Packet Loss Test

How to read the result

• 0% — healthy connection.
• 0.1–1% — acceptable; typical of busy WiFi.
• 1–3% — voice and gaming quality suffers.
• Above 3% — a real fault: cabling, hardware or upstream congestion.

With only 30 requests, each failure adds about 3.3 percentage points, so a single failure is worth re-testing before you draw conclusions.

What this browser test can and cannot measure

Classic packet loss tools use ICMP ping, which web pages are not allowed to send. This test instead counts HTTPS requests that fail or time out. That is a good proxy for "my connection is dropping things", but it is not a direct packet count: TCP quietly re-sends lost packets, so mild loss often appears as higher, spikier response times instead of failures. For a raw measurement, run ping -n 100 1.1.1.1 (Windows) or ping -c 100 1.1.1.1 (macOS/Linux) in a terminal and read the "loss" line.

How much loss is too much?

• Online gaming — even 1–2% causes rubber-banding and missed shots, because game traffic is not re-sent.
• Video and voice calls — loss shows up as robotic audio, frozen video and dropped words.
• Streaming — players buffer ahead, so occasional loss is usually hidden; sustained loss lowers quality.
• Remote work — VPNs and remote desktop sessions stall or disconnect on unstable links.

Troubleshooting order

1. Re-test over Ethernet to separate WiFi problems from line problems.
2. Swap the cable and try a different router port.
3. Test at several times of day to detect congestion patterns.
4. Reboot the modem and router, then re-test.
5. Share the results with your ISP if loss persists on a wired connection.