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Internet Auto Speed Tester, Test Your Internet Speed

Martin Brinkmann — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 08:57:55 +0000

How fast is your Internet connection? I get 50 Mbit download currently and 10 Mbit upload which is mighty fine. Would not have a problem with faster speeds though, as you can imagine. But the speeds are more or less maximums, it is not guaranteed that I always get the speeds. You need to test your Internet speed if you suspect that your Internet Service Provider is running your connection on a lower speed maximum. But testing the Internet speed is not always about the provider. Maybe you want to test downloads on one of your web servers over time, to see how reliable or speedy they are.

Enter Auto Speed Tester, a freeware for Windows that can run Internet speed tests regularly on the system.

The core interface of the software program has a few issues, like buttons that do not show up at first or button text that is not displaying correctly on the button. Those are minor issues but things the developer should fix to turn the application into a professionally looking software.

New users need to click on the Configs button in the main interface to configure the application before first usage. The configuration can also be opened via Menu > Configuration.

The three important configuration pages are download, upload and Ping/IP. The download test files are configured in the download tab. A pulldown menu next to the Main Test File url opens a list of suitable speed test files, ranging from 1 Megabyte to 1 Gigabyte in size. You should pay attention to the country extension to pick a location next to your physical location. This is unfortunately the only indicator of a test file’s location in the world.

Nothing needs to be configured under the upload tab, unless you want to switch from uploading to the default ftp server to another ftp server. You need to enter the ftp server IP or hostname, user name and password in that case.

The Ping and IP tab runs ping, packetloss, jitter and IP lookup tests. The test server for the commands can be modified here, and specific tests disabled if you do not want to run them.

Auto Speed Tester runs the selected tests once every 60 minutes. You can change the interval in the main program window.

All previous Internet speed tests are displayed here as well. You see the date and time, download and upload speed in KB/s, the ping and if you scroll vertically the packetloss, jitter and the public IP assigned to your computer or device.

A chart on the right displays the same values, averages at the bottom right show the all time best performance, and the best performance of the month, week and day.

You can send the program to the system tray where it will run the tests in the background. This reduces the program’s memory footprint considerably. You may notice speed drops due to those tests when you work with the computer. But since it usually does not take longer than 30 seconds to complete the tests, it should not interfere with work to much.

The core benefits of the program are that it runs Internet speed tests over time, and that all tests can be customized.

Interested users can download the latest version of JackDinn’s Auto Speed Tester from the developer website. The program is compatible with all 32-bit and 64-bit client and server editions of Windows from Windows XP to the very latest Windows 7.

Internet Connection Reliability Test

Martin Brinkmann — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:51:48 +0000

Internet users can experience a variety of problems when connecting to websites and using services on the Internet. Some of these problems are related to the user’s Internet connection while others to viruses or unresponsive or slow servers. It is always a good idea to test the Internet connection before contacting the Internet Service Provider for troubleshooting help.

There are quite a few ways to analyze and troubleshoot the Internet connection. Two of the most common ones are using traceroute and ping commands.

The Internet service Pingtest can provide another perspective on the quality of an Internet connection.

It basically works by locating a server near the physical location of the user analysing the connection’s packet loss, ping and jitter. It will then rate the Internet connection based on those factors.

The reliability test has been created by the same company that is providing access to the Internet connection speed test over at Speedtest which can also be helpful at determining the quality of an Internet connection.

Which tools do you use if you want to test the reliability of an Internet connection? Let us know in the comments.

Internet Connection Speed Analysis

Martin Brinkmann — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 12:43:21 +0000

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.

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.