Wireshark
For network troubleshooting, protocol development


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.

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
Read/write many different capture file formats: tcpdump (libpcap), Pcap NG, Catapult DCT2000, Cisco Secure IDS iplog, Microsoft Network Monitor, Network General Sniffer® (compressed and uncompressed), Sniffer® Pro, and NetXray®, Network Instruments Observer, NetScreen snoop, Novell LANalyzer, RADCOM WAN/LAN Analyzer, Shomiti/Finisar Surveyor, Tektronix K12xx, Visual Networks Visual UpTime, WildPackets EtherPeek/TokenPeek/AiroPeek, and many others
Capture files compressed with gzip can be decompressed on the fly
Live data can be read from Ethernet, IEEE 802.11, PPP/HDLC, ATM, Bluetooth, USB, Token Ring, Frame Relay, FDDI, and others (depending on your platfrom)
Decryption support for many protocols, including IPsec, ISAKMP, Kerberos, SNMPv3, SSL/TLS, WEP, and WPA/WPA2
Coloring rules can be applied to the packet list for quick, intuitive analysis
Output can be exported to XML, PostScript®, CSV, or plain text

Last Updated 01 September 2010
Win 2000/XP/2003/Vista/7
Mac OSX
Linux
Solaris and others

Spiceworks IT Desktop
Manages up to 250 network devices

You want IT management software that works for you, not software that makes you work. You wish you could have it... without spending a fortune. Your wish is granted.

Introducing the free Spiceworks IT Desktop. Designed, tested and used by 60,000 IT pros in 180 countries. Spiceworks has the everyday IT features you need:
Inventory and report on your company's hardware and software assets automatically.
Monitor and troubleshoot the hardware and software on your network.
Run an IT Help Desk for your company that's easy to use.

It takes less than 5 minutes to get up and running. No agents. No scripts. No manual. No hassles. Just download Spiceworks and go.

And, Spiceworks is really free. No trials. No time or device limits. Simply free. All thanks to sponsorships by top technology vendor.

Win 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP

The Dude
Map and view your entire network

The Dude network monitor is a new application by MikroTik which can dramatically improve the way you manage your network environment.

It will automatically scan all devices within specified subnets, draw and layout a map of your networks, monitor services of your devices and alert you in case some service has problems.

Some of it's features:
The Dude is free of charge!
Auto network discovery and layout
Discovers any type or brand of device
Device, Link monitoring, and notifications
Includes SVG icons for devices, and supports custom icons and backgrounds
Easy installation and usage
Allows you to draw your own maps and add custom devices
Supports SNMP, ICMP, DNS and TCP monitoring for devices that support it Individual Link usage monitoring and graphs
Direct access to remote control tools for device management
Supports remote Dude server and local client
Runs in Linux Wine environment, MacOS Darwine, and Windows
Best price/value ratio compared to other products (free of charge)

Win 2000/XP/Vista

NET Traffic Meter
Monitor bandwidth usage

NET Traffic Meter allows you to monitor the traffic on a selected network or modem interface. The main interface displays a simple traffic graph, but looking closer reveals that it includes many useful features to monitor your volume, down and upload rates as well as general statistics (daily, weekly, monthly).

The program also includes a connection speed stopwatch and an alert feature that enables you to set alerts and be notified when specific upload/download conditions are met.

It also offers a unique audio ticker that play a short notification sound whenever a specified amount has been transferred (e.g a beep for every 1 mb downloaded).

Win NT/2000/XP

Analog
Server log analyzer

The most popular log analyzer in the world. Analog is a powerful server log analyzer that runs on a Windows machine (other OS available from home page).

It provides very fast, efficient and detailed statistics about the usage on your web server.
It tells you which pages are most popular, which countries people are visiting from, which sites they tried to follow broken links from, and all sorts of other useful information.

Analog does not provide a GUI (graphical user interface), please read through the documentation provided to learn how to use it. Once you are familiar with it (fairly easy) it s a snap to use.
Analog is suitable and has been tested with many heavy traffic sites.

Win 98/NT/ME/2000

Free IP Switcher
Switch between preconfigured network settings with a single click

Whenever mobile user moves to different network, has to change particular IP address, gateway address, subnet mask, proxy server and default printer, etc., to particular network environment. In order to do it, he has to remember TCP/IP settings information of every network. Also, he has to reboot the computer to apply it to the system and to access the Internet.

Don't waste your time reconfiguring computer network settings every time you change your location. Free IP Switcher is a perfect solution for you. It switches between preconfigured network settings with a single click and without any reboot. With Free IP Switcher you can automatically change all network settings on your pc: IP address, network masks, default gateway, DNS server, wins server, proxy settings, default printer and more.

Try this program and you will see, how easy and simple your network management can be.

Win 2000/XP/2003

CrossLoop
Share & connect two PCs aross the net

What is CrossLoop?
CrossLoop is a FREE secure screen sharing utility designed for people of all technical skill levels. CrossLoop extends the boundaries of VNC’s traditional screen sharing by enabling non-technical users to get connected from anywhere on the Internet in seconds without changing any firewall or router settings. It only takes a few minutes to setup and no signup is required.

Is CrossLoop Secure?
Security is built into all aspects of CrossLoop. Session data is encrypted at the end-points before being sent using a 128-bit encryption algorithm using a randomly generated 12-digit access code. Explicit permission is required before any screen images are sent to a remote computer. CrossLoop is a secure tool to remotely assist any PC on the plane

Last Updated 21 July 2009
Win 2000/XP/2003/Vista

Servers Alive
Server monitoring tool

Servers Alive is a feature rich network monitor. It can monitor any WinSock service (TCP:FTP, HTTP, POP3, SMTP, IMAP4, DNS,... and UDP:Radius and Quake II etc.), ping a host/machine, check if an NT Service is running (which can be restart by Servers Alive), check if an NT process is running, monitor the available disk space on a remote machine, check for the correct content of a webpage, check a MS SQL server, check an Oracle database and so on.

The program offers a variety of notification options including SMS, email, pager and even ICQ or MSN Messenger notifications.

It comes with an optional built-in web server to serve a status page, ftp upload, escalation schemes and much much more. Servers Alive is one of the most complete server monitoring solutions on the market.
The free version can check up to 10 entries, if you need more than that, paid versions are available. Servers Alive can run as an NT service.

Last Updated 31 December 2008
Win 98/Me/NT/2000/XP

Cain & Abel
Network password recovery tool

Cain and Abel is a password recovery tool that enables network administrators to test network security, or home users to recover a variety of stored network passwords.
The program reports sniffing and recovery of most popular protocols, including FTP, SMTP, POP3, HTTP, mySQL, ICQ, Telnet and others.

It can also recover passwords hidden behind asterisk (***), stored in VNC profiles, SQL Server Enterprise Manager, Remote Desktop connections and wireless connections.

Other features include LSA Secrets Dumper, Protected Storage password revealer, network enumeration, VoIP filtering and more. Probably one of the most complete network password recovery/security tools you can find.
Cain and Abel is intended for network administrators or advanced users.

Last Updated 25 October 2009
Win 98/Me/2000/XP

Net Tools
Large collection of network tools

providing clients with the ability and confidence to meet the challenges of tomorrow's technology.

Keeping pace with the industry trends, we offer professional tools that support the latest standards, protocols, software, and hardware for both wired and wireless networks.

The main goal is the creation of high quality software. Net Tools is a very strong combination of network scanning, security, file, system, and administrator tools useful in diagnosing networks and monitoring your PC and computer's network connections for system administrators.

Next to the essential core tools it includes a lot of extra valuable features. It’s a Swiss Army knife for everyone interested in a set of powerful network tools for everyday use.

This all-in-one toolkit includes also a lot of handy file and system utilities next to the huge amount of network tools. The menus are fully configurable, so in this way you won’t get lost in the extremely large amount of essential tools.

All the additional features will make this application a must have for all system administrators. There are numerous constructive and valuable applications included in Net Tools that can be used for a great amount of purposes.

The latest version of Net Tools is hybrid; it means that it’s capable of working together with applications that are made and designed for Net Tools, so in this way more flexibility and user-friendliness is obtained.

This software has 175+ tools and is a great collection of useful tools for network users.

Win 98/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista

NetSetMan
Easily switch between 6 different, visually structured profiles

laptop or computer every day? Always the same procedure?

On the go: changing...
At home: changing...
In the office: changing...

Then NetSetMan is your solution. It will do the work for you.

NetSetMan is a network settings manager which can easily switch between 6 different, visually structured profiles including:IP Addresses
Gateways (incl. Metric)
DNS Servers
WINS Servers
IPv4 & IPv6!
Computer Name
Workgroup
DNS Domain
Default Printer
Network Drives
NIC Status
SMTP Server
Hosts File Entries
Scripts (BAT, VS, JS, ...)

NetSetMan offers you what have been missing in Windows until now:
A powerful, easy-to-use interface to manage all your network settings at a glance.
Give it a try and you'll never want to be without it again.

All settings and changes are saved automatically in a separate file (settings.ini) so a backup, transfer or upgrade to another version is absolutely no problem.

With only 2 mouse clicks you can activate a saved profile.

Win 2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

CurrPorts
List of all currently opened TCP/UDP ports on your computer

CurrPorts displays the list of all currently opened TCP/IP and UDP ports on your local computer. For each port in the list, information about the process that opened the port is also displayed, including the process name, full path of the process, version information of the process (product name, file description, and so on), the time that the process was created, and the user that created it.

In addition, CurrPorts allows you to close unwanted TCP connections, kill the process that opened the ports, and save the TCP/UDP ports information to HTML file , XML file, or to tab-delimited text file.
CurrPorts also automatically mark with pink color suspicious TCP/UDP ports owned by unidentified applications (Applications without version information and icons)

Win 98/NT/2000/XP

TrendEasy Lite
Monitors performance and availability of web & TCP services

TrendEasy Lite is the FREEware edition of the commercial product TrendEasy Standard. TrendEasy Lite is a windows-based application that monitors the end-to-end performance and availability of web & TCP services. It is optimized for unattended operation under Windows 2000/NT/Me/98/95 platforms.

TrendEasy Lite continuously monitors the end-to-end response times and completion times of web URLs (both static and dynamic pages) and all TCP service ports. Service status and performance data of web and TCP services are presented in easy-to-read reports on the admin console. When error conditions are detected or the thresholds are exceeded, TrendEasy Lite automatically dispatches alert messages on the console.

TrendEasy Lite helps you handle the enormous challenges you face: application rollout, network infrastructure changes, troubleshooting performance problems and managing service levels. By understanding the availability, response time and completion time, you are able to manage the service level for mission critical networked business applications.

Win 98/Me/NT/2000/XP

Avanquest Connection Manager
Quickly switch between different networks

Avanquest Connection Manager helps you get connected to the internet from any location and to configure your PC for settings and preferences for this location with minimum of fuss. Download it for FREE today!

When you connect for the first time from a new location, Avanquest Connection Manager automatically selects the best available network. Connect quickly and easily to public WiFi hotspots in coffee shops or airports, in your hotel while travelling, when at home or in the office.

Avanquest Connection Manager detects your preferences for set up of printers, email, disk drives for each location, and saves them. When you come back to a location, with Avanquest Connection Manager, your default printer, email accounts,

security settings, your web browser, and others, are automatically configured.

Detect, select and securely connect your laptop to different networks and peripherals automaticall.

Win XP/Vista

LogMeIn Hamachi

LogMeIn Hamachi is a VPN service that easily sets up in 10 minutes, and enables secure remote access to your business network, anywhere there's an Internet connection.

It works with your existing firewall, and requires no additional configuration. Hamachi is the first networking application to deliver an unprecedented level of direct peer-to-peer connectivity. It is simple, secure, and cost-effective.

Advantages of LogMeIn Hamachi:
LAN over the Internet - Arrange multiple computers into their own secure network, just as if they were connected by a physical cable.
Files and Network Drives - Access critical files and network drives.
Zero-configuration - Works without having to adjust a firewall or router.
Security - Industry leading encryption and authentication.
Cost Effective - Free for non-commercial use.

Last Updated 11 September 2009
Win 98/ME/2000/XP/Vista

Ping Plotter 1
Enhanced trace route program

PingPlotter is a network troubleshooting and diagnostic tool for Windows. It uses a combination of traceroute, ping, and whois to collect data quickly, and then allows you to continue to collect data over time to give you the information you really need to identify problems (both short-term and long-term trends).

PingPlotter is unique in its ability to collect data (over a period of hours, days or weeks), and then allow you to focus on particular aspects of that data to determine where the problem is happening. PingPlotter graphically shows problems in a way that allows you to shorten the time it takes to pinpoint a problem.

Last Updated 20 January 2010
Win 98/2000/XP/2003/Vista