Ookla’s app doesn’t have any such problems. This makes the test results from Microsoft’s app entirely untrustworthy as you’re never sure what you’re testing against. Quite a few ISPs still runs web caches to speed up networking for their customers (and save on costs if bandwidth is expensive in the area.) This may cause issues for anyone testing their network speeds behind a web cache/accelerator or other caching appliance, or who is running a web accelerator software on their computers. The 2,5 GBps speed is maxing out what my local network can perform rather than the external network which is usually what you want these types of services to reliably test. The result I get are between my local Windows PC and my local Squid web cache server over fiber optic cable and 10 gigabit network cards. Since the test downloads don’t specify any caching headers, caches will just store these by default. Files hosted on this platform aren’t assigned any caching policies out of the box, and Microsoft’s team working on the Network Speed Test app didn’t configure any caching headers for their test “ blobs”/files. So, what is going on here? After some digging, I found out that Microsoft tests download speeds against Azure Storage Blobs, part of Microsoft Azure “cloud offerings”. Microsoft Network Speed Test inexplicably measures 2,6 GBps. Ookla Speedtest measures my download speed at 160 MBps, which is slightly above the expected 150 MBps my ISP promises.

When I run speed tests with the two apps, I get quite different results. Azure has no local presence in Africa, Russia, and only one in South America. That is still 34 regions around the world, but you’re limited to testing against only one. Microsoft Network Speed Test ( MNST) can only test against the geographically closest Microsoft Azure data center. Through partnerships with large web hosting providers and internet service providers ( ISP), Ookla can not only tell you how fast your internet connection is to servers in your region but anywhere in the world with over 6000 test servers to choose from. Ookla Speedtest ( OST) has a wide network of servers you can test your network speed against scattered all across the world. Which is the better network speed testing app for Windows: Microsoft Network Speed Test or Ookla Speedtest? One wins by default as the other is entirely incompetent and created without much knowledge of decades old technologies!

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