How do I test my connection to a given site?

Solution 1:

Since you can download from that certain site, albeit at a reduced speed, your ISP may be engaging in traffic shaping rather than in outright banning of certain sites/ports/protocols. This is a more difficult situation to diagnose, but not an impossible one.

The instrument to do this is Glasnost, a Java based series of tests taking aim exactly at ISPs´ traffic shaping of BitTorrent, EMule, Gnutella, Youtube, and so on. Each test is longish (several minutes), and basically compares the speed of different services between their servers and you: if they detect large discrepancies between service data transfer rates, then they have made it at least likely that your ISP is engaging in traffic shaping.

The test comes from a Max Planck Institute for Software Systems, which, judging from this Web page, is a fully legitimate Institute of the highly prestigious German Max Planck Society. So, while activating Java is always a security risk, you are not risking much from these guys. But pls do remember to de-activate Java as soon as you are done, for your own safety, and especially if you are on Windows.