Wireshark Packet Analyzer is a open source packet analyzer. It analyzes network and upper layer protocol information about data that has been captured on a network. This packet analyzer uses the pcap network library to capture packets. What makes Wireshark a great packet analyzer is that it’s easy to install and setup. It provides a user friendly GUI interface and many features with lots of customizable options. Wireshark can run on various platforms including: Linux, Windows MAC and Solaris.Wireshark was called Ethereal until 2006 when the main developer decided to change its name due to trademark issues.
Features
Wireshark has a rich feature set which includes the following:
- Deep inspection of hundreds of protocols, with more being added all the time
- Live capture and offline analysis
- Standard three-pane packet browser
- Multi-platform: Runs on Windows, Linux, OS X, Solaris, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and many others
- Captured network data can be browsed via a GUI, or via the TTY-mode TShark utility
- The most powerful display filters in the industry
- Rich VoIP analysis
- Capture files compressed with gzip can be decompressed on the fly
These are just some of the features of this great network analyzer tool. In conclusion this is the best network packet analyzer I’ve used, its small, easy to install, open source, had a GUI interface and you can get it install in 5 minutes and ready to analyze packets going across your network.
Company: Wireshark
Website: http://www.wireshark.org/
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