You can run a test at any time without a Speedtest.net account; it is not required to use the site. However, we recommend using a Speedtest.net for the following reasons:

You can easily track all your results in one place, even between multiple computers or in multiple locations.

You can easily create an account at the end of a test or register anytime.

Important: Once you create your account, you’ll receive a confirmation email including a unique link to activate your account. You’ll need to click on that link before you can log-in. If you did not receive an email, you should check your spam folder.

We take your privacy very seriously. Should you decide you want to delete your data, whether or not you’re from a GDPR country, please visit our Privacy Policy and follow the link to the DSAR submission portal to submit an official request. This portal is used to manage all data and account removals.

Your results page is where all your previous test data lives. If you’re using a Speedtest.net account, it can even store results from many different computers.

The graph helps compare your download or upload speeds over time and includes an option to compare the average results from different servers. You can use drop-down menus above and below the graph to narrow it down by IP address, server, or date.

Below the graph, we list all your results in table form, where you can sort by Date, IP Address, Download, Upload, Latency, or Server. If you’re logged-in you’ll see an trashcan icon to the right of each result, which will delete that test from your account. Next to the trashcan icon is a share button that provides a sharable result image, along with quick ways to share on Facebook, X (Twitter), Email, or other sites.

Joining the network is free and streamlined. We provide the Speedtest server daemon, and you provide the server capacity. Register through The Speedtest Server Network.

Your location is determined based on your IP address. We primarily rely on an internally developed method, which positions you on the map and determines your closest testing server.

When a speed test is performed on a GPS location-enabled mobile device using a Wi-Fi router, we’re able to correlate that GPS information to a specific broadband connection. We then use those GPS coordinates to compute latitude and longitude, and to determine the center of a specific IP subnet. We sample all of the IPs and the center of that specific subnet is defined by 50% of the IPs being within 100 kilometers of it. Since there are 254 IPs within a given subnet, we then assume that any IP within that subnet is within range of the latitudinal and longitudinal center.

In the event that we don’t have enough data to properly position your IP address, we do rely on GeoIP data from MaxMind as a backup location service. We also use it to reverse geocode your location, so that we can put a city, state and country name to the latitude and longitude coordinates that we’ve determined.

Downloading from a local server is generally faster than a distant one. This is mostly due to the fact that parameters (such as the TCP window size) controlling the transfer are not optimized for the increased latency that comes from an increase in distance. Each data packet sent by a server must be acknowledged as received before another one can be sent. While this feature makes sure that data arrives “bit perfect,” the greater latency created by distance alone can have a significant effect— especially with larger file transfers, as more packets means greater delay.

We have nearly 3000 hosts around the world so you can test to a server in your area. When you hit GO, Speedtest.net first identifies up to five servers nearby and then pings them to find the one with the lowest latency (meaning nearest on the network). By minimizing the latency, we decrease the factors listed above, which results in a more accurate measurement of your connection.