If you’ve ever wondered why your YouTube videos take so long to load, or wanted to see how your internet speed compares to other YouTube users, you should head over to the YouTube Speedtest.
This free tool measures the past month of YouTube speeds for your connection and compares it to other ISPs and other countries. Unlike the snapshot in time speedtests that many people use to check their speed this is a speed test for a longer period of time and provides a bigger picture.
The test uses your current location as the test, not your login so even if you haven’t been logged into YouTube, or if you visit YouTube from a variety of locations, you can still take a look at your speeds with this free tool.
One thing we noticed, that is hard to measure with other speedtest tools is that Time Warner will measure much higher in a speed test thanks to the SpeedBoost feature they have that pumps up speed for the first part fo a download. As you can see though, in the top image, the speed isn’t always there on Time Warner.
The YouTube Speedtest doesn’t measure you’re upload speed which limits the usefulness, but it’s still a nice way to look at your speed over time in a real world setting.