When we talk about having a good Internet connection, it is not only the download and upload speeds that influence. Another very important aspect must also be borne in mind, such as latency. In this case, the lower it is, the better. It is essential for certain tasks on the network and we must check that it is correct, that there are no problems in this regard. We have different ways to find out. In this article we are going to explain how to control ping in Windows 10 easily from the taskbar.
Latency or ping, something fundamental in a connection
As we say, the latency or ping that our connection has is very important to carry out certain tasks on the Internet or use some applications. For example, to make a video call we need it to be as small as possible. It is also for playing online, for example.
The ping we can say is the time measured in milliseconds that it takes to get a request that we send to a server. The longer that time, the more problems we will have. Let’s say we are making a video call with another person. If the latency is very high, cuts would occur, the image and sound would take longer than necessary and that would cause communication problems. The same when playing with other users, since the actions we carry out would take time to arrive.
All this makes it interesting to frequently check the ping of our connection. In the event that we connect via Wi-Fi, the connection is not stable, there may be very significant fluctuations that cause problems when browsing the net and when using certain tools.
PingoMeter, the application to measure latency in Windows
PingoMeter is an interesting application that we can install in Windows to measure the ping of our connection. It is completely free and also open source. Its operation is very simple and allows us to know at all times what the latency is from the operating system’s taskbar, next to the clock.
The first thing we have to do to start using PingoMeter is to download the application . We can do it from GitHub , where we also have the code available.
When we have download the application we just have to run it. It is portable, so we will not have to install it on the system. As soon as we run it, the icon will appear on the Windows taskbar.
We will see that simply hovering over the mouse pointer will show us the ping that our connection has at that exact moment. But there is also something interesting, and that is that it shows us a small color graphic inside that icon. There are three levels: green, yellow or red.
If we see that the graph it shows us is green, it means that the latency is good, that we have no problems with our connection in that sense. If we see that there is a yellow graph or that it alternates between green and yellow, it means that the ping is regular and that we can optimize it. Finally, if the color is red, it means that we have bad latency, that we are going to have problems with the connection to carry out certain tasks.
These colors can be modified. Also the background color of the icon. By default it comes in brown, but we can put it, for example, white. To do this we have to click on the icon, we enter Setting and there we find all the available options.
In the basic configuration we can modify some aspects such as the time that elapses to request the ping, the colors or the maximum interval. If we enter the Advanced section we can find some more options, such as the IP address to which we ping (by default the Google DNS comes), as well as configure an alert when, for example, the connection is lost.
As we can see, PingoMeter is a very simple application for Windows with which we can control the latency of the connection. It is up to the user to configure the different values to receive alerts when a certain ping is exceeded, for example. Also more visual aspects as we have seen the color issue.
In short, it is an interesting tool for those who want to have control at all times of the ping of the connection from Windows 10. For example, for those who usually play on the Internet or make video calls and do not want to have problems with cuts.
