Bug 84789 – Web Inspector: Set artificial bandwidth cap

• Status: RESOLVED
• Resolution: WONTFIX
• Component: Web Inspector (Deprecated)

[BrianMB]

This request is aimed at facilitating low-bandwidth rough testing in high-bandwidth environments.

Summary:
Inspector user specifies download and upload throughput caps that the UA will simulate.

Proposed Solutions:
* Pulldowns on the Network tab, containing download and upload Mbps speeds, defaulting to no cap.

* A third pulldown that automatically adjusts settings for existing technologies.  Examples: LTE, GPRS, 56k.  There may exist reliable ways to collect the throughput data for these in an automated fashion (aggregate from Chrome for Android dev builds?).

* Network profile reports note the setting that was chosen during recording.

* While a profile is recording, it should probably not be possible to alter the cap settings (i.e. pulldowns disabled).

[Alexander Pavlov (apavlov)]

This feature is not worth implementing inside browsers. Since each browser has its own network stack exposed to the WebKit only through its API, the corresponding functionality will need to be implemented in each browser (think Chromium and Safari) and for each supported OS separately.

That said, a number of bandwidth-capping solutions exist for different OSes:
- tc on Linux (see http://www.iplocation.net/tools/traffic-control.php for an automation script);
- ipfw on MacOS X (see http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20080119112509736 for the usage);
- Traffic Shaper XP on Windows (http://bandwidthcontroller.com/trafficShaperXp.html).