Capture and transmit network packets bypassing the protocol stack.
WinPcap is a filtering program that allows you to capture IP frames in a Windows environment.
It's a library for monitoring the data traffic on network devices, necessary for the operation of many programs and utilities.
Most of the time integrated to applications like Windump or Ethereal, WinPcap does not work in standalone. It is indeed an API and can only be used through other applications.
As a tool to access the low-level network layers of the system, WinPcap allows the applications that integrate it to capture and transmit packets bypassing the stack protocol, and thus to obtain statistics on the network.
By extension, the use of WinPcap allows to monitor the network and to detect possible intrusions, as well as to analyze protocols and traffic.
End users, meanwhile, only need to install this small executable to use any of the programs that use WinPcap.
It's free of charge, which allows use even in commercial applications, good documentation, good performance and platform compatibility for different versions of both Windows, Unix and Linux. The list of programs which are compatible with WinPcap is growing constantly.
Features of WinPcap
- Automation: Automation capabilities with scripting language.
- Capturing: Advanced packet capture and analysis.
- Compatibility: Compatible with other network tools.
- Device Support: Supports a wide range of network devices.
- Drivers: Bundled with NDIS and WAN drivers.
- Filtering: Supports full capture and display filtering.
- Interfaces: Intuitive graphical user interfaces.
- Network Traffic: Comprehensive network traffic analysis.
- Performance: High-performance network traffic monitoring.
- Protocols: Supports all major networking protocols.
- Remote Capture: Ability to capture packets on remote machines.
- Security: Robust security features including encryption.
- Statistics: Comprehensive packet statistics.
- Troubleshooting: Comprehensive troubleshooting capabilities.
Compatibility and License
WinPcap is provided under a freeware license on Windows from network auditing software with no restrictions on usage. Download and installation of this PC software is free and 4.1.3 is the latest version last time we checked.
What version of Windows can WinPcap run on?
WinPcap can be used on a computer running Windows 11 or Windows 10. Previous versions of the OS shouldn't be a problem with Windows 8 and Windows 7 having been tested. It comes in both 32-bit and 64-bit downloads.
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