Simulating slow connections for Flash apps
I’ve always wanted to be able to simulate a slow connection on my local dev machine to test Flash apps that load external media and data files. Tonight, I finally spent some time looking for a solution and found this great Apache module: mod_bandwidth. This module is the perfect solution to my problem.
The following settings are ideal for testing Flash loaders for external images.
LoadModule bw_module modules/bw_mod-2.0.53.dll
BandWidthModule On
BandWidth all 25600
BandWidthPacket 1024Note: The above settings are for a Windows machine and the module is for Apache 2.
Update
Turns out this is a much better solution. See Richard Leggett’s comment.
May 12th, 2005 at 11:15 pm
Charles is also a good bandwidth throttler (for visiting internal and external sites), and will force no-caching of SWFs:
http://www.xk72.com/charles/throttle.html
Alternatively just sign up for NTL broadband and you can be sure to get 32kbps you’re looking for.
May 12th, 2005 at 11:16 pm
Just noticed your in Leeds too
May 12th, 2005 at 11:47 pm
Richard: Thanks for the tip!. I’ve just tested Charles and it definitely beats my Apache module. The problem with mod_bandwidth is that it doesn’t provide a continuous stream of data; the mininum packet size is 1k so the data loads in big chunks and you don’t get nice smooth loading animations. Charles handles this perfectly.
May 13th, 2005 at 8:45 am
If you use CF/JRun, then there’s a utility called sniffer.exe in jrun4\bin. It’s actually the TCPMonitor application from Apache Axis webservices toolkit.
You can set up a traffic throttling http proxy with it. Just run sniffer.exe, set the listening port, select Proxy and Simulate Slow Connection. Now configure you browser’s proxy settings to use localhost:chosenport.
Try using different delay and pause settings to get different speeds.
May 18th, 2005 at 2:40 am
There is also Sloppy, which doesn’t do as much as Charles, but will throttle your connection without nag screens.
http://www.dallaway.com/sloppy/
Charles looks pretty awesome though.