gHacks technology news » internet speed http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:34:23 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 en hourly 1 Test Your Internet Speed With Down Tester http://www.ghacks.net/2009/05/13/test-your-internet-speed-with-down-tester/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/05/13/test-your-internet-speed-with-down-tester/#comments Wed, 13 May 2009 07:37:20 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2009/05/13/test-your-internet-speed-with-down-tester/ microsoft windowsIt is sometimes advisable to test the Internet speed either to test if the advertised speeds that the IPS lured you in with are reachable or to download speeds from various parts of the world. Internet Service Provider usually offer a test file on their servers that their customers can use to test the download speed. This however can be highly different from the download speed to other parts of the country or overseas. Another possibility to test the Internet speed is by using websites that offer speed tests (check broadband speed test or the broadband speed test article at Connected Internet for example).

The third possibility are software programs that are executed on the computer system. One of these is Down Tester by the popular software developer Nirsoft. Down Tester comes with all the usual traits that all Nirsoft applications come with. It is portable, offers command line options and highly customizable for the purpose at hand. Its main purpose is to record the download speeds of various files that get added by the user. The reason why the software does not come with a default set of files is server overload.

This means that the user has to add files manually in the software program before the Internet speed test can be started. Down Tester will then download one file after the other until all files have been downloaded. It displays the speed in bytes and bits at the end plus other values like the start time, download duration, size and url of the file.

internet speed

It is possible to create html reports of the results of the Internet speed test. The software offers some advanced options like setting ftp mode to passive or active, stopping downloads after 5000 Kilobytes automatically or the amount of retries if a connection fails. Down Tester fails to test the upload speed of a connection which might be worth an upgrade and should not be to hard to implement; Maybe by adding a list of upload file hosts to the program.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2009/05/13/test-your-internet-speed-with-down-tester/feed/ 7 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 A Reliable Broadband Speed Test http://www.ghacks.net/2008/09/11/a-reliable-broadband-speed-test/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/09/11/a-reliable-broadband-speed-test/#comments Thu, 11 Sep 2008 08:52:25 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=6927 One of the first things that users do when they get a broadband Internet connection is to visit so called speed tests on the Internet that measure the upload and download speed of a connection. This is great for bragging rights but also a good way to check if the advertised speeds are the real speeds. Most Internet providers tend to use phrases like “up to” to advertise their Internet connections.

One major problem is the reliability of those speed tests on the Internet. Some show lower speeds even if the Internet connection is able to handle faster speeds. This can be due to server capacities at the speed test host, the location of the servers in the world or general routing problems that affect the measured speed.

Speed.io is the first broadband speed test on the Internet that measured the speed of an Internet connection correctly. Every other speed test was usually missing a few thousand Kbits. The service measures the download and upload speed, the maximum number of connections and the response time of the Internet connection.

broadband speed test

The download speed test result was 14806 Kbit and the result of the upload speed test was 990 Kbit which comes close to the maximum capacities of the 16 Mbit / 1 Mbit advertised speed of the Internet provider.

The developers of Speed.io claim to utilize 50.000 servers world wide for their speed tests which seems an awful lot but would be an incredible infrastructure if this was the case. Still, it does not really matter if they have 1 or 50K servers as long as the speed tests are accurate.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/09/11/a-reliable-broadband-speed-test/feed/ 14 How much are you paying for your internet connection ? http://www.ghacks.net/2007/07/17/how-much-are-you-paying-for-your-internet-connection/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/07/17/how-much-are-you-paying-for-your-internet-connection/#comments Tue, 17 Jul 2007 09:25:45 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/07/17/how-much-are-you-paying-for-your-internet-connection/ After reading the BBC report about broadband prices in 30 of the most developed countries I was wondering how much you actually paid for your connection to the Internet. The BBC article unfortunately revealed only marginal information and not the complete list of prices in all of the countries examined.

The result was that the cheapest megabit per second connection was available in Japan with $0.22 for every megabit while it cost $3.18 in the United States and $81.13 in Turkey. Japan and the Scandinavian countries have in large regions access to 100 Mbit fibre networks while the rest of the world relies mainly on cable and dsl for broadband access.

My broadband connection has a speed of 16 Mbit / 1 Mbit and I pay roughly $68 for it including phone and phone flatrate. I would of course prefer to subscribe to a 100 Mbit line but those are unfortunately not available right now. So, how much do you pay for your internet connection and how fast – or slow – is it ?

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