End User Application Performance Tools again

After my post on tools for testing RIA applications, I would like to share the new list of tools I tried for finding performance issues on the web.

Visual Round Trip Analyzer

First set of tools are coming from Microsoft. They are free, easy to install, and to use. VRTA (Visual Round Trip Analyzer) requires Microsoft Network Monitor 3.x to work. In fact VRTA abstracts the use of Netmon so the user does not need to know the details of Netmon but can simply click to start/stop the capture.
VRTA has three primary features

1. A main chart which displays http traffic in 3 dimensions,
2. An All Files view that shows critical measurements for each file loading, and
3. An Analysis report that indicates which file transfers are exceptions to best practice rules.

This article explain the basis for using it.

Fiddler

Fiddler version 2 is a Web Debugging Proxy which logs all HTTP(S) traffic between your computer and the Internet. Fiddler allows you to inspect all HTTP(S) traffic, set breakpoints, and "fiddle" with incoming or outgoing data. Fiddler includes a powerful event-based scripting subsystem, and can be extended using any .NET language.
This tool is beginning to have some numbers of interesting add-ons like watcher (security testing) and Netxpert (to identify common web performance issues)

Firebug

Firebug Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of web development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page. You already know yslow or PageSpeed, but check those two new ones:

• FirebugCodeCoverage is a benchmarking Firebug extension inspired by Selenium IDE for determining the percentage of your code being executed for time duration, known as code coverage. This is typically measured during automated testing to see how well the test cases are able to thoroughly test your code (with higher percentages being your goal).
• SenSEO is a Firebug extension that analyzes a web page and indicates how well it is doing for search engine optimization (SEO). The extension checks for correct use of meta tags, presence of a title, headings, and other relevant criterions for optimal search engine optimization.

AOL Pagetest

You can also use pagetest from AOL