CommView
License: Shareware Last Reviewed: 2013-04-30
Version: 6.5.732 – Released: 2013-04-29 Windows: 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, 2008, 7, 8
File Size: 22 MB Both 32- and 64-bit versions
“CommView is a program for monitoring Internet and Local Area Network (LAN) activity capable of capturing and analyzing network packets. It gathers information about data passing through your dial-up connection or Ethernet card and decodes the analyzed data. With CommView you can see the list of network connections and vital IP statistics and examine individual packets. Packets are decoded down to the lowest layer with full analysis of the most widespread protocols. Full access to raw data is also provided. Captured packets can be saved to log files for future analysis. A flexible system of filters makes it possible to drop packets you don’t need or capture only those packets that you wish to capture. This application is designed for Internet users and small and medium-sized networks and can run on any Windows system. It requires an Ethernet or Wireless Ethernet network card supporting the NDIS 3.0 driver standard, or a standard dial-up adapter.”
Anchor Link IP Sniffer
License: Freeware Last Reviewed: 2012-04-15
Version: 1.99.3.1 – Released: 2012-02-21 Windows: NT, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista
File Size: 7.4 MB
“IP Sniffer is a suite of IP Tools built around a packet sniffer. The packet sniffer can work on all Windows versions using either: the new raw socket implementation of Windows2000 (driverless), WinPcap (needs to be installed), a NDIS protocol (needs to be installed, no reboot).
“IP Tools also include: IP trafic monitor, IP statistics, ARP (list and deleter entries, send request), Netbios Names, Route Print, Netstat (shows process attached to a connection, kill attached process, kill tcp entry), Network informations (Params, Adapters, Cards), Spoofing (TCP, UDP, ICMP, ARP), WINS Query, DNS Query (using win32 DNSAPI), DHCP Find, WHOIS, Resolve IP / Hostname, PING (Host and Subnet), TCP Scan (Host and Subnet).”
[ You may prefer to download this this tool here:
Softpedia
Ed. ]
Anchor Link PacketMon
License: Freeware Last Reviewed: 2012-04-15
Version: 1.02 – Released: 2009-05-23 Windows: All
File Size: 398 KB
“AnalogX PacketMon allows you to capture IP packets that pass through your network interface – whether they originated from the machine on which PacketMon is installed, or a completely different machine on your network! Once the packet is received, you can use the built in viewer to examine the header as well as the contents, and you can even export the results into a standard comma-delimited file to importing into your favorite program. As if that’s not enough, PacketMon has a powerful rule system that allows you to narrow down the packets it captures to ensure you get EXACTLY what you’re after, without tons of unrelated information.”
Anchor Link PacketViewer
License: Freeware Last Reviewed: 2013-01-15
Version: 1.3.3577 – Released: 2009-12-28 Windows: 2000, XP, Vista
File Size: 26.7 KB Requires: .NET Framework 2.0
“Easy program to sniff and view IP packets (TCP, UDP, ICMP). PacketViewer allows you to view IP packet messages and IP packet informations in real time. You can easily listen on Windows system ports (E.g., Ports 135, 445, 1026-1028). An IP Converter tool allows you to convert IP Addresses to Host Names. The button Options… opens the PacketViewer options: Protocol Filter, TCP packets Filter, Ports Filter, Resolve IP Addresses (displays host names in real time, but adds some UDP packets), TCP Test, UDP Test, Ping Test.”
Anchor Link Packetyzer
License: GNU GPL – Open Source Last Reviewed: 2012-04-15
Version: 5.0.0 – Released: 2010-05-28 Windows: 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, 7
File Size: 11.3 MB
“Packetyzer provides a Windows user interface for the Ethereal packet capture and dissection library. Ethereal is used by network professionals around the world for troubleshooting, analysis, software and protocol development, and education. Ethereal has all of the standard features expected in a protocol analyzer, and several features not otherwise available.
“We’ve taken advantage of Ethereal’s open source license to add a Windows front end to extend its use. Packetyzer can capture from virtually any network adapter and supports many advanced features. Packetyzer is free and open source, and is licensed under the GPL.”
Anchor Link SmartSniff
License: Freeware Last Reviewed: 2013-03-05
Version: 2.05 – Released: 2013-03-03 Windows: All
File Size: 92 KB Requires: WinPcap
Both 32- and 64-bit versions
“SmartSniff is a network monitoring utility that allows you to capture TCP/IP packets that pass through your network adapter, and view the captured data as sequence of conversations between clients and servers. You can view the TCP/IP conversations in Ascii mode (for text-based protocols, like HTTP, SMTP, POP3 and FTP.) or as hex dump. (for non-text base protocols, like DNS) SmartSniff provides 3 methods for capturing TCP/IP packets : . . . .
Anchor Link Sniffers
Information Only Last Reviewed: 2012-02-15
Author: Matthew Tanase
Updated: 2002-02-26
“What They Are and How to Protect Yourself
Have you ever thought about how your computer talks with others on a network? Would you like to listen to, or ‘sniff’, the conversation? Network engineers, system administrators, security professionals and, unfortunately, crackers have long used a tool that allows them to do exactly that. This nifty utility, known as a sniffer, can be found in the arsenal of every network guru, where it’s likely used everyday for a variety of tasks. This article will offer a brief overview of sniffers, including what they do, how they work, why users need to be aware of them, and what users can do to protect themselves against the illegitimate use of sniffers.”
Anchor Link SocketSniff
License: Freeware Last Reviewed: 2013-01-16
Version: 1.10 – Released: 2013-01-16 Windows: 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, 2008, 7
File Size: 48 KB Portable
“SocketSniff allows you to watch the Windows Sockets (WinSock) activity of the selected process.
“For each created socket, the following information is displayed: socket handle, socket type, local and remote addresses, local and remote ports, total number of send/receive bytes, and more. You can also watch the content of each send or receive call, in Ascii mode or as Hex Dump.”
Anchor Link WebSiteSniffer
License: Freeware Last Reviewed: 2013-04-02
Version: 1.31 – Released: 2013-04-01 Windows: 2000, XP, Vista, 7
File Size: 204 KB Both 32- and 64-bit versions
Portable
“WebSiteSniffer is a packet sniffer tool that captures all Web site files downloaded by your Web browser while browsing the Internet, and stores them on your hard drive under the base folder that you choose. WebSiteSniffer allows you to choose which type of Web site files will be captured: HTML Files, Text Files, XML Files, CSS Files, Video/Audio Files, Images, Scripts, and Flash (.swf) files.
“While capturing the Web site files, the main window of WebSiteSniffer displays general statistics about the downloaded files for every Web site / host name, including the total size of all files (compressed and uncompressed) and total number of files for every file type (HTML, Text, Images, and so on).
“Known Limitations:
• HTTPS).
• When downloading a large file with a fast Internet connection, WebSiteSniffer might lose some of the packets, and thus the captured file will be corrupted.
• If some of the Web site files are taken from the cache of your Web browser, WebSiteSniffer won’t be able to capture them. To ensure that all Web site files are captured by WebSiteSniffer, clear the cache of your Web browser, or use the ‘Start Private Browsing’ option of Firefox.”
Anchor Link WinPcap
License: Freeware – Source available Last Reviewed: 2013-03-11
Version: 4.1.3 – Released: 2013-02-28 Windows: XP, 2003, Vista, 2008, 7, 8
File Size: 893 KB
Both 32-bit and 64-bit supported
“WinPcap is the industry-standard tool for link-layer network access in Windows environments: it allows applications to capture and transmit network packets bypassing the protocol stack, and has additional useful features, including kernel-level packet filtering, a network statistics engine and support for remote packet capture.
“Every version of WinPcap comes with a developer’s pack that includes documentation, libraries and include files needed to immediately start with your own new application. The developer’s pack contains a set of sample programs ready to be compiled both with Visual Studio and Cygnus, and are available as excellent starting points.
“This library also contains the Windows version of the well known libpcap Unix API. WinPcap is completely compatible with libpcap. This means that you can use it to port your existing Unix or Linux tools to Windows. This also means that your Windows applications will be easily portable to Unix.”
Anchor Link Wireshark
License: GNU GPL – Open Source Last Reviewed: 2013-03-07
Version: 1.8.6.48142 – Released: 2013-03-06 Windows: XP, 2003, Vista, 7, 8
File Size: 20.1 MB Portable version available on-site
Both 32- and 64-bit versions
“Wireshark is the world’s foremost network protocol analyzer, and is the de facto (and often de jure) standard across many industries and educational institutions. Wireshark development thrives thanks to the contributions of networking experts across the globe. It is the continuation of a project that started in 1998.
“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
• Networks Visual UpTime, WildPackets EtherPeek/TokenPeek/AiroPeek, and many others
• Capture files compressed with gzip can be decompressed on the fly
• Output can be exported to XML, PostScript, CSV, or plain text
• And much more …”