Non-Flash Player Speed Test

Install Flash Player. You can disable it after doing the checking. The latest version has all the necessary controls. It's a viable tool.

As an alternative to installing Flash - you can install Google Chrome which includes its own Flash plugin. It does not install Flash on the computer as a whole.

I've used a variety of speedtest websites over the years with no ill affects on any machines.

~Lyssa

This one is HTML5, non-Flash. I do find however that it appears to report somewhat higher speeds than any of the Flash based speed tests, so I don't necessarily trust it completely.

http://speedof.me/

Chrome has been my primary browser for several years now. I switched initially because it was much faster with loading pages.

Safari has more or less caught up now, though, so that's no longer a factor.

Chrome automatically updates itself (and its Flash plugin) on a regular basis so you don't have to worry about seeking out updates.

Some additional food for thought:

Very nearly all malware and other junk that can infect your Mac won't just walk into place like it can on a PC. You have to deliberately download and/or install them. If a virus or whatever for a PC gets onto your Mac, all it can do is take up space - it can't run or do any harm.

Take care when installing programs - make sure you know they're legitimate and ask here if you're not certain - and you should have nothing to worry about.

~Lyssa

I normally use the ClickToFlash Safari extension. That allows selectively using it. I've not use Chrome.

crash-davis wrote:

Thanks WZZZ. Appreciate it. Have you ever heard of any security issues from speed test websites?

Haven't heard of any, but I use Adblock Plus in Firefox, which keeps out any and all advertising (if you don't check the "Allow some non-intrusive" advertising box). Because I have ABP I've never seen any of the very insidious ads from MacKeeper, which I'm told appear on speedtest.net. I consider MK to almost fall in the category of malware. Besides that, advertising in general has been known to be a vector for delivering malware.

I have Chrome installed, but only use it rarely as a backup. Anything Google, including Chrome, will, from all accounts, probably try to grab as much of your browsing data as possible. If you care about privacy, then I wouldn't recommend using Chrome.

If you do insist on using Chrome, there is a version of ABP there.

It's pretty simple to make sure you have only a legitimate Flash. Just get it from either of these two sites, nowhere else.

http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/distribution3.html

And probably the most important thing is to be sure to have the latest, patched Flash installed. Even the legitimate versions are constantly being exploited for delivery of malware.

And, since you are concerned about browser security, I would highly recommend Firefox with the NoScript Add-on. It takes a bit of a learning curve and may sometimes be very frustrating, but it affords many kinds of protection against Javascript browser exploits (not the same as Java, which should be disabled completely.)

http://noscript.net/features

http://forums.informaction.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=268

A non-Flash speed test may be helpful. The latest Flash and Safari as well as Chrome versions breaks the Speedtest.net web site, making it impossible to fill out their ISP survey at the end, due to some HTML page control overlapping the Flash speed test control that contains the survey, because the controls inside the Flash object are not clickable.