How we measure what opens

We request the service home page over HTTPS through the open Globalping probe network. We use probes it assigns to provider networks. Some hosting networks slip in, so every probe shows its network. One lamp on the panel is one such probe. A country usually gets 5 to 8 probes per service.

The control site

Before measuring a country we check a large local site, such as ya.ru for Russia. If it opens on fewer than three quarters of connections, the probes have poor connectivity and the whole run is discarded. Otherwise ordinary bad connectivity would look like a block.

Three kinds of lamp

• Lit: a connection was made and the site answered.
• With a dot: the connection works, but the site refused (codes 401, 403, 406, 429 or a region-unavailable message). A service does this to close access itself or to filter automated requests, and the check cannot tell which.
• Empty: no connection, code 451 or a server error, or a redirect to another domain, such as a provider's block page.

If a probe itself breaks, for example it cannot read an overlong response, we do not count it. A service the check cannot measure does not appear on the panel.

What the check cannot see

• Speed. A page can open while video still crawls.
• Apps. We check the service site, and the app can behave differently.
• Mobile networks and whitelist mode: the probes are not there.
• The service's own answer. A service may not operate in a country: the page opens, but you cannot sign up or watch.

There are few probes, so the result shows a picture rather than an exact percentage. We show the date and time of every run, and the network and city of every probe.