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> There are many speed test tools out there. Our mission is to help build a better Internet. To do so, we believe in giving users a choice of different services

> There are many speed test tools out there. Our mission is to help build a better Internet. To do so, we believe in giving users a choice of different services: you shouldn’t be tied to one provider and you should be able to compare results across different tools. Under "About" section. That's a really weak argument to invent a new tool.

arghwhat 6y ago
That's actually a really strong argument to invent a new tool, especially for speed tests. Each provider can never paint a full picture on their own, so having multiple things to test against is useful.
- fermienrico 6y ago
  You can make that argument literally for everything and anything. Why need a new programming language? Well, because we think that our users deserve more choices. That does not fly well when someone needs to fork out $$$ to fund the activity. Back to the topic, what users really need is a way to run all available tools (there are many speed test tools out there) and provide them a "full picture" in one shot. Sure, the test will take 3 mins to run but it would more useful if you're concerned about usefulness.
  - arghwhat 6y ago
    Indeed, you can make that argument for everything, and it still holds. You want more competition, not less. From a speed-test service, difference is indeed in who you test against: Location is a feature. No different than programming languages providing different features. Without this service, you would not be able to speedtest towards cloudflare infrastructure at all. You'd need this at the very least to try to create the "monster" test-suite you suggest. However, it is entirely impossible to provide "a full picture", simply because there is no such thing. In a given moment, there is a given possible throughput and latency for any given point A to point B, which holds no value for any other point, or any other time.
  - manigandham 6y ago
    Well, Cloudflare did fork out the money for this tool so it's already done and now free to use.

arghwhat 6y ago

That's actually a really strong argument to invent a new tool, especially for speed tests. Each provider can never paint a full picture on their own, so having multiple things to test against is useful.

fermienrico 6y ago
You can make that argument literally for everything and anything. Why need a new programming language? Well, because we think that our users deserve more choices. That does not fly well when someone needs to fork out $$$ to fund the activity. Back to the topic, what users really need is a way to run all available tools (there are many speed test tools out there) and provide them a "full picture" in one shot. Sure, the test will take 3 mins to run but it would more useful if you're concerned about usefulness.
- arghwhat 6y ago
  Indeed, you can make that argument for everything, and it still holds. You want more competition, not less. From a speed-test service, difference is indeed in who you test against: Location is a feature. No different than programming languages providing different features. Without this service, you would not be able to speedtest towards cloudflare infrastructure at all. You'd need this at the very least to try to create the "monster" test-suite you suggest. However, it is entirely impossible to provide "a full picture", simply because there is no such thing. In a given moment, there is a given possible throughput and latency for any given point A to point B, which holds no value for any other point, or any other time.
- manigandham 6y ago
  Well, Cloudflare did fork out the money for this tool so it's already done and now free to use.