What’s your first signal when a connection feels busy?

When my connection feels busy, I usually check three things in order: which app is moving data, whether the VPN or proxy exit IP changed, and whether HTTPS response time is unstable across more than one target. Raw bandwidth alone rarely tells the full story.

I built NetPulse around that workflow, but I’m curious how others diagnose it. What is your first signal—per-app traffic, latency, request failures, DNS, Wi-Fi signal, or something else? And which metric has misled you most often?