Network Speed: Speed Test

My Experience with Network Speed: Speed Test

My old go-to app for checking internet speed just stopped working one day. It would freeze halfway through the test. Super annoying, especially when you’re trying to figure out if you should restart the router or just give up and read a book. So I searched for a simple replacement and found this one by Paget96. I’ve been using it on my Pixel 7 for about two weeks now. The main thing I love is that it just works. No fancy animations that take forever, no complicated menus. I was on a video call with my sister last Sunday and it started glitching out. I pulled down my notification shade, tapped the app, and hit start. Thirty seconds later I had my answer: my upload speed had completely tanked. It confirmed it was my internet, not the app we were using. That’s exactly what I needed.

Features Worth Noting

The test itself is fast and to the point. You get your download and upload speeds, plus ping and this thing called jitter. I didn’t really know what jitter was before, but the app shows it, and I looked it up. Turns out, high jitter is probably why my work calls sometimes sound like everyone’s robots. Good to know! The history log is actually useful. I ran a test every evening for a week and saw a clear pattern—my speeds dipped hard every weeknight around 7:30 PM, right when my whole apartment building is probably streaming. Having that little graph gave me something solid to complain about, instead of just saying “it feels slow.” You can also pick a different server to test from, which I tried once when I was lagging in an online game. It’s not something I use often, but it’s there if you need it.

What Needs Work

It’s not perfect. The ads are there, which is fine for a free app, but sometimes they’re for really loud mobile games that flash a lot. Not a huge deal, but a bit distracting. My bigger gripe is with the history chart. It shows the trend, sure, but it’s pretty basic. I wanted to zoom in on that bad week to see the exact times things dropped, but you can’t. It’s just a simple line. Also, I had a weird bug where after a phone update, my test history from the previous day vanished. It kept new tests, but the old ones were gone. I had to email support about it.

Pricing

It’s free. Completely. There’s no “pro version” begging you for money every time you open it, which I really appreciate. You get all the features—unlimited tests, the history, server selection—without paying a cent. The ads are the trade-off, and like I said, they’re mostly banners at the bottom. They’ve never popped up in the middle of a test, which is my line in the sand. For a tool that does one job well, the price is definitely right.

Developer Notes

When my history glitched, I used the contact email in the Play Store listing. I didn’t hear back for a few days, so I figured it was just a dead end. But then I got a reply! It wasn’t instant, but the person was helpful and explained it was a known issue with a recent Android update and suggested a fix that worked. It shows the developer is paying attention, even if they’re not the fastest to respond. Looking at the update history, they put out small fixes every couple of months to keep it running on new phones. It feels maintained, not abandoned.

Security & Privacy

I got it from the Play Store like everyone else. The permissions list looked clean to me—it doesn’t ask for access to my contacts, photos, or location, which is a big relief for a utility app. It has a privacy policy you can read. Since there are ads, I assume some data is collected for that, but it doesn’t feel invasive. For checking my internet speed, I’m comfortable with what it needs to do its job. It’s not asking for anything weird.