About Pinging.net

An unreliable internet connection...
    is so...
      frustrating!

Pinging.net quickly determines if you are online by running multiple tests. It then continues to monitor your connection via repeated tests including a "web ping" every second to help identify intermittent network issues.

Web Ping

A Web Ping is sent every second. Ping is a common network testing utility. A packet is sent to a computer over the network which replies with a response packet. If and how fast a response is received help determine network connection quality. Normally ping packets are sent using the ICMP protocol but that is not possible from a web page. Instead a WebRTC data channel message is sent to and returned from the server. UDP is used for the underlying transport mechanism so dropped messages are not retried which is desired in order to determine packet loss.

Round Trip Time

The round trip time of each ping is graphed as a dark green horizontal line for each second. It is also displayed in milliseconds for the last received ping and the average for all successful pings.

Packet Loss

Packet loss is when a ping response is not received. It is graphed as a red square. The percent of all pings that were lost is also displayed. Packet loss is caused by many different factors and potentially indicates issues with your internet connection.

HTTP Test

HTTP is the foundational transportation technology used on the web.

Makes a HTTP POST request with a random string body and verifies it is returned properly. Caching of the request is also explicitly disabled. This test is run every 30 seconds.

DNS Test

The Domain Name System (DNS) is the system that converts domain names (e.g. pinging.net) to an address that a computer understands (e.g. 192.168.100.100).

Test DNS is working by making a HTTP GET request to a [random-number]dns-check.pinging.net. Caching is explicitly disabled and the random number part of the subdomain prevents common caching of the DNS lookup. This test is run once when the page is loaded.

Browser Check

Web browsers report if they believe you are offline. If this check is failing it means you are likely not connected to your WiFi, cellular connection or ethernet cord. This is a basic check and it will often pass even if you are not connected. This check is continuously monitored by your browser.

Initial Load Check

Unlike most internet sites, caching is not allowed for this site. If this site loads, it is a strong indication your internet was working at the time it was loaded.

More Information

Speed is also an important attribute of your internet connection. It is not currently monitored by this site but can be measured on sites such as fast.com or speedtest.net.

We have server locations around the world. Going to www.pinging.net will route you to our nearest available server.

You can also force using a server in a particular location. We currently have servers in:

• Council Bluffs, Iowa, USA (Google Cloud)
• Paris, France (Vultr Cloud)

Individual locations do not have redundancy so for best reliability use www.pinging.net.

Other Tools

The following tools can be installed to give similar information to pinging but with different details and options.

• ping - A commonly available network tool and the namesake of pinging.net.
• gping - Like ping but with a graph.
• traceroute - Sends a ping to each host along the path to a destination.
• mtr - Combines the functionality of ping and traceroute.
• trippy - Similar to mtr but with graphs.

Privacy

We do not collect personal data and do not use cookies. IP addresses are only stored for up to 72 hours.

Contribute and Contact

The code for this site is located on GitHub. Open a new issue on GitHub or email pinging@benhansen.io for suggestions or questions. I would love to hear from you.

Terms and Conditions

We are not responsible if information made available on this site is not accurate, complete or current. The material on this site is provided for general information only and should not be relied upon or used as the sole basis for making decisions without consulting other sources of information. Any reliance on the material on this site is at your own risk.

We reserve the right to modify the contents of this site at any time, but we have no obligation to update any information on our site. This site may be discontinued at any time. You agree that it is your responsibility to monitor changes to our site terms.