage and Use The Opera Mini Browser On A PC are two that come to mind)

Finch tries to achieve a similar goal. The web service acts pretty much like a web proxy with the difference that bandwidth reduction and not anonymity is the top priority. Finch will not load CSS files, no images and no scripts. Stripping a website of most of its contents reduces its size tremendously. The size of the New York Times homepage is reduced by 94% when using Finch.

This method has some serious disadvantages though. Many websites become unusable. Finch does not support scripts which are required by some to function properly. Cookies are not supported as well which meaning logins won’t function properly as well.

finch

Finch works best on static websites or those that function without scripts and cookies. Running the website through Finch will reduce the bandwidth that is transferred which means a speed gain and reduction of the monthly transfer rate. It’s on the other hand nothing for users who spend most of their time on social sites.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/10/13/barebone-web-surfing-with-finch/feed/ 2 What do you look for in Online TV? http://www.ghacks.net/2007/12/26/what-do-you-look-for-in-online-tv/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/12/26/what-do-you-look-for-in-online-tv/#comments Wed, 26 Dec 2007 14:53:34 +0000 Cheryl http://www.ghacks.net/2007/12/26/what-do-you-look-for-in-online-tv/ Whether you have a cable subscription, Tivo, or other means of getting your daily dose of TV shows, most of you will have tried viewing shows online at least once. If you have a broadband connection, it’s a breeze. Still, what do you look for in selecting a service?

If you live in the United States, most of the networks offer their TV streams for free. Most of the content is in High-definition format. As long as your connection is fast enough to handle the content, you should have no problems whatsoever.

If you happen to live anywhere else, you will have to look for other routes to get your TV fix. Luckily, there are plenty of people who post shows on different video sharing sites. This is where a lot of the dilemmas come in. Do you just watch the first link that’s posted and get it over with?

The second concern is regarding quality. If a file is available in both ‘flv’ and ‘divx’ format, which one would you prefer. For me, it depends. I don’t have a fast connection so I avoid ‘divx’ links as far as possible. However, this also depends on the quality of the other file. I can deal with minor sync issues by adjusting my media player but bad color and picture quality drives me crazy. On the other hand, a problem with divx files is that most of the sites hosting them do not support resuming downloads.

I spoke to some people about their preferences and realized it’s a matter of personal choice. Those people with limited time and slower connections preferred lower quality files. But I’d like to know what you think about it. Do you think the current choices are good enough to convince you to stop paying for cable?

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