Ping Tester

Testing the availability of your domain or a particular IP address can be easily done using the 'ping' command in the Windows console. However, if you are one of the users who doesn't fancy the command prompt that much, you can use one of the many ping tools out there. Ping Tester is one of the alternatives you have.

Designed as a simple desktop gadget, this application enables you to run ping commands to check a server or a domain without having to use the console. In other words, it provides a simple GUI for the standard ping command and a straightforward way to check whether a server is down or not.

To use it, you just have to enter the name of the domain you want to verify or its IP address if you know it. With a single push of a button, the test is started. If the test is completed successfully, the gadget displays a 'ping passed' message, along with the number of ping requests that have been performed, and their results.

Although not very rich in the 'Settings' area, Ping Tester does feature a few commands to change the gadget's size and toggle autoscale DPI. It allows you to customize the number of tests the application should perform, change the buffer size, and reduce the time interval between two consecutive ping requests.

You can remove the title or the copyright info of the gadget, if you want to. And if you want to reset all the settings to the way they were before Ping Tester was deployed, you can just use the dedicated option within the gadget.

Ping Tester can send ping requests to any domain or IP address, displaying the success rate of the requests once the test is done. It allows you to set the buffer size and other basic settings. Nevertheless, no additional information is displayed, as it happens when running the command in the console. For instance, it would be good for the gadget to record the response time, the amount of received data, the percentage of lost packets, or the round-trip times. That would make it a viable alternative for network and system administrators.