Once you have removed the Internet Speed Monitor virus or other malware from your computer, you should start thinking about how to authentically test your internet speed. Before discovering malware on your computer, you may have thought that your Internet Service Provider was to blame. Before doing any testing or laying any blame, you need to keep some things in mind.
Internet speed varies depending on the time of day. During the day when kids are at school and adults at work, the speed is usually at its highest. At night however, things start to slow down as more people jump on the bandwidth wagon. Ups and downs are normal but if you have a reliable service provider, there won’t be huge discrepancies.
If you out and out disconnect at certain times of the day, this is not only a nuisance but also decreases the reliability of your internet dependent applications. If you use applications for work such as VOIP, instant messaging or uploading and downloading, disconnections will clearly interrupt your work and compromise you to customers and employers.
I test my internet speed on a regular basis to make sure that I’m getting what I paid for from my ISP. First I always run a spyware scan as well as run my anti-virus and otherwise optimize my computer by removing unnecessary programs and applications. Once I finish that, I start a speed test.
Free speed tests abound on the internet. There are sites that only test your internet speed and those that combine internet speed with quality of your internet connection for VOIP.
Online Speed tests check your connection speed against servers in your location or anywhere in the world. This is an important distinction since you may live overseas and surf mostly in the US. If this is your circumstance then testing speed within your geographic location will be almost pointless. Additionally, the option exists to compare results with other people in your “neighborhood”. This can help you decide which ISPs are best.
Start the test by selecting the location you want to check against. Once you initiate the test, the first check will be for download speed followed by upload speed. You must not close your internet browser while the test is running. Also, remember to close any applications on your computer that are uploading or downloading as this will affect the test results.
Upon the completion of the test your results will be displayed. Divide these results by 1,000 to compare to the speed your internet provider should be providing. If your results show 2500 kbps for download, this means you can expect to be able to download at a rate of 2.5 Mb a minute.
Recent Comments