Alright, let's unpack this. Just went down the rabbit hole trying to figure out how to test proxies speed without wasting my life. Started with some basic setup, used a free tool called 'curl' on my terminal, kept it real simple. Ran tests on 10 residential proxies from a provider I just signed up for. Got numbers like this: average ping time 120ms, download speed ranged from 3.5MBps to 8.2MBps, average around 5.8MBps. Same test on 10 datacenter proxies from another provider gave me these: ping 50ms, download speed all above 20MBps, average 22MBps. Mobile proxies? Man, they were all over the place, ping 200ms to 300ms, download speeds like 1MBps to 4MBps. Basically, my takeaway is that residentials are slow but consistent, datacenter fast but maybe blocked more easily, mobiles super flaky. Now, I know this isn't perfect but it helps me understand which proxies are worth shaving my budget for. Anyone else got a reliable speed test setup or just brute-force it with random tests? Data's attached for the curious.