I am writing a website and want to test its speed on slower internet connections.
I have the unfortunate first world problem of downloading at 100mbps, how can I throttle my own computer's internet connection to 56kbps or 5mbps to give myself an idea of how my users might be downloading my website?
EDIT: I am using Windows primarily but I also have an laptop running on Ubuntu if the answer is Linux-oriented.
If you are using google chrome or chrome based browser right click anywhere in the page and click inspect element or (Control + Shift + I) if on windows, the click the "network" tab, change the no throttling option to the speed of your choice...
Am sure you will be fine as long as the DevTools are open. you will find similar option on other browsers.
Can you not just get a router/switch that supports QoS and filter it that way? I know if you use the Tomato firmware on the WRT54G they have quite a few options that may work for you. http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/tutorials/article.php/3800416/How-to-Manage-Traffic-Using-Tomato-and-QoS.htm
Edit: Matter of fact, I had a friend of mine that upgraded his internet connection but didn't upgrade his router config and it appeared to him that he never got increased. So you should be able to do something similar.
On Linux Systems with IP table you could try using the Kernel traffic shaping options.
Here as a good article: IPTABLES - Limit rate of a specific incoming IP
Although you could try to do this via network simulation or downgrading your bandwidth, I recommend doing it on the client instead, using your webpage editor Dreamweaver, or some shell scripting.
To do that in Dreamweaver
Select Edit > Preferences (Windows) or Dreamweaver > Preferences (Macintosh). Select Status Bar from the Category list on the left. Select a connection speed with which to calculate download time and click OK.
To do it via math, calculate total page sizes and embedded images, script, etc then compare across different speeds.
Understanding the user's perception of "fast" When thinking about speed of internet connections, remember that speed (latency) and bandwidth (breadth of the pipe) are two different things completely. You should consider both in building webpages, including browser render times.
use the WANEM (http://wanem.sourceforge.net/) to simulate an acutal network. The .iso works just fine. For limited tests the .iso + VirtualBox works just fine. Is free.
