While Windows 10 comes with a native internet bandwidth manager, it doesn’t come with an internet speed tracker. It means, there is no way to check how much internet your system is using in real-time. That’s where internet speed meter tools can help you. These tools can show you the current internet upload and download speed on your Windows machine. This information is quite handy. It can help you figure out if and when your machine is using more than expected internet bandwidth. Internet speed tracking can also help you track connection problems in your network. So, in this article, we are going to help you monitor real-time internet speed by showing an internet speed meter on Taskbar in your Windows machine.
Since Windows doesn’t support internet speed tracking, we will be using a third-party app to do that. There are both free and paid software available on the market that do this. We tested several internet speed meter tools for Windows and the best one that we found and recommend is the DU Meter. You can download the software by clicking here. It’s free to download and use for a trial period of 30 days after that you will have to purchase a license. Its regular price is around $30 but you can usually get it for a discount at around $10.
First, double click on the installer file to install the app. Once installed, it will open as shown in the picture attached below. Click on the “Next” button to proceed.
Once the setup process is done, you will see a popup that will ask you to enable DU Meter toolbar on Taskbar. Click on “Yes” to allow it.
If you don’t like that, you can click on the “close” button which closes the floating window. You can open it again by opening the “System Tray” and clicking on the DU Meter app icon.
As mentioned above, DU Meter works with Windows Vista and above. If you have a PC that’s running Windows XP or Windows Server 3, you should check out NetSpeedMonitor (free). Apart from the above-mentioned version of Windows, the app also works with Windows Vista and Windows 7. And since this is a free tool it’s a great alternative to DU Meter.
If you want to use NetSpeedMonitor on Windows 8 and Windows 10 devices, you can do that. While it won’t give as in-depth information as DU Meter, it is free to use which is a big plus. So, here is how you can enable NetSpeedMonitor on Windows 8 and Windows 10 machines to display internet speed on Taskbar for free.
Here, select “Compatibility” and enable the checkbox next to “Run this program in compatibility mode for” option (marked in the picture below). Click on “Apply” and then install this app like any other regular Windows app.
Finally, click on the “Save” button.
Now, it should start tracking your internet speed. It started working for me as you can see in the picture below.
