The Comparitech speed test

The Comparitech speed test (Gone) ★★☆☆☆

In general, the Comparitech speed test was not a recommended speed test, mainly because this speed test was slow and wasn't that accurate. There are more accurate speed tests.

 

With an adverstised speed of 100 Mbps and an average measured internet speed of 105.9 Mbps, we conclude that the Comparitech speed test was not an accurate speed test (Accuracy score: 20/100).

The Comparitech speed test was a ambiguous speed test. That is, this speed test measured structural an internet speed somewhere between the the advertised speed and your your true internet speed.

The Comparitech speed test was owned by Comparitech Limited. The Comparitech speed test became available in 2015.

What is Comparitech?

Comparitech is a website that compares technology products like VPNs, Antivirus software, Online backup services and ... Internet Providers.

That is why they offered their own speed test.

Comparitech makes money with affiliate marketing and ads.

However according to Comparitech's Disclosure page analysts are free to say they don't like a product (...) regardless of whether we have an advertiser relationship with that company or not (...).

Comparitech also states: (...) If we link to a product or service, it’s because we believe it’s worth taking a look at in the context of the article or review (...)

Pros

This Comparitech speed test had the following pros:

  1. Comparitech was an original speed test
  2. it raised money for charities
  3. the speed test confirmed the suspicion that ISPs provide more bandwidth than advertised

Comparitech was the number 2 speed test in the updated speed test test of 2020 (number 1 was SpeedOf.me).

Comparitech's speed test was much faster as SpeedOf.me, however SpeedOf.me is more accurate.

Raising money

The Comparitech speed test was the only speed test that raised money for charities (Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Computers 4 Charity).

(...) For each user that runs the broadband speed test, Comparitech donates one cent (US$0.01) to either the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a non-profit digital rights advocacy group, or Computers 4 Africa, which funds access to computers in developing nations on said continent (...)

With over the $2,400 donated, it is clear that at least 240,000 unique users has used Comparitech' speed test. Ookla claims to have over 10 million users per day. Compared to this, the number of users of Comparitech's speed test is negligible.

Cons

This Comparitech speed test had the following cons:

  1. the results were ambiguous
  2. the interface was not consistent

The gauge is sometimes showed twice It occured that, the speed test gauge is displayed incorrectly.

In addition, the order in which the results were displayed during testing and the final result differs.

Also, there was often a small difference between the download speed during testing and the end result. For example, the download speed during testing appeared to be 107.95 Mbps, in the final result 108.16 Mbps was shown.

When to use Comparitech

The Comparitech speed test had no added value compared to other speed tests. We advice you to use another speed test.

When you used the Comparitech speed test and you measure a value lower than your advertised speed, then your home network is probably the bottleneck.

Comparitech measureed structural an internet speed higher than the advertised speed.

How we tested

We have tested the Comparitech speed test in a standardized way. This makes speed tests easy to compare.

The following results form the basis for this speed test review:

  1. Abort/pause possible: no
  2. Ad-free: yes
  3. Average download speed of 3 measurements: 105.9 Mbps
  4. Clear indication of the current focus: no
  5. Correct back button behavior: yes
  6. Flesch Reading Ease score of the privacy policy: 28.97
  7. Number of ACheckers known problems: 6
  8. Number of cookies: 3
  9. Number of measured features: 2
  10. Number of Wave errors: 0
  11. Observatory score: 45
  12. Tingtun score: 99.95
  13. Total data use of 3 measurements: 839.68 MiBs
  14. Total time to complete 3 tests: 130 seconds