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Netflix Debuts 'FAST Speed Test' App for Quick and Simple Internet Speed Checks

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In May, Netflix announced Fast.com, a website where users could quickly and simply check their internet connection speed. The site uses Netflix's servers and technology to give people an instant look at their current internet speed. The site quickly became popular, and Netflix has now released the FAST Speed Test app for mobile devices.

fastspeedtest-800x711.jpg

Once opened, the app instantly begins giving users a reading of their internet speed. Once the test is fully complete, results can be checked against results from SpeedTest.net, another popular internet speed checking solution. Both the website and app utilize simple, minimalist designs, with the service's logo and download speed tracker taking up much of the space. The refresh button, the lone button in the app, allows users to restart the test.

On its blog, Netflix's Sergey Fedorov and Ellen Livengood explained that FAST only displays download speeds because thats how most users interact with the internet, whether it be streaming video or loading webpages.

To test speed, the app and website undergoes several download tests using Netflix's technology and services, including downloading chunks of a 25 MB video file through "a variable number of parallel connections." Fedorov and Livengood go into technical detail about how the service works on the company's tech blog.

FAST Speed Test is available in the App Store for free [Direct Link]

Article Link: Netflix Debuts 'FAST Speed Test' App for Quick and Simple Internet Speed Checks
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2016/08/09/netflix-fast-speed-test-app/
The only thing I can't keep thinking about is that they probably stole some guy's ownership of the website. There's no way nobody registered fast.com previously.

EDIT: By "stole", what I mean is that if the owner of the site was a nobody, they are no match against a giant multi-billion company like Netflix. They could have easily just caused a "transaction error" or "termination for copyrighted content". I don't think that's what happened, but I'm just stating the possibility.
 
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I would recommend just adding fast.com from safari to your homescreen. It loads faster & has a minimaler icon.
 
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Hmm. I will continue using my pro Speedtest app. It is more popular.

Update: This site only provides download speed test, not upload speed test.
 
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I thought it was against App Store rules to submit an app that was a mirror of an existing website.
 
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In a world where I'm dictator of everything fast.com would exist. Turns out exists it anyway. Yes!!! Speedtest.net can die in the biggest fire.
 
garirry said:
The only thing I can't keep thinking about is that they probably stole some guy's ownership of the website. There's no way nobody registered fast.com previously.

EDIT: By "stole", what I mean is that if the owner of the site was a nobody, they are no match against a giant multi-billion company like Netflix. They could have easily just caused a "transaction error" or "termination for copyrighted content". I don't think that's what happened, but I'm just stating the possibility.
Click to expand...

WTF are you talking about?
 
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garirry said:
....I don't think that's what happened, but I'm just stating the possibility.
Click to expand...

Anything is possible, doesn't make it likely or means it happened. Why the conspiracy theories? And why 'some guy' - women don't own domains? How about the possibility that it was owned by someone who sold it to Netflix and made a huge profit?

Most likely it was registered by a domain squatting company that charged Netflix a stupid amount of money that they were willing to pay - that's usually how domain names work these days. Companies can register them without paying for them, every 28 days (I can't remember how long it is but I believe it's 28) they release it and their software immediately grabs it again but under a different company name. If somebody then wants to buy it they agree a hyper inflated price, pay the original low price, transfer the name to the new owner and pocket a profit. If nobody wants to buy the domains they haven't paid anything for them, although obviously their 'business' has server and marketing costs of course.

It's not illegal, but it's very annoying. So no need to worry about 'some guy who had his domain name stolen' - it didn't happen.
 
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I deleted it as soon as I found out that this app works just like the website. I just don't want to clutter my phone with another app. The funny thing is that, the service provides recommendation to a link to compare it to speedtest.net. It's kinda like promoting the competition, it feels like having a yahoo search or bing search link right on google homepage. :D
 
joueboy said:
I deleted it as soon as I found out that this app works just like the website. I just don't want to clutter my phone with another app. The funny thing is that, the service provides recommendation to a link to compare it to speedtest.net. It's kinda like promoting the competition, it feels like having a yahoo search or bing search link right on google homepage. :D
Click to expand...

I suspect the whole point of this app, and the point of using live Netflix servers and streaming tech, is to expose traffic shaping by ISPs. I've previously had an ISP which throttled pretty much everything except speedtest.net. Comparing the results of two apps will help shame the shapers.
 
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Shirasaki said:
Hmm. I will continue using my pro Speedtest app. It is more popular.

Update: This site only provides download speed test, not upload speed test.
Click to expand...
But Speedtest app does not test against Netflix servers, so you will never find out if your provider is throttling your connection when streaming from Netflix - unfortunately common practice from providers that have their own streaming service since that makes them look better. This is the purpose of this app, that's why upload is not included.
 
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0815 said:
But Speedtest app does not test against Netflix servers, so you will never find out if your provider is throttling your connection when streaming from Netflix - unfortunately common practice from providers that have their own streaming service since that makes them look better. This is the purpose of this app, that's why upload is not included.
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It sounds logical but Netflix can easily set up a dedicated test server and run this speed test site on it. Each time user accesses fast.com, it will easily download stuff to your local machine in nearly full speed. But, your Netflix experience is not improved. You still don't know if the connection is actually throttled.
This is a common practice for those CPU designers like Intel to optimise for well-known test software, achieving a high test score, yet actual performance contradicts with good-looking test score.
[doublepost=1470825788][/doublepost]
mw360 said:
I suspect the whole point of this app, and the point of using live Netflix servers and streaming tech, is to expose traffic shaping by ISPs. I've previously had an ISP which throttled pretty much everything except speedtest.net. Comparing the results of two apps will help shame the shapers.
Click to expand...
But we are not sure if ISP also choose to not throttle this speed test site in the future.
 
They "just" launched this? I'm sure I was redirected to it a month or so ago after some Netflix steaming problems whilst using a public wifi connection.
 
This service is there since months now. I've used this on multiple occasions.
 
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