hi. i’m netrat.
i find out what’s wrong with your internet, and who did it.
i live in your wires. tell me what’s bothering you and i’ll walk the whole line, from your screen to the site and back. half a minute later you get the short version: in words, not megabits.
psst. i’m touchable. go on.
the usual suspects
when the internet misbehaves, somebody on the wire did it. i walk the whole line and come home with a name.
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you
the seat in the far corner. the vpn you forgot was on. the phone quietly on mobile data.
i ask where you sit, and i notice tunnels and mobile data before i start, so nobody else takes the blame.
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the air
fine next to the router. hopeless in the bedroom.
the dead zone hunt: two of your devices, one by the router, one walking. i map the wi-fi room by room.
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the router
everything stalls the second someone starts an upload.
it has one queue, and everybody stands in it. i flood the line and time the wait. with the whole house online at once, i find the bully too.
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the road
slow every evening. gone at 2 am.
that’s your provider’s side. the night watch sits on your line for hours and writes down every drop, with the time. a receipt to send them.
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the site
only that one page crawls.
name it. i open it from the edge of the internet and from your browser at the same moment, and say if it’s them, the road, or you.
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nobody
sometimes the line is simply fine.
then i say so: all clear. and you can stop restarting the router.
options
everything you can ask me for. the words in the boxes are the buttons you’ll find in the chat.
before a run
--quickquick look. i’m in a hurry- about half a minute. the numbers most people come for, and nothing that takes a minute of its own.
--fullthe full sniff- the whole pack goes out, all three rehearsals too: a pretend video call, a pretend match, a pretend 4k movie night. i count the freezes, the rubber-banding and the rebuffering instead of guessing.
--dead-zonewhich room is the dead zone?- two of your devices and a four-letter code. one stays by the router, one walks. they talk straight to each other, no internet involved, and i draw your wi-fi room by room: solid, patchy, or dead zone.
--whole-housetest the whole house- every phone, laptop and tablet scans one code and says where it is. then four acts: everyone pull at once (who gets what), who’s the bully? (which device makes the rest wait), movie night (how many 4k streams the house holds) and the air, every room at once.
--watchwatch my line- leave the page open, for minutes or all night. i tick every two seconds and write down every drop, with its time and its length. at each one i knock on your router: if it answers, the road went dark; if it’s silent, the router did. ends with copy this for my provider.
--nowit’s happening right now- for when it hurts this minute. sixty seconds of close listening: the road or the house, and whether the stutter has a rhythm.
--site=urlis this site slow?- name a page. i open it from the edge of the internet and from your browser at the same moment, and say whether it’s them, the road, or you. ends with copy this for their webmaster.
--codei have a code from another device- join a room check or a house party that someone else started.
after a run
--askcan i game?- one of the questions i answer with your own numbers. the others: why does it lag sometimes? how fast is it, really? am i safe? is the internet itself ok? am i future-proof? was it better last time? what can’t you see? and, for nerds, just give me the raw numbers.
--rechecki fixed it. check just that- changed a setting? i rerun only the part that was wrong.
--cableplugged in. go- plug in a cable and i run again, against your last wi-fi run. the gap between the two is what the wi-fi costs you.
--marathonrun a marathon- one long pull instead of a sprint. is the line as fast at the end as it was in the first three seconds?
--planwhat do you pay for?- tell me the speed on your bill and i’ll say how much of it actually arrives.
--runsmy runs & stats- every run stays in your browser. reopen one, compare two, see your pattern by hour, export them, or have me forget them.
--shareshare this report- a link that carries the whole report inside itself, so it doesn’t pass through my server. or send it straight to your laptop.
what i sniff
a dictionary, so we understand each other.
what i can’t see
browsers keep me out of your router’s settings and your wi-fi radio. so i can’t scan channels or name your gadgets on my own, and i won’t pretend to.
when a closer look would help, i ask first. may i knock on your router? can you paste what your computer knows about the wi-fi? no is a fine answer.
- on a vpn, every number describes the tunnel, not your home line. i say so before i start.
- on mobile data i go easy: about 40 mb instead of 150.
- i measure from this device, in this seat. another room is another story, and that’s what the dead zone hunt is for.
the honest version
what i see, what i keep, what i cost you, and how far to trust me. this is how things stand as of october 2026.
- what i find out about your line
- stays in your browser, along with your past runs and what you tell me. my server doesn’t keep it. clear your browser’s data and i forget you.
- your ip address
- my server sees it, like any server does, and roughly where you are. it lives on cloudflare’s network and keeps ordinary request logs, so i can fix things when they break. if you ask me about a site, its address is in those logs too.
- when devices test together
- the room check and the whole-house test pass small messages between your devices through my server, so they can find each other and compare numbers. it passes them along and keeps none of them.
- the sites i knock on
- to time the road, your browser visits well-known sites and public services: google, youtube, wikipedia, apple, github, netflix, cloudflare and amazon’s cloud regions, plus a few public speed-test servers if you ask for a second opinion, and any site you ask me to check. each sees an ordinary visit from you, like any website would. none of them hears your results.
- a report you share
- the numbers ride inside the link itself, along with your city and your provider’s name. my server doesn’t see them. whoever you send the link to does.
- trackers, ads, analytics, accounts
- none today. and it costs nothing.
- your data plan
- a full run moves about 150 mb, or about 40 on mobile data. the extras move more: the marathon, the second opinion, the whole-house test. on a metered plan, that counts.
- how far to trust me
- what i tell you is my best reading of one moment, on one device. it’s an estimate, not a guarantee, and my fixes are suggestions: your router, your call. i’m free, still in beta, and offered as i am.
any line above may change one day, as i grow. if one does, this page changes first, and says when.
asked often
is it the wi-fi, or is it the internet?
the question i was born for. with your permission i find your router and time that hop on its own, apart from the road outside, so i can say which one is dragging.
why does my browser ask about my home network?
that’s me asking to knock on your router. it’s how i time the hop inside your house, and count who answers at home. it all stays in your browser. say no and everything else still works; i’ll just know less about your wi-fi.
it says all clear, but it still feels slow.
then it’s probably one room, one site, or one hour. the dead zone hunt checks the room, “is this site slow?” checks the site, and “watch my line” catches the hour.
my provider says everything’s fine.
leave “watch my line” running overnight. every drop gets written down with its time and length, and whether your router or their line went quiet. then tap “copy this for my provider”.
can you fix it for me?
i can’t reach into your router, and i wouldn’t. but every finding comes with a fix in plain steps, and when you’ve done it there’s “i fixed it. check just that”.
why does my number change from run to run?
the road outside is shared with your whole street. evenings are the busiest, so the numbers dip; late at night they flatter you. after three runs i can show you your pattern by hour.