Automate Plugin SpeedTest 3.0 is here – Major Changes!
Posted on September 20, 2018
If you’ve used the SpeedTest plugin in the past, you likely know that the results can vary pretty wildly. This is due to the use of a third party command line tool that has been used to perform the speed test. The plugin has just stored the results and reported on that. This is no longer the case. The updated plugin will now work directly with the speedtest.net servers to get speed test results. There are several major benefits:
- There’s no external file dependencies for the speedtest.exe file. This means that not only does the file not have to be available, but firewalls and AV won’t be a concern.
- The test can be performed more quickly.
- The test can be performed more thoroughly.
This last benefit is very important. The tool that was used was great for getting a quick test done, but it was a bit limited in the implementation. The updated plugin will perform the following:
- Find the best server based on checking the closest 5 servers by distance and pinging them to find the lowest latency.
- Ping the target server 10 times to get the average ping.
- Download four files: 1mb, 10mb, 50mb, 10mb. The download speed is then averaged from those 4 downloads.
- Upload two 1mb files.
Because the tests are more thorough, the results are more accurate and more consistent. This is a big step forward and hope you’re just as excite about it. You can install via the plugin installer here, or get more information on the blog post here.
Thanks and enjoy!
Tim