C# Testing active internet connection. Pinging google.com

Question

C# 2008

I am using this code to test for an internet connection. As my application will have to login to a web server. However, if the user internet connection was to fail or cable pulled out. I will have to notify the user.

 // Ping www.google.com to check if the user has a internet connection.
    public bool PingTest()
    {
        Ping ping = new Ping();

        PingReply pingStatus = ping.Send(IPAddress.Parse("208.69.34.231"));

        if (pingStatus.Status == IPStatus.Success)
        {
            return true;
        }
        else
        {
            return false;
        }
    }

The only way I think I can test for an Internet connection is to ping www.google.com. So I have a used a server timer which I have set for 500 milliseconds and in the lapsed event it will call this ping function. If the ping returns false. Then my app will take appropriate action.

Do you think using google as a way to test an Internet connect is a good thing. If google was to fail, then my app would not function. Is polling 1/2 second to much or too little? Just wondering about my whole idea if it is good or not?

Many thanks,

Answer 1

Why ping Google? The only server you really care about is the web server you want to talk to, right? So ping that instead. That way, you can notify the user if anything is wrong between them and the web server - that's the only thing that matters.

If something goes wrong with the internet which means that the user can only do anything within their own town, you may not be able to reach Google but if you can still reach the web server you're interested in, why report a problem? On the other hand, if the web server goes down but Google doesn't, why would you not want to tell the user that there's a problem?

Likewise, why use a ping? Why not send an HTTP request to a known URL on the web server? After all, if the network is up but the web server process itself is down, surely that's just as bad as the user's network going down.

EDIT: I hadn't noticed in the question that you were repeating this every half second. That's really not pleasant for anyone. Surely once a minute is often enough, isn't it?