Subscribe
Sign in
Fast.com — Internet speed test, powered by Netflix
66
Replies
Best
New game! Post a screenshot of your top score. Here's mine from Product Hunt HQ:
This is a really interesting move. I think it is common for ISPs to prioritize traffic to speed testing websites in order to inflate the test numbers. At the same time, many ISPs throttle Netflix use. By aiming to be a popular speed testing site, Netflix empowers the consumers to call out ISPs that are cheating their customers.
Normally, an ISP could just add the speed test site to their whitelist for high priority traffic. In this case, that would not only improve the test numbers here but also improve the quality of Netflix streaming since the test uses Netflix's streaming servers!
My thoughts exactly @nbrempel - a really smart move by Netflix.
A domain like that could easily have cost $1 million and I think we know a company like Netflix doesn't shell out that kind of cash just to build a "simpler" version of speedtest.net
@jackdweck - yeah I thought so too, but whois is different, and a dude on HN said it's his and he just redirected it: https://news.ycombinator.com/ite...
Still - they could buy it 💰
@nbrempel So essentially ISP's can't whitelist this domain without also positively effecting Netflix streaming services?
@nbrempel Its a classic 'video platform that does not want to pay for bandwidth' vs ISP move. Similar to https://www.google.com/get/video...
Mixergy HQ
201 Mission Street, 12 floor
Expected more design polish from a company like Netflix - but hey, good design is as little design as possible, which it is :)
http://imgur.com/DqS1NFi
@mrapierce I agree - I am just nitpicking here (and I'm no expert on design either), but I seem to have developed a huge aversion to pure black (0,0,0) being used for text - especially for bigger font sizes. http://designforhackers.com/blog... and http://ianstormtaylor.com/design... do a great job explaining the why behind it.
@anant90 That I agree with! (It was drilled into me during design school.) It's surprising that they're not using the same shade as Netflix does #141414.
@anant90 I wonder if there's any speed advantage to using a default color? (BLACK, not #000000) Probably not, but now I want a reason.
The speed shown is way lower than that of SpeedTest. Does this mean ISPs throttle NetFlix streaming? Or NetFlix is pinging a server halfway around the world?
Interesting. I have a bandwidth monitor that the FCC uses to monitor ISPs (SamKnows) at my office. Suppose to have 300MB down from Time Warner (Charter/Spectrum). When I run Speedtest.net I get 300mb down, when I run fast.com I only get between 120-190MB down. Would be good if Fast.com could provide charts over several tests to provide to the FCC and ISPs.
@davidprati In addition to testing your internet speed, I wouldn't be surprised if this was used to collect some form of user data (primarily location and speed). Using that data Netflix could understand real world internet speeds and build infrastructure to support it better where needed.
Ex: A certain part of the US might have lower Internet speeds, and lower Netflix-usage compared to the rest of the US. Netflix could hypothesize that by running videos at a lower bitrate (thus a lower quality), they might be able to bring utilization up because users won't have to worry about buffering as much. With this data, they could find those locations and situations and A/B test all they want.
This is all assuming they ARE collecting some data, but with the lack of a Privacy Policy on the site, I'm not sure they are.
I am too ashamed to post my screenshot. It's lower energy than Jeb Bush 😴
Which does not match the SpeedTest one - 
Nor does it match the Google Fiber Speed Test - http://speedtest.googlefiber.net/ - 
Nor does it match the Google Fiber Speed Test - http://speedtest.googlefiber.net/ - 
@joshdance 200m up ? ... i get .05m up and i have to upload my videos weekly which takes me four to five days of non-stop ( hopefully ) crawling up.. ps: you suck ! :( lol
Makerpad