Speedtest by Ookla for PC and Mac

Software Reviews and Criticism

• By JG in SB

  V1.4 Has Bugs - NOW FIXED!!!

  This is a fantastic app. The major bugs disussed below were fixed by the developer only a day after they were reported. I appreciate their super-fast attention to this. Best speed testing app out there and also the prettiest interface IMHO. I love this app and have used it for a longtime. The most recentupdate has some obvious bugs that I can;t beleive they did not catch before releasingthis to the public. You used ot be abe to calibrate the dial so that….for example….if your connections are generally in the range of 0-100 mbps, you could set the top end of the dial to 100. Now it is set to 500 and there’s no way to change it. But the new “added feature” of this current release is that the indicater needle on the dial now points in the 180 degree opposite direction of the measurement. So if your speed is being measured as 30,the needle points to the exact other side of th dial and says soething like 400. If your speed is 95, the needle point back at like 0 or 5. How do software engineers let stuff out the door like this? I’m still rating this a 3 because I like this app so much, but these bugs need to be addressed FAST.

  
  
• By Rich890M

  Just notice that you had a Windows Desktop app!!

  I have been a longtime Ookla Speedtest user for many moons…. I retired from IBM in 2008 with 30 years of working with computers/networks Speedtest has been my go to network test for as long as I can remember. I always found that depending on your web browser you could get different results and its far better to have a local run application to cut out as much of noise from applications to get a truer picture of what your results are. This app is well put together and the options it gives you are just what is needed with no extra fluff. The response is quick and the reporting is reliable, free from all the overhead of the browser and any cache etc that can and would be in the way. The options of saving your test along with running it in the menu bar and haveing the capability of uploading it to about 23 different places (depending on your Windows’s configuration) listed under your System Preferences/Extensions/Share Menu You still have the option of selecting where you want to test to. If is set automaticly to the closest point from you ISP. The graphical interface showing in a line graph of both incoming and outgoing testing shows how smooth or dirty you results can be. With showing a more flatline giving you the cleaner results of your ISP.

  
  
• By ABertrand

  Intuitive and responsive

  I was just scrolling the top free apps on the Windows app store and saw this. I use SpeedTest anytime I want to see the status of my connection but didn’t know it was an app. I’ll be honest my first thought was, why is this an app if I can just open safari and click on it in my bookbark bar? Then I downloaded the app and realized it was more responsive and gives an alert when the test is complete. Also now that I think about it the history of your speeds should be stored permanetly as long as the app exists on a computer. This is an advantage over safari because if you clear cache, cookies, and history, this connection speed data I’m pretty sure is also deleted. Overall, beautful design, awesome color scheme, smooth ainmations, and time tested functionality. P.S. It can be put in the menu bar!

  
  
• By Ted E. Bear

  Lightweight, does what it’s meant to do.

  I really don’t know what the word “accurate” would mean in the context of measuring download/upload speeds over the internet, but Ookla’s speed test service is great in that it reflects the real-world performance you can expect. Especially since the app version doesnt have the extra overhead of flash + all the other clutter on the web version. One thing I sort of wish it had was the option to choose the network interface to use for testing. I don’t think this can be done, maybe the SC api could be used to temporarily change network settings, but that would be disruptive… Or maybe it could be done at low low level using bsd sockets, but then this would dissociate it from the real-world speeds using NSURL… Really hope someone can think of a clever way though!

  
  
• By mrevansx

  Great, but one desired feature

  I use this app all the time. I like that it records my speeds over time so I have "a case" against my argumentative "your lousy fluctuating speeds are not our problem" ISP. What I wish it did, though, was also put in the records the absolute failures of data flow. Zero throughput doesn't get recorded as zero throughput; I'm just informed that the internet could not be reached so the speedtest was not performed. While I get that, it leaves me without any PROOF that the internet could not be reached (to show to my ISP). I run tests sometimes once every minute for 10 minutes where my speeds go from zero to 30Mbps /- up and down but FIVE of those tests have zero throughput so they don't get logged in results. All I have is five tests of the ten, and, of course, since the zero results don't show in the results list, the impression is my internet connectivity is varying but never totally gone (which it is).

  
  

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