Icon Ping For Mac

We spend most of our lives connected to the Internet via a mobile or desktop device, either using a cable connection, a wireless one or our network operator's mobile data connection.

The problem with this is that when browsing the web or using an app that needs an Internet connection and we get errors, it's very hard to know if our connection has a problem or the issue is with the remote server we're using to perform that particular task.

This is why tools that keep a lookout on your Mac's network connection have been developed, to help you know at all times if the Internet connection errors are due to your Mac's capricious Wi-Fi link.

Icon Ping is a small and low-key macOS tool created to live in the status bar and help you monitor your Mac's Internet connection quality.

The Icon Ping menulet does that by pinging one of Google's DNS servers, i.e. the one having the 8.8.8.8 IP address, and by displaying a colored icon in the menu bar, with a different color for each state of your Internet connection.

A green icon signifies that your connection is working as it should, with no delays, a yellow one will be displayed when the connection's delay goes above 300 milliseconds, and a red one means that you're no longer connected to the Internet and that you should switch connections.

Moreover, besides the icon displayed in the menu bar and an option to set the app to start automatically on login, Icon Ping has no other options or user interface.

Nevertheless, Icon Ping would benefit from a couple of extra features, namely the possibility to change the IP address that it pings and the option to switch between network devices when one of them fails.

Also, if you like to keep an eye out on what happens with your Mac by monitoring the system log, you will most definitely hate the fact that Icon Ping is highly verbose and will add each ping it sends and each pong it receives to the system.log file. An option to make it a little less verbose should make it a lot friendlier to power users.

All things considered, despite its minimalism and simplicity, Icon Ping is a welcome addition to the Applications folder for users who use the Internet via weak or unpredictable network connections.