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This is the most complete list with facts regarding speed tests

  1. A speed test measures the bandwidth of the weakest link between your device and the speed test server
  2. To measure the bandwidth of the ISP, the home network must be able to easily handle the expected bandwidth
  3. Typically, a real-world speed test measures the bandwidth of the home network, not the bandwidth provided by the ISP
  4. Low and highly variable test results are a sign that your home network is the bottleneck
  5. When your wired network is the bottleneck, Google Fiber and Xfinity xFi Speed Test measure a much lower download speed as expected
  6. When your Wi-Fi network is the bottleneck, with Google Fiber and Cloudflare measure 90% (or less) of the expected download speed
  7. A real-world speed test is only negatively affected by two things, namely Wi-Fi issues and large downloads
  8. Large downloads have a huge negative impact on a speed test, so it is often recommended to test on an updated system as the sole user
  9. It is best to run a speed test with a wired network to rule out Wi-Fi issues
  10. The max theoretical download speed with Wi-Fi g is 31.4 Mbps
  11. In practice the max download speed with Wi-Fi g is 28.9 Mbps
  12. Website developers might throttle the download speed of a browser to test their website behavior when lower speeds are available
  13. Testing speed tests with a throtteld browser is a bad idea
  14. Six speed tests respect the throtteld speed more or less correct
  15. There are six characteristics of an excellent speed test
  16. An excellent speed test is accurate-and-consistent, free to use, easy to use, privacy friendly, informative and fast
  17. Internet Speed at a Glance is by far the most accessible speed test
  18. All speed tests works fine in the incognito mode
  19. All modern speed test need JavaScript
  20. Google Fiber is the best speed test there is, according to the following tests: 2022 (details) and 2020 (details)
  21. The second best speed test is M-Lab
  22. For most speeds (tested up to 200 Mbps) M-Lab is a very accurate speed test
  23. M-Lab is more accurate than Google Fiber
  24. When you Google speedtest you get the suggestion to perform a M-Lab based speed test
  25. Bing sometimes shows Microsoft's speed test in their search results when you search for speed test internet
  26. The diferences between Google and Bing are negligibly small when you search for "speed test"
  27. Microsoft's speed test is also available in the Edge browser
  28. A 30 second knockout criterion is fatal for most speed tests, including Ookla's Speedtest and Fast
  29. The Ookla Speedtest is used or recommend by the majority of ISP's
  30. Google Fiber Help recommends the Ookla Speedtest too
  31. The exact worldwide number of ISP's is unknown
  32. A fairly safe assumption is that there are 5,000 to 10,000 unique ISPs worldwide
  33. There are probably thousends of custom speed tests
  34. There are circa 25 unique speed tests
  35. It is no coincidence that different speed tests give different results, they are programmed that way for a reason
  36. Speed tests can be divided into the main categories realistic, mainstream and conservative
  37. Besides the main categories you also have the categories ambiguous and miscellaneous
  38. A mainstream speed test yields more or less the advertised speed
  39. In practice, the true internet speed is 12% higher than advertised
  40. A realistic speed test yields more or less the true internet speed
  41. A conservative speed test is often developed with the business goal in mind
  42. The standard deviation of a speed test depends on the speed test used
  43. A certain standard deviation is unavoidable because the speed measurement is based on the internet protocol
  44. For most people, a mainstream speed test like Google Fiber is enough
  45. There are only 4 flawless speed tests (the rest is crossed out based on accuracy or usability)
  46. There is no recommended speed test to test your true internet speed
  47. The best speed test to test your true internet speed is (up to 100 Mbps) SpeedOf.me, however SpeedOf.me takes a long time to complete
  48. There are 7 speed tests that support dark mode theme
  49. Speed test loads a lot of data to measure your download speed
  50. Speed tests are one of the most used tools at the internet
  51. Ookla claims to have over 10 million users per day
  52. Speed tests contribute significantly to global CO2 emissions
  53. There is probably a simple rule of thumb for determining the carbon footprint of a speed test
  54. The carbon footprint in grams of CO2 is twice the download time in seconds
  55. Internet Speed at a Glance is by far the fastest, and most climate-friendly, speed test there is
  56. Internet Speed at a Glance is also by far the most accessible speed test there is