HowOnline-Python

A Python menu bar app for macOS that shows your internet connection quality at a glance.

What it does

Shows your ping time to google.com in the menu bar, color-coded by quality:

• Green: Good connection (ping <100ms, jitter <20ms, packet loss <1%)
• Amber: Fair connection (ping <200ms, jitter <50ms, packet loss <3%)
• Red: Poor connection or errors

Click the icon for detailed stats including jitter, packet loss, IP address, and gateway.

Why?

This is a Python alternative to HowOnline, which is a native Swift app. This version:

• Works without Xcode
• Adds jitter and packet loss monitoring
• Shows color-coded quality indicators
• Includes a "Run Full Diagnosis" option using mtr

Installation

# Install dependencies
pip install pystray pillow

# Optional: Install mtr for deep diagnosis
brew install mtr

# Run it
python3 howonline.py

Auto-start on login

Create ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.howonline.plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.howonline</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/bin/python3</string>
        <string>/path/to/howonline.py</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Then load it:

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.howonline.plist

Metrics explained

• Ping: Round-trip time to google.com in milliseconds
• Jitter: Variation in ping times (standard deviation). High jitter = unstable for video calls
• Packet Loss: Percentage of packets that don't arrive. Even 1-2% causes audio dropouts

Requirements

• macOS (tested on Sonoma 14.x)
• Python 3.8+
• pystray
• Pillow (PIL)

License

MIT