Today, we are investigating this joke website that claims to increase bandwidth. Now why am I saying it is a joke? Find out below. But before I get to busting this website, I will give some basic information about the website.
First, the website asks the user if they are tired of waiting, then proceeds to tell the user that the speed of modern Internet service is actually artificially limited - big telecom wants them to pay to play, and charges them to have these artificial limits raised. Then it proceeds to tell the user by using the joke website, they can now download at theoretical maximum speeds after following a few simple steps. A testimonial from Alister S. says that it worked well and stuff. It then proceeds to tell that this technology has never been made available to the public and ISPs want to silence this information, but the webmasters know where the technology belongs: in the hands of the people. Finally, it tells users to click the button on the right to join the thousands who have opened the taps all the way on their Internet experience.
It then promotes this technology via something that I call the Four F's. It claims that it is so fast that users have reported speed increases of up to 220%. It claims to be flexible, as it is compatible with almost all network link types, including Fibre, Cable, DSL, Mobile Data, and Dial-Up. It claims to be future-proof, as this service will continue to provide support for legacy and cutting-edge technology even as protocols become standards and technology evolves. Finally, it claims to be free and once again coerces people to try it, for they have nothing to lose.
It then tells people that there are two sister sites: Download More Ghz and Download Battery, the latter of which does not work anymore.
The About page gives some FAQs. The Support page actually gives some useful advice on how to increase bandwidth. The Contact Us page gives the email address of the webmaster.
Sounds good? Well too bad. This website is a joke. And here is why.
Exhibit A: The Fast
First of all, if you look at the asterisk, it says "*Based on a link advertised as 512Kbps reaching 1.12Mbps". However, above, we see that users have reported 220% speed increases. This is an inconsistency. As any mathematician will tell you, percentage change is defined as , where is the value after and is the value before. Plugging in our variables, we see that it is only a 118.8% speed increase. Inconsistencies in the website lead to suspicion. Had it really be true, it should reach 1.638Mbps rather than 1.12. Later, we will see that it is impossible to get a 220% speed increase.
Exhibit B: The Download
Second of all, the download bandwidth page looks innocent. However, we press CTRL+U, and we can see that the website's "download" is surprisingly hard coded.
var imageAddr = "images/test.bmp" + "?n=" + Math.random() ;
var startTime, endTime ;
var downloadSize = 1000000 ;
var download = new Image() ;
download.onload = function() {
endTime = (new Date()).getTime() ;
showResults () ;
}
function showResults () {
var duration = Math.round((endTime - startTime) / 1000) ;
var bitsLoaded = downloadSize * 8 ;
var speedBps = Math.round(bitsLoaded / duration) ;
var speedKbps = (speedBps / 1024).toFixed(2) ;
var speedMbps = (speedKbps / 1024).toFixed(2) ;
addtext (" - Your connection speed is: \n") ;
addtext(" " +
speedKbps + " kbps (" +
speedMbps + " Mbps)\n\n") ;
addtext("2) Downloading Bandwidth\n\n");
addtext(" a) Applying network tweaks:\n");
addtext(" - Negociating increased downstream link\n");
addtext(" - Negociating increased upstream link\n");
addtext(" - Reducing packet overhead\n");
addtext(" - Increasing frame density\n\n");
addtext(" b) Applying browser tweaks:\n");
addtext(" - Increasing simultaneous connection limit\n");
addtext(" - Enabling efficient data transfer\n");
addtext(" - Reducing packet decoding delay\n\n") ;
var newSpeedKbps = (speedKbps * (120 + (Math.random() * 100)) / 100).toFixed(2) ;
var newSpeedMbps = (speedMbps * (120 + (Math.random() * 100)) / 100).toFixed(2) ;
addtext ("3) Your new connection speed is: \n " +
newSpeedKbps + " kbps (" +
newSpeedMbps + " Mbps)\n\n") ;
}
function addtext(text) {
var TheTextBox = document.getElementById("terminal");
TheTextBox.value = TheTextBox.value + text;
}
function gogogo () {
var ClrTextBox = document.getElementById("terminal");
ClrTextBox.value = "";
addtext("1) Determining connection speed...\n\n");
imageAddr = "images/test.bmp" + "?n=" + Math.random() + Math.random() ;
startTime = (new Date()).getTime() ;
download.src = imageAddr ;
}
I may not be familiar with JavaScript (and you may be not), but I can tell you what this code does. First, it determines our connection speed by downloading a test bitmap file, then "downloads" more bandwidth, and then gives us our new connection speed. However, nowhere in the code is a function that downloads our bandwidth. Instead, it just spams the console with "steps". Then, instead of determining the connection speed again, it declares a variable and sets it to our connection speed times a random number between 1.2 (+20% increase) and 2.2 (+120% increase) to make it seem that it worked. The purported +220% increase corresponds to a multiplication of our connection speed by 3.2, and since 3.2 is greater than 2.2, we can conclude that the increase by 220% is impossible to obtain.
You lied to me.
And also, it declares the download size to be one million bytes, which is eight million bits. So I went ahead and downloaded the test bitmap just to check (had to use Wayback Machine because the test bitmap is no longer in the servers). What I was shocked to see is that the test bitmap is not actually a million bytes, but 251,078 bytes. (Lesson to webmaster: When making your own connection speed test, always make sure you know how large of a file you are downloading!). This means that our connection speed will artificially be approximately quadrupled for the sake of the connection test.
Also, duration measures how many seconds, to the nearest second, it took for the bitmap file to download. This means that if it took 500 milliseconds to download the bitmap, it will just round it up to one second. If it took 1,499 milliseconds to download, it will round it down to one second. Depending on which side of the one second you are on, you either get an artificial reduction or increase of your speed. And also, if it takes less than 500 milliseconds, it just rounds to zero seconds. (Lesson to webmaster: Do not round to the nearest second; you run the risk of dividing by zero if you calculate the Internet speed).
The highest possible finite Internet speed that can be measured using this technique is 8 megabits per second. (corresponding to a realistic speed of approximately 2 megabits per second). The Internet speed that is displayed after should range from 9.6 megabits per second to 17.6 megabits per second.
Surprisingly, running this multiple times shows that the website does not save the "new" speed because of a lack of cookies.
Now we come to a hypothetical question:
What if it really worked and saved our new speed each time? (AKA Exhibit C: The Arms Race Among Routers)
First of all, let's suppose we have a 1bps connection (yes, really slow for the intents of the hypothetical question). Now suppose instead of the website increasing our speed 1.2-2.2 times each run, it increases our speed by a flat 1.7 times (70% increase) [the expected speed increase]. The following formula tells us a relation of our speed (y) to how many times (x) it is run.
Here are some key values:
If we run it 4 times, our connection speed will be 1 byte per second.
If we run it 13 times, our connection speed will be 1 kilobit per second.
If we run it 17 times, our connection speed will be 1 kilobyte per second.
If we run it 19 times, our connection speed will be approximately the same as a ITU V.34.
If we run it 20 times, our connection speed will approximately be the same as a landline and N-ISDN.
If we run it 22 times, our connection speed will approximately be the same as a GPRS.
If we run it 23 times, our connection speed will be approximately the same as an RS-232.
If we run it 30 times, our connection speed will be approximately the same as 10BASE-T.
If we run it 35 times, our connection speed will be approximately the same as 100BASE-TX.
If we run it 39 times, our connection speed will be approximately the same as 1000BASE-T.
If we run it 43 times, our connection speed will be approximately the same as USB SuperSpeed+.
If we run it 62 times, our connection speed will be even faster than the fastest Internet speed in 2020.
So there. If this joke website is real, people will most likely be competing for the fastest Internet speed possible. It will be a new arms race among people.
Exhibit D: Not Future-Proof and Flexible At All
This website was made in 2013 and has not been updated since, which dispels the notion that it is future-proof and flexible, as new forms of Internet surface.
Conclusion:
With those four exhibits, we prove that the website should not do what is intended to do. I highly suggest{joke} contacting the webmaster of the website and telling him or her this. Together, we can take this joke website down!
Addendum (by ChikoritaTheRobloxian, ChikoritaROBLOXHurricane's successor):
I have been informed that at an unknown date after I posted this blog post, the joke website somehow updated itself... perhaps the webmaster read that a user is busting the joke website in Robloxiapedia and took action or its users sent an electronic mail to the webmaster? Anyways, you can "download" more battery now, and you can now also "download" money and pixels... and also they removed the copyright date, which is one way to make the joke even more convincing since Exhibit D is now invalid.