About DeskTest.net

Front-desk computers break in boring, repeating ways: a check scanner stops talking to the browser, a signature pad service is not running, a printer driver gets replaced by Windows Update. We built DeskTest.net because the fastest way to answer "is this thing actually working?" should be a single web page, not a 40-minute support call. Every page here exists to answer one question with a clear pass or fail.

What this is

DeskTest.net is a diagnostic suite for the front-line workstation: the reception desk, the branch counter, the clinic check-in, the help-desk bench - anywhere staff depend on peripherals and line-of-business web apps to get through the day. It covers the hardware and services those machines actually run on: check and document scanners, signature pads, receipt and label printers, cameras and microphones, PDF and browser stacks, and the vendor web apps front-line teams sign into.

Each tool answers exactly one question: does this work right now? The pages run entirely in the browser against your local drivers and services. There is no backend to send data to. You can hit "View source" in your browser and read every line that runs.

The three rules

Every page on this site follows the same three rules. They are written down so the project does not drift later.

One page, one question. A diagnostic that asks the user to think is a diagnostic that fails. Every tool is built to give a clear pass or fail in under a minute, with one obvious button to press. No menus, no settings panels, no choices to make before you can run the test.

Nothing leaves your computer. Every check runs locally in the browser tab against the drivers and services on your workstation. Signatures, scanned checks, printer output, customer data: none of it is uploaded anywhere, because there is nowhere for it to go. The pages do not even load Google Fonts or analytics scripts. Open the network tab and watch.

No accounts, no tracking, no monetization-via-data. There is no sign-up, no email gate, no cookie banner, because there are no cookies to consent to. The site does not exist to harvest leads or build a profile of who is having scanner trouble at 9 AM on a Tuesday. If a "sign up to continue" button ever appears on this site, something has gone wrong.

Who builds it

DeskTest.net grew out of running real front-line IT. The tools were built to close actual tickets on production workstations, hardened against the failure modes that only show up in the field, and then released as open source so any team doing this work can run them. It is designed and maintained by Kristian (Tech1k), with the source and issue tracker open to everyone.

Open source is the point, not a footnote: anyone can read it, trust it, run it offline, fork it, or contribute a tool for a stack we have not covered yet.

Why open source

The trust posture of this site is structural. A diagnostic page that promises "your data stays on your machine" is only worth the source code behind it, so the source is on GitHub at tech1k/desktest, where anyone can audit exactly what runs or send a patch.

This is also a deliberate competitive position. Commercial diagnostic tools in this space tend to be built on top of a backend with telemetry, account systems, and an analytics pipeline. Those companies cannot honestly say "no data leaves your computer" without rewriting their entire business model. We can, because there is no backend here to leak from in the first place.

License

The project is licensed under AGPL-3.0-or-later. The full license text lives in the LICENSE file in the repository. AGPL means you can use, modify, and redistribute the code freely, including for commercial purposes, as long as derivative works (including network-hosted ones) are also released under AGPL. For organizations that want to embed parts of these tools inside a proprietary product without the AGPL share-alike obligations, commercial dual-licensing is available. Contact the copyright holder through the GitHub repository to discuss terms.

Contributing and reporting bugs

Bug reports, new-tool suggestions, feature requests, peripheral models that need support, and pull requests are all encouraged. Pick the matching form at github.com/tech1k/desktest/issues - there is a template for reporting a bug, requesting a feature, and suggesting a new tool. For non-trivial code contributions a short Contributor License Agreement is required so the commercial dual-licensing track stays clean. Typo fixes and small documentation changes do not need a CLA.

Tools

The full list of live tools is on the homepage. The current set:

• Full Workstation Checkup - one click runs the browser-safe checks (browser, system, performance, network, web apps, clock) and produces a single plain-language health report to hand to IT.
• Connection Check - is it your Wi-Fi, your ISP, or the service? A layered plain-language verdict in about a minute (reachability, a sustained ping soak, throwaway speed bytes, cloud-app reachability, and a clock check against edge.desktest.net), plus a report you can send your provider.
• Meeting Readiness - a one-click "are you ready for your video call?" check covering camera, mic, speaker, echo, device selection, and call-grade network in one go/no-go, with optional ?mode= framing for interviews, telehealth, streaming, hearing, or contact-center agents.
• Front-Desk Station Check - a guided checklist that walks a front-desk PC through the check scanner, printer, signature pad, card reader, and barcode scanner, then produces one combined station report for IT.
• Phone Check - tests a phone or tablet in the browser with no app to install (touchscreen, motion sensors, cameras, mic and speaker, vibration), with an honest list of what a browser cannot check such as battery health and IMEI.
• Display Check - a guided full-screen grading suite for a monitor, TV, or laptop screen covering dead pixels, backlight bleed, OLED burn-in, response-time ghosting, and gradient banding, plus automatic HDR and wide-gamut capability detection; you look and judge while it guides your eye, records your calls, and produces a report.
• Scanner Test - confirms a FIS WebScan install is running and the connected check scanner can complete a test scan.
• Signature Pad Test - confirms a Topaz SigWeb install can capture a signature from the connected pad.
• PDF Test - confirms PDF viewing, form-filling, and printing work in the current browser, and identifies whether Acrobat or a built-in viewer is handling the file.
• Printer Test - a guided test page that confirms the configured printer prints correctly, including alignment and color or grayscale handling.
• SiteLink Test - a browser readiness check for SiteLink Web Edition that verifies TLS, cookies, popups, and reachability of known SiteLink endpoints.
• Microphone Test - captures audio via getUserMedia, shows a live input-level meter, records and plays back a short sample.
• Recording Quality Check - grades your microphone setup against podcast/audiobook (ACX) targets for peak level, noise floor, and clipping, with plain-language fixes; audio never leaves the tab.
• Webcam Test - confirms camera permission, video frames are flowing, and the preview renders at the expected resolution.
• Camera Quality Check - grades how you actually look on camera, delivered frame rate plus lighting and backlight, rather than just the advertised resolution.
• Speaker Test - plays a 440 Hz tone via the Web Audio API and confirms left and right channels are audible.
• Echo and Latency Test - plays a chirp and listens for it to detect speakerphone echo or feedback and estimate the audio round-trip latency.
• Keyboard Test - a visual keymap that lights up every key on press, detects stuck keys, and verifies modifier combos.
• Keyboard Layout Test - catches a keyboard-layout mismatch that types the wrong characters, such as a quote key producing @ or Y and Z swapped (US vs UK vs AZERTY).
• Display Test - color test patterns, a dead-pixel scan, and resolution detection for the active monitor.
• Refresh Rate Test - measures the monitor's actual refresh rate to catch a 144Hz panel that Windows quietly defaulted to 60Hz.
• Accessibility and Zoom Check - checks whether the accessibility, zoom, and contrast settings a user turned on are actually reaching the browser, and how to fix them.
• Browser Test - reports the browser version, security context, storage availability, and modern Web API support.
• Cache and Update Test - the "a hard refresh fixes it" inspector for registered service workers and their state, cache storage, and how to force an update.
• Browser and OS Currency Check - flags an out-of-date or end-of-life browser or Windows build that has become a security liability, with the exact version on Chrome and Edge and a user-agent fallback elsewhere.
• Security Key Test - tests a FIDO2 security key (like a YubiKey) or a built-in platform authenticator (Windows Hello or Touch ID) with a throwaway credential; nothing is registered, stored, or sent.
• System Info - reports what the browser can see about the machine: CPU threads, memory, GPU, display, OS, network, and storage.
• Font Presence Check - confirms the fonts a vendor app or check-printer needs, including MICR and barcode fonts, are actually installed.
• Web App Readiness Test - checks the browser configuration (popups, cookies, notifications, clipboard) that blocks vendor web apps even on a modern browser.
• Notification Test - confirms desktop and browser notifications actually work by requesting permission and firing a real test notification, catching browser-blocked and OS Focus Assist or Do Not Disturb.
• Clipboard Test - confirms copy, paste, and image-paste work, a common failure point in RDP, Citrix, and locked-down browsers; pasted content never leaves the tab.
• Performance Test - a quick browser-level "is this PC slow?" read: CPU, rendering, memory, and main-thread responsiveness.
• Screen Share Test - confirms the machine can share its screen in a video call (Teams, Zoom, Meet) via the Screen Capture API.
• Kiosk Readiness Check - a pre-deployment go/no-go for a self-serve kiosk, confirming the machine stays awake, holds fullscreen, and locks down (full lockdown on Chrome and Edge, degrading honestly elsewhere).
• Barcode Scanner Test - captures a USB barcode/QR scanner's keystroke burst, validates the symbology and check digit, and confirms Enter-termination, with an optional on-device camera scan.
• Card Reader Test - confirms a USB magnetic-stripe card reader works; the card number is masked, nothing is stored, and nothing leaves the tab.
• NFC Tag Test - tap an NFC tag (a review, menu, or product tag) to confirm it reads and see what is on it, entirely on the device (Web NFC on Android Chrome; says "open on Android" on desktop and iOS).
• Touchscreen Test - confirms a touchscreen registers touches across the whole active area and supports multi-touch, using Pointer Events.
• Pen and Stylus Test - tests a pen or stylus (Wacom tablet, Surface Pen, Apple Pencil) for pressure, tilt, hover, eraser, and barrel button, using Pointer Events.
• Call Readiness Test - a one-page video-call pre-flight - camera, microphone, speakers, and network latency - before a Teams, Zoom, or Meet call.
• Device Selection Check - confirms a call will use the right microphone, speaker, and camera - not a virtual cam or a device another app is holding - and that the mic is not driven too hot.
• Network Test - probes public CDNs, DNS-over-HTTPS endpoints, and a WebSocket echo to verify egress.
• Speed Test - measures real download and upload throughput in Mbps for this desk, plus which Teams and Zoom video modes the connection will hold up, the bandwidth number the Network Test deliberately does not measure.
• Connection Stability Test - watches a live connection for about 45 seconds to catch flaky Wi-Fi that drops long-running sessions like check scanners, Teams, and RDP.
• USB Device Test - the WebUSB and WebHID device chooser for verifying barcode scanners, payment terminals, and HID peripherals.
• Bluetooth Test - confirms this workstation can pair a Bluetooth (BLE) device so the web apps that need it work, from hardware wallets to IoT and smart-home config portals and some fitness and medical web apps (Web Bluetooth on Chrome and Edge; not supported on Firefox and Safari).
• Serial Peripheral Test - confirms a receipt printer, cash drawer, or pole display is talking on its COM port using Web Serial (Chrome and Edge on desktop).
• Mouse Test - tests every mouse button, the scroll wheel, and pointer movement smoothness; finds stuck buttons and low polling rates.
• Controller Test - tests a game controller or gamepad (buttons, sticks, triggers, D-pad, stick drift, and vibration) via the Gamepad API.
• MIDI Test - tests a MIDI keyboard, pad, or controller by detecting connected devices and showing live note and control input (Web MIDI on Chrome and Edge; not supported on Firefox and Safari).
• WebRTC Test - verifies STUN reachability, ICE candidate gathering, and an end-to-end peer connection for Zoom, Teams, Meet, and Slack Huddles.
• Proxy Test - detects a corporate proxy or TLS inspection between the browser and the internet by comparing what the edge sees to what you sent.
• Clock Test - checks whether the system clock is off enough to break HTTPS, domain logins, and time-based 2FA.
• SaaS Reachability Test - checks whether Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Salesforce, Dropbox, DocuSign, Zoom, and Slack are reachable, and whether an outage is on your network or the vendor's side.
• Email Header Check - inspects a suspicious email's headers for spoofing and phishing entirely in the browser; nothing is uploaded.
• Certificate Check - inspects an X.509 certificate (issuer, validity, SAN, self-signed) entirely in the browser; nothing is uploaded.
• File Hash Check - computes a file's SHA-256 locally to verify a download against a vendor's published hash; nothing is uploaded.

Help

If you are reading this and want practical entry points:

• Getting started: a plain-language overview for front-desk users.
• Deployment guide: for IT admins rolling these tools out to a fleet.
• White-label a link: add ?org= and ?support= so staff get a page branded for your organization whose report routes straight to your help desk.