Visitor Connection Speed

[joyousigs]

In searching for the functionality that StatCounter offers, I visited a number of similar sites. One offered (I forget which one) the ability to track connection speed, i.e., was the visitor's connection running at 300 baud .... 56K, ISDN, DSL, Cable, T1 or ???

In trying to decide just how large an image(s) to include on my website, knowing what the connection speed of the vast majority of the visitors would help me to made decisions like this.

Otherwise, the information is invaluable - I can't wait until the additional servers are up and operational. The cost is perfect, especially in that the website is for a hobby.....

Thanks!

[Annied]

Wouldn't it be better to go with the lowest common denominator regardless? There are still a lot of people like me around who have a dial up connection. You're likely to lose visitors if they have to wait an age for pics to load and that would be a pity because you have some lovely greyhounds.

With software like Photoshop, it's quite easy to reduce file sizes without loss of quality.

[joyousigs]

My wife thanks you for the comments on the IGs. They are the most "cat" like dog you can find. I have essentially been posting images that are the lowest common denominator. However, we have received suggestions for larger and higher resolution images on the web site. So, I have been playing around with the variables (color depth, resolution, size, and type), and having some knowledge on the visitors connection speed would help a bit.

[Annied]

I may be wrong here as I'm not a techie in any way shape or form, but a graphic designer friend of mine, who knows a lot about these things mentioned the other day that computer screens only show a maximum resolution of 72. Any pics with a higher resolution than that won't therefore look any different. Just thought it might be worth passing on.

[joyousigs]

I have been using 75 as a default on everything. My main concern has been requests for larger images. The requests have been so that the visitors are able to see the type of head, sholders, etc. To show in Europe and Japan, the dogs have to be of a solid color, and my wife has had a large percentage of solids, thus the interest from outside the US.

[stephen_follows]

The image debate aside, knowing the connection speed of visitors have other uses. Streaming media, for example.

On my site I have to different sizes of Quicktime files which the user can pick between (56k and ADSL).

It would be very useful for me to know the connection speeds of my visitors. As it currently stands, my only clue is which of the two sizes they pick to view.

So StatCounter - is it possible to track connection speeds?

Stephen Follows
www.catsnake.com
www.stephenfollows.com

[hdtvtechno]

i would also love that feature.

[webado]

i would also love that feature.
I have seen javascript that can do it. It's a lot more involved than just knowing the visitor's browser and it seems to involve an exchange of information in order to determine the speed. It's something you may want to implement on the web page that needs it rather than in Statcounter, espceially since it will allow you to decide what page to serve to your visitor at that time.

[webado]

Here is a site where you can download the necessary scripts to incorporate into your web pages where you need them.

This requires both javascript and php: http://www.rietta.com/speedar/download.php

If all you have available is javascript, then you could try to get the scripts off of this page (view source): http://www.phaster.com/golden_hill_free_web/ghfw_connection_speed.shtml and adapt it to your needs. You'll see it requires using an image file as a speed measuring tool, so you'll have to incorporate it somehow into your page, maybe use an image that you already are using. The larger the better and the more accurate the results. The results, by the nature of the manner they were obtained, are empirical.

There's more on detecting bandwidth, in conjunction with streaming media: http://www.streamingmedia.com/article.asp?id=8396&page=2&c=6 .


As you can see, all methods are quite involved, and will add a heavy burden on something like the Statcounter script (which is supposed to be fast and as unobtrusive as possible) if it were to do it for every pageview which it tracks, as a matter of course. It is doable, only not advisable, I should think.