How do I check the internet connection speed on my computer?

Is your internet connection excruciatingly slow? Do web pages and web sites take very long to load? Do you feel the internet connection from your ISP is not performing as per promised? Maybe the ISP has provided you with a utility through which you can check the internet connection speed, but you don’t believe it especially when small file downloads keep you waiting endlessly. Here are some online tools, services and programs that let you test and check the internet speed.

Free program to check internet speed

Visualware provides a free tool for Windows operating systems called MyConnection PC Lite that quickly lets you check the quality and speed of the internet connection. The tool is intended for home users and accurately measures the connection bandwidth, provides simple reports and rates the quality of the internet access. The tool gives you graphical charts that show the actual flow of data transfers and you can even email the results to your ISP.

Online tools to check speed of internet connection

There are three really cool online tools that let you test internet connection speeds.

Bandwidth Place speed test

Hit the “Start” and wait for a little while. The speed test displays the kilobits and kilobytes of transfer per second. In my option, bandwidthplace.com is the simplest of the three.

Speakeasy speed test for internet connections

You need to select a server from the list displayed and the service tells you, with a lovely animation, the upload and download speeds. Speakeasy’s simple internet speed checking tool is neat and shows you the progress of the process.

Speedtest.net – The global broadband speed test

Speedtest.net floored me with its beautiful interface and the great animation! You are displayed the world map and asked to choose a triangle – the orange one that stands out is what is recommended. It provides you the transfer – both upload and download speeds – and also lets you rate the ISP you are using. You can compare your results to others and see statistics for the entire world. You can even put the free internet speed check on your web site though it does require a bit of coding knowledge.

The conclusion – what was the internet connection speeds I got

I used a slow cable connection for checking these tools. The good news is that all three online tools and the MyConnection PC Lite program gave me comparable results, which means all of them did a decent job. The bad news for me is though I was promised 512kbps, I get only about half of that! My ISP should get ready for some verbal thrashing.

Your comments

IMPORTANT Have a question / problem? Click here to ask an expert.