NetChecker

Internet connectivity issues are generally reported promptly by Windows but sometimes you need to find out where the problems lie and that’s when special tools come in handy.

NetChecker is a nifty utility that takes advantage of the tools already available in the operating system to help track down the trouble preventing the connectivity to the Internet.

Getting the product on the system is just a matter of following the instructions on the screen and the operation completes in no time.

The interface is console-based but this does not make it less friendly than a graphical one because the developer included clear instructions about the usage of the program and no complicated commands have to be entered.

NetChecker relies on tools built into Windows and provides a more friendly approach. It can check if currently there is an Internet connection and then run a trace of the connection, which shows the routers it runs through and measures the transit delays of the packets.

Determining the connection’s health status ends with calculating the statistics. This means that apart from the hop count it also provides details about the packets’ transition to the destination.

This includes loss percentage, round-trip time and the time required to retrieve data from the destination server.

At the end of the statistics there are instructions about what can be done if packet loss is recorded at network card or router level, which are the first two hops.

NetChecker is a friendlier alternative than typing commands in Windows console. It provides clear instructions on its usage and on what can be done to fix the problem.