How do you usually determine how fast your internet is at any given time? For some people, loading Google’s home page is the most casual way of finding out whether a data connection is working or not. For others how long it takes to buffer and play a YouTube video does all the magic.
I know that sounds too basic but those are classic use case scenarios. Others have the knack to go to Google and find out how good their connection is backed up by real figures of the actual uplink and downlink speeds.
In its quest to make just about everything easier and make sure you don’t always leave its search page, Google is testing a way to do that quickly. Soon, just typing “check internet speed” into Google’s search bar will result in you getting information about your network’s speeds without having to click through to a website like say Ookla’s speedtest.net.
Microsoft’s Bing is reportedly a leg up on this as it has been offering speed test results directly on its search results page. However, this feature, like most of Bing’s useful features, has been limited to users in certain markets like the United States and everyone else has to go the old-fashioned way.
Recently, Netflix unveiled fast.com, its own speed test tool.
Since Google is yet to comment on the matter, it is not yet known how soon everyone will get to use it even though a few users are reporting being able to access it powered by Google’s Measurement Lab.