Netping was created with the sole purpose of giving the status of an ADSL internet connection. It will indicate both in the tray, on the desktop (if enabled) and with sound (if enabled) any change of status. You may also log events to a file to keep detailed track of the service your provider is giving you.

Netping transmits an ICMP echo datagram to a remote system (multiple sites in parallel or in sequence). If the remote returns the message, the connection is considered valid. If the remote system does not echo the message, it only means that the remote system did not respond. That is, a lack of a response can be caused by a number of different reasons (you are not connected to the network, the remote may not be connected, the remote may not support echo requests, or it may just be too busy to reply).

So the philosophy is simple: You ping known sites on the internet. If you get an answer, your internet connection must be up. You should pick at least three different sites to make sure you cover downtime for maintenance etc. If all sites are down (no answer received on a ping), your internet connection is assumed down. Before you add a site to ping, please make sure that the site actually responds to a ping message.