Wireshark for Windows 10/11/ is the best network packet analyzer tool that you can free download in the latest version! It is open-source; doesn’t cost anything and has every feature a network penetration tester wants. You can call Wireshark (Ethereal) the swiss army knife of network engineers and security researchers. You can monitor all the activity and packets of your network.
It has become the gold standard of network scanning tools and is used by Universities, Colleges, Schools and various Governments. You can see what is going in and out of your local network. You can capture and save data, so it can be viewed later.
What are Network Monitoring, Analysis and Packet Analyzer Tools?
These are software that is used to monitor computer networks. You can have an entire overview of the network and what is being transferred over a specific network using such tools. The purpose of using such tools is mainly to do with performance, availability, and security.
These tools are also used to scan networks for malicious activity. You can get a clear view of how much bandwidth is being consumed by the network. They can also help you find any bottlenecks in your network. They can also be called Packet-sniffers as they can also allow you to see a packet’s data if it is not encrypted or not using HTTPS.
Why you should use Wireshark over any other network scanning tool?
There are many reasons that you should be using Wireshark over any other network sniffer tools! It provides you with a simple graphical user interface. Let’s look in more detail.
- Monitor Network Traffic and find Security Vulnerabilities: This is a tool that can help you with many different problems. It can help you solve network performance issues and harden its security. It is capable of sniffing packets that are going through a network, be it wired or wireless (WiFi).
- Wireshark is ”Free” and ”Open Source”: It does not cost anything to use this tool. Many other tools such as SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor cost a fortune to buy, install and maintain. Wireshark is open source and the community can view its source code for any clarifications and security-related research.
- Monitor network resources: You can see how and when your resources such as ”shared printers” are being used. This can help companies find reasons why their local networks are slow and where they could improve.
- Makes a network administrators life easier: Administrators of big company networks can use this tool to monitor user activity, bandwidth in a simple way without having to spend countless hours.
- Checking connectivity: It can be used to check connections between clients, servers and network switches across a network.
- Creating protocols: Developers can create protocols for their software, troubleshoot networks and add alerting functions when there is something suspicious happening on the network.
Read: (Guide) How to Secure your Home WiFi Network from Hackers.
Network Reporting Wireshark Review
It is the best network monitoring and packet capture software that network admins can use. It can be used to monitor enterprise networks as well as home networks. It can read many packet capture files. Wireshark comes with a built-in powerful export tool. You can generate reports for your networks and export them in CSV, XML (Extensible markup language) and normal plain text as well. Another advantage is that you can also enable macros and automate many different tasks and look out for specific alerts on the networks.
There is also another benefit of Wireshark that it allows you to color the rules and it also offers decryption features. Along with such capabilities, you can also analyze voice-over-internet protocol for any issues. Along with reporting data collecting features are also available for HTTP traffic.
It can give you extensive details about a packet traveling over a network. Network administrators can set Wireshark to only capture data from one PC, switch, sub-networks or wireless access points. The capture files can be compressed using gzip and can be decompressed easily.
Wireshark also comes with the capability to read and write other capture files including Pcap NG, tcpdump, Microsoft Network Monitor, NetScreen Snoop and Cisco Secure IDS logs.
Also read: How to Easily Hack WiFi Passwords (2021 Edition) – New Method using PMKID.
Wireshark is a family
Wireshark University provides training and has free tutorials on how to use Wireshark. Lots of videos and in-depth articles are also available on their blog. Over the past years, there has developed a massive online community that shares helpful tips about this great network monitoring tool. There are courses that you can watch which are instructor-led and are self-paced. Virtual and live classes are also available, and certification can be achieved. I would highly recommend visiting their blog as there are various user guides that are fun to read.
Compatibility and Requirements
- OS: Any Microsoft Windows or Linux/Unix distribution is supported.
- CPU: Any Processor should work from AMD and Intel with at least 1 GHz clock speed.
- RAM: 400 MB of available memory is required.
- Storage: 300 MB of free disk space is required for installation. Please note that you may need more space if you are capturing a lot of network traffic.
- Network adapter: For Ethernet and LAN capturing any built-in Windows supported card will work. To capture traffic over WiFi you will need a card that supports data capturing.
You can perform network simulation using Cisco Packet Tracer which allows you to see packets moving over a network in real-time.
Download Wireshark for Windows 10/11 Free 64-bit (Latest Version)
Wireshark is the all-in-one tool for analyzing any type of network. You can debug networks and get to the heart of the problem much quicker. This page provides you with Wireshark free download for Windows 10/11. You can also monitor networks for any suspicious and malicious traffic. The amount of benefits that it provides you is tremendous. It can also get you a very nice pay rise if you learn all the tricks with Wireshark and how it works.
Final note: Please only capture or watch the traffic on networks you have permission to do such actions on. Always seek permission and always follow the rules and regulations around you.
Recommended download: DBAN (Darik’s Boot and Nuke) Software Free Download.
Technical Details:
- Release date: 2022.
- Authors: Wireshark and hundreds of developers have helped with the development. Visit their about page for details.
- Developer website: Wireshark.org.
- Version: 2.7.0 – newest.
- License: Open-source (GPL).
- Type: Freeware.
- Architecture: 64-bit.
- Installation setup size: 58.0 MB.