Fast.com from Netflix

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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May 18, 1997
Messages
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We don't know if anyone needs another internet speed measuring tool. Speedtest.net has pretty much been the industry standard since a long time ago. (Incidentally, the guy that made Speedtest, Mike Kane, also designed the HardOCP website.) Netflix' Fast.com, does give us one point of measure that Speedtest does not, and that is "loaded latency," which is supposed to show you your ping when the connection is being used by others. Seems to be a good way to figure out if Netflix is sucking, or if your service is before sending off that hate mail assuredly.
 
Better use it before your ISP prioritizes traffic to and from it like they did with SpeedTest. That is, if they haven't already.
With this in mind, don't forget about testmy.net. It's neat because all the client code is HTML5 and the servers use PHP so it'll run on any device w/ HTML5 without running any non-free code on your computer.
 
I ping a few servers around the US and download some files to check connections. nVidia's servers are usually lightning fast in my area.
 
DSL Reports or SourceForge have much better speed tests.

http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest
https://sourceforge.net/speedtest/


36034429.png

I pay for 330/20, I guess it's working.


Fast.com Says 340
 
Whelp, this is mine and I must say its pretty fucking dead on with my line specs.

This thread is a now a fast.com netflix, post yo shit and let others see wtf you gots thread.

Download is bang on, upload is like 13mbps short.

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Ninja hide ip edit.

Cannot trust you mufukas.
 
Better use it before your ISP prioritizes traffic to and from it like they did with SpeedTest. That is, if they haven't already.

This a million times. My downloads can be crawl - like dialup speed, on pretty much every service. And somehow, miraculously, Speedtest always pegs almost exactly what I'm supposed to be paying for.
 
Just ran it 15 times. Each time it was faster than the last. The final was 83mbps and I have a 60mbps connection.

Neato?
You best stop when you reach Google Fibre speeds lest you'll have Ashit Pai knock knock knocking on your door.

No caching required.
 
Better use it before your ISP prioritizes traffic to and from it like they did with SpeedTest. That is, if they haven't already.

This has been around for years. Iirc, it was created by Netflix as a test if ISPs were throttling their traffic (Verizon?).

I believe the way it's structured is that it pulls from the Netflix data as part of the test. So to prioritize for this test, they'd have to prioritize Netflix data, at least temporarily.
 
Dude its was launched like 20 interweb years ago... it was around the time when net neutrality was not a thing and ISPs started throttling them. It was before 44 signed net neutrality into law...
 
have frontair and it seems like their site the download is capped at 40mbps, while i have 100 mbit so I guess it shows netflix throttling
 
Better use it before your ISP prioritizes traffic to and from it like they did with SpeedTest. That is, if they haven't already.

Which is why Netflix hosts Fast.com on the same servers as their streaming service. So you know for sure when your ISP is being a dick and throttle your Netflix.
 
fast.com shows shittier speed for me. It fluctuates too much between 185 and 490mbps.

whereas I can pick any server on speedtest.net and get stable 480mbps speeds.

Both sites are multithreaded.

FAST.png
 
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This has been my go to since it came out a while back. Easier to tell someone to check their connection with fast.com than speedtest.net or speakeasy/test or whatever.
 
I think their test is a little off... I have a 200mbps fiber line and they think I am getting 440mbps... The upload is on point though

Even DSLReports thinks I have more speed than I should
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36058205
 
fast.com shows shittier speed for me. It fluctuates too much between 185 and 490mbps.

whereas I can pick any server on speedtest.net and get stable 480mbps speeds.

Both sites are multithreaded.

View attachment 89720

The new fast.com lets you change the number of connections/threads. Going from 8 to 16 increased my download a lot.
 
Better use it before your ISP prioritizes traffic to and from it like they did with SpeedTest. That is, if they haven't already.

This is exactly why you would actually use fast.com, and why it's one of the few speed testing sites that is actually accurate.

Netflix uses the same range of IPs for fast.com and it's Netflix content so that if your ISP wants to prioritize fast.com traffic they also have to prioritize Netflix streaming traffic... which they'll never do because they all have services that compete with Neftlix.

Knowing that speedtest.net traffic is prioritized still provides use in troubleshooting issues that you think are coming from internal network congestion, but for seeing what kind of performance your connection can sustain in real world conditions, fast.com is superior specifically because you know it won't be prioritized.
 
This is exactly why you would actually use fast.com, and why it's one of the few speed testing sites that is actually accurate.

Netflix uses the same range of IPs for fast.com and it's Netflix content so that if your ISP wants to prioritize fast.com traffic they also have to prioritize Netflix streaming traffic... which they'll never do because they all have services that compete with Neftlix.

Knowing that speedtest.net traffic is prioritized still provides use in troubleshooting issues that you think are coming from internal network congestion, but for seeing what kind of performance your connection can sustain in real world conditions, fast.com is superior specifically because you know it won't be prioritized.
And if your ISP is of any size (like 5Gbps of Netflix traffic) Netflix offers cache servers to put within your ISP's border. The fast.com test hits those as well. Seems pretty accurate within my ISP and my office lab.....
 
I know why fast.com is so inconsistent for me. It writes the data to my platter hard drive instead of ram, so that's the bottleneck.

My hard drive can't write 8 simultaneous threads fast enough. too much disk thrashing at 500mbps
 
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