The original SamKnows speed test

https://speedtest.samknows.com/ The original SamKnows speed test 0 4/5 stars ★★★★☆ Hans van der Graaf Hans van der Graaf

In general, the original SamKnows speed test is not a recommended speed test, mainly because this speed test is relative slow.

• Data efficiency: 42/100
• Time to complete: 33/100
• Security: 28/100
• Privacy friendly: 55/100
• Usability: 50/100
• Accessibility: 25/100
• Informative: 50/100

With an adverstised speed of 100 Mbps and an average measured internet speed of 102 Mbps, we conclude that the original SamKnows speed test is an accurate speed test (Accuracy score: 97/100).

The original SamKnows speed test is a mainstream speed test. That is, this speed test measures the advertised speed.

Although in the past we we concluded that this speed test might be categorised as mainstream and sometimes as ambiguous. Hence may be it is a miscellaneous speed test.

The original SamKnows speed test is owned by SamKnows Limited. The first occurence on the Wayback Machine is from January 2019.

This speed test is the successor of ... the SamKnows Speed Test located at http://www.broadbandperformance.co.uk/. The first occurence of this version of the SamKnows Speed Test in the Wayback Machine is May 2016.

Both speed tests work fine, and seems to give comparable results.

This is the first version of the SamKnows Speed Test as found at http://www.broadbandperformance.co.uk/:

And this is the second version of SamKnows as found at https://speedtest.samknows.com/:

Till December 2022, all testing of the SamKnows speed test is done with the first version of the SamKnows Speed Test.

The name of this first speed test wasn't that clear. There's a Watchdog logo at the top of the screen, but... the URL of the page is http://www.broadbandperformance.co.uk/ and the page title is "SamKnows Speed Test".

It's that a previous study of recommended speed tests found that others call the speed test SamKnows, otherwise I would have called this first speed test Watchdog.

With the discovery of this second version, it is 100% clear that SamKnows is indeed the right name for this speed test.

The SamKnows Speed Test (first version) is relative slow. It takes at least 40 seconds to complete the test. Retesting the second version learns that this version is with 36 seconds minimal 10% faster.

Based on the time required for the first version of the SamKnows Speed Test, this speed test is not recommended.

The second version of SamKnows is faster, but still doesn't match the 30 second knockout criterium used in the tests. Hence for now this second version is also not recommended.

The original SamKnows speed test is an original speed test.

Pros

This original SamKnows speed test has the following pros:

1. There are no ads
2. The speed test is accurate

Cons

This original SamKnows speed test has the following cons:

1. It is relative slow
2. You have to reload the page for a retest

When to use the original SamKnows speed test

When your interested in speed tests you might try this speed test out.

In general you better use the successor of this speed test: Samknows RealSpeed.

How we tested

We have tested the original SamKnows 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: 102 Mbps
4. Clear indication of the current focus: yes
5. Correct back button behavior: yes
6. Flesch Reading Ease score of the privacy policy: 43.88
7. Number of ACheckers known problems: 4
8. Number of cookies: 9
9. Number of measured features: 3
10. Number of Wave errors: 12
11. Observatory score: 5
12. Tingtun score: 77.6
13. Total data use of 3 measurements: 672.87 MiBs
14. Total time to complete 3 tests: 110 seconds