Bandwidth Meter and Diagnostics

This effective, free tool measures your Internet speed and lets you compare it with other types of connections.

Bandwidth Meter and Diagnostics appears in your Tools menu. Selecting it introduces a small pop-up window that displays your IP address and domain name. There's a button for a download speed test and an upload speed test, along with a message field that displays the status of the tests. Each time we ran a test, we were amazed at how fast the program came up with results. A new tab in our browser appeared almost instantaneously with the results in a line graph. The line graph gave us a side-by-side comparison of our bandwidth with other types of Internet connections such as dial-up, ISDN, and cable modems. There's a button on the pop-up and on the results page for a helpful support forum if you have any questions.

This is a great tool for users of all levels looking to check up on their bandwidth connection.