A method for Internet performance monitoring and analysis includes, by at least one data collection agent (DCA), a DCA being a computer operating on the Internet and configured with software that is controlled remotely from another location on the Internet, responsive to a request from another location, said request including an indication of a web page, collecting web page object-level data with said at least one DCA; measuring access to web page objects in the web page; and transmitting measured information about the access to the web page back to the location that made the request. The measuring includes one or more of: capturing non-speed based information including errors during download, source of content by IP address, and type of content that an object represents, and parsing and recognizing other objects referenced in a content returned that also need to be retrieved. The measuring utilizes an HTTP protocol to interact with a web server.