ShaperProbe

ShaperProbe is a small, yet efficient utility whose main purpose is to check your Internet connection against traffic shaping. It probes the network in a non-intrusive manner in order to identify if your bandwidth is limited by your ISP.

Brief explanation of traffic shaping

Traffic or packet shaping is a technique most commonly adopted by Internet Service Providers in an attempt to impose restrictions for home users, encouraging them to pay extra fees for various services.
The idea behind traffic shaping is to adjust the amount of bandwidth per user based on the importance of traffic, labeling some services as low priority and imposing limits when this is the case.

Identifying shaping attempts

Determining if you’re a victim of traffic shaping is not an easy task if you use traditional methods, but it gets easier with third-party applications such as ShaperProbe. The goal of the program is to conduct an in-depth analysis of the traffic and to spot shapers, which might tamper with the performance of your bandwidth.

A simple, yet powerful application

Despite packing a complex engine, ShaperProbe sports an extremely basic interface where it logs the actions performed over time. All of the queries are carried out without your intervention and with a low footprint on system resources.
Efforts are reduced to pressing a button that initiates the scanner, following which the program conducts a careful analysis of the network, estimating its capacity and detecting if shaping attempts are active. If this is the case, the application displays the shaping rate together with the burst size, which can be copied to the clipboard

The verdict

Simple in appearance, but speedy and efficient at the core, ShaperProbe can shed some light on traffic limitations in just a few minutes without asking for much. It is definitely an asset worth having in your software collection.