If you are connected to a broadband network and are wondering how fast your Internet connection really is, here is a way to test your Internet connection speed with a simple command.
In Linux, open a terminal and type the following:
wget -O /dev/null http://speedtest.wdc01.softlayer.com/downloads/test10.zip
What this command does is to download a 10M file to your computer. However, since you are pointing the destination folder to “/dev/null”, no actual file are being saved to your computer. The file are discarded on arrival.
In the terminal, you will be able to see the speed of the download, which is equivalent to your Internet connection speed.
Note:
1. If your Internet speed is so fast that you can’t detect the download speed, you can opt to download a 100M or 500M file instead. To do that, simply change the URL to download “test100.zip” or “test500.zip”.
2. Windows users can install Wget for Windows here while Mac users can grab the Mac version here.
Image credit: speed bugs
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Damien Oh
Damien Oh started writing tech articles since 2007 and has over 10 years of experience in the tech industry. He is proficient in Windows, Linux, Mac, Android and iOS, and worked as a part time WordPress Developer. He is currently the owner and Editor-in-Chief of Make Tech Easier.
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