The first occurence of the SamKnows speed test in the Wayback Machine is 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.
SamKnows (first version) is a miscellaneous speed test. This is because sometimes this speed test might be categorised as mainstream and sometimes as ambiguous.
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.
In the speed test overview you find all findings regarding the first version of the SamKnows speed test.