Version 1.3.0 (120)

Grades for what you actually do

A speed test number doesn't tell you whether your next video call will freeze. After every scan, Network Weather now grades your internet for four everyday things: email and browsing, video calls, gaming, and streaming. Each grade says in one line what decided it.

You also get a grade for how your internet copes when it's busy: the lag you notice when someone else starts a big download or a video stream. These are the same grades the Mac app gives.

The speed test now measures your full speed. Before, it couldn't report anything above about 157 megabits per second. If you're on a connection that charges by the gigabyte, or you're nearly out of data, the app skips the speed test and tells you why instead of using up your allowance.

A report you can share

When a scan is done, you can create an online copy of your results. Confirm your email address and you get a link, with a Copy button. Send the link to your internet provider, your IT person, or a friend who's good with this stuff, and they see exactly what you saw.

The link is the key: anyone who has it can open the report, so share it only with people you want to see it. Your reports are listed on the Scan tab, where you can copy, open or delete each one.

Clearer results

• The most important problem comes first. Results lead with the problem itself, for example "Your DNS server is not answering", then up to three more.
• Problems are grouped into Security, Performance, Reliability and Other, with what to fix first at the top. Serious ones, like equipment that no longer gets security updates or Wi-Fi with no password or with security that's decades out of date, can't be dismissed.
• The Status tab agrees with itself. The headline names the weakest point between your PC and the internet ("Your Wi-Fi signal is weak"), and a See why button shows you the details.
• VPNs are recognised, including Cloudflare WARP and Tailscale, and your internet provider keeps its real name instead of the VPN company's.
• Mesh Wi-Fi. The app can tell when the wireless link between your mesh units is struggling, a common reason a strong Wi-Fi signal still feels slow. Normal hand-offs between mesh units no longer set off an alert.

Fewer wrong answers

• Wi-Fi and a cable at once. If your laptop was on Wi-Fi and plugged in, or on a VPN, the app could watch the wrong router. It now follows the same route Windows uses.
• No impossible speeds. A network adapter with nothing plugged in no longer shows a made-up speed.
• A slower cable isn't a broken cable. A wired connection slower than the fastest speed used to be reported as a probably damaged cable. Lots of good equipment runs slower. The app now just tells you the speed.
• Hotel and airport Wi-Fi. When a network wants you to sign in, the app now says so, and the button opens the sign-in page.
• Router sign-in works. Signing in to your router no longer spins forever. It can be cancelled, gives up after 45 seconds, and tells you whether the password was wrong or the router didn't answer.
• Your feedback reaches us. In the previous version, feedback sent from the app never arrived, even though the app said thank you. Now it does. If you wrote to us and heard nothing, that's why, and we're sorry.
• UniFi owners: fewer false alarms, and each suggestion says where to find the setting in UniFi Network.

Privacy

• Router passwords stay on this PC. They're saved encrypted for your Windows account and sent only to your router, never anywhere else, and never written to the app's log.
• What the app sends us is measurements of your own connection. It never includes the names of other Wi-Fi networks you've used or the list of devices on your network.

Also new

• Launch at login shows up in Windows' own list of startup apps, so you can turn it on or off there.
• Check for Updates tells you when it couldn't reach the update server, and an update offer reaches the app even while it's sitting in the system tray.
• Easier to read, with higher-contrast text in light and dark mode, and the window remembers its size and position.