Do you have a fast internet connection and yet having a very slow download or slow video streaming on YouTube and other online video portals. Well, there are numerous reasons which may lead to such annoyance and it is at times difficult to pinpoint the main reason behind such bandwidth issues. There are instances when your browsing speed may meet the expected standards but at the same time the video streaming or file downloading through HTTP server or torrent downloads may be relatively slow as to what is generally expected. Most of the users may simply think this as a problem with the operating system and network settings and may try using various optimizing softwares or tweaks to hunt down and fix the problems. But to the surprise of many, sometimes those tools or manual optimization does not work and many of you may witness different patterns in the internet speed depending on your activity i.e when you are downloading, streaming or simply surfing the web.

When such symptoms do appear, then one possible reason might be that your ISP is limiting the traffic to reduce congestion which is very much true in case of torrent downloads which are being throttled by various service providers. You can ascertain whether the ISP is involved in limiting the internet speed for any of the internet activity by using the online Glasnost test which provides detailed reports of any such possibilities.


The Glasnost test helps you to determine whether or not the Internet Service Provider is shaping your traffic and can be used to test various apps and categories such as P2P apps, Standard apps and video on demand services provided by YouTube and such sites. It generally makes use of a Java applet and can be used within the browser to test your internet bandwidth and find out whether there are some limitations being imposed by the ISP. However, before you use this online tool you may consider stopping all the active downloads in the background and also to verify the test at different times of the day before coming to any precise conclusions regarding it.

So if you are experiencing slow speed while downloading various types of files and at the same time getting good speed while surfing the web, then be sure to test your ISP and determine whether the speed is being limited by them or is caused by some other factors so that you may proceed in the right direction to troubleshoot the problem.