How to programmatically check availibilty of internet connection in Android?

Question

I want to check programmatically whether there is an internet connection in Android phone/emulator. So that once I am sure that an internet connection is present then I\'ll

Answer 1

as for the question title , you want to check the internet access ,

so the fastest way and it is efficient at least for now ,

thnx to levit based on his answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/27312494/3818437

If you just want to check for a connection to any network - not caring if internet is available - then most of the answers here (including the accepted), implementing isConnectedOrConnecting() will work well. If you want to know if you have an internet connection (as the question title indicates) please read on Ping for the main name servers

 public boolean isOnline() {

     Runtime runtime = Runtime.getRuntime();
     try {

         Process ipProcess = runtime.exec("/system/bin/ping -c 1 8.8.8.8");
         int     exitValue = ipProcess.waitFor();
         return (exitValue == 0);

     } catch (IOException e)          { e.printStackTrace(); } 
       catch (InterruptedException e) { e.printStackTrace(); }

     return false; }

That's it! Yes that short, yes it is fast, no it does not need to run in background, no you don't need root privileges.

Possible Questions

Is this really fast enough?

Yes, very fast!

Is there really no reliable way to check if internet is available, other than testing something on the internet?

Not as far as I know, but let me know, and I will edit my answer.

Couldn't I just ping my own page, which I want to request anyways?

Sure! You could even check both, if you want to differentiate between "internet connection available" and your own servers beeing reachable

What if the DNS is down?

Google DNS (e.g. 8.8.8.8) is the largest public DNS service in the world. As of 2013 it serves 130 billion requests a day. Let 's just say, your app not responding would probably not be the talk of the day.

Which permissions are required?

Just internet access - what surprise ^^ (Btw have you ever thought about, how some of the methods suggested here could even have a remote glue about the availablility of internet, without this permission?)