Wireless Network Software

Is Free Better For Monitoring Wireless Networks?

Wireless LANs are very popular currently and because of the increased availability and the ease of access to wifi networks, correspondingly the number of online devices that can access wi fi has increased dramatically in recent years. The latest generation of smartphones, game consoles, tablet laptops and PDAs all have the ability to connect to wireless networks.

With the increase of devices that connect to wireless networks there is an increased need for software to monitor and secure all those wireless networks and there are quite a few versions of free wireless network monitoring software.

Many of the freeware and shareware versions of network monitoring tools are designed to tell the administrator about excessive bandwidth usage and send alerts about unauthorized network access. Even though most wifi networks are protected by WEP encryption there are several versions of software like WEPCracker and Airsnort, which are designed to bypass WEP encryption.

Alternatives are WPA or WPA2 encryption which provide a higher level of security and with free wireless network monitoring software you can further secure your network.

Setting up networks and wireless networks was once something that was limited to IT professionals, but due to the increase in broadband penetration worldwide, the amount of home users has increased exponentially. Many home users have more than one computer and set up ad hoc networks. Because anyone with a device that can access a wi fi network has the potential to access any of these home networks, there is an ever increasing need for security.

A good wifi manager can centralize control over your wireless network and allow you to configure all your devices over a single template. It should also be able to detect wireless attacks or rogue access to your network and remove unauthorized users.

Most versions of this type of software are compatible with a wide variety of access point vendors. The good news is that because of the increased need for network monitoring and security software, there are a lot of freeware and shareware versions online.

A quick search on Yahoo, Google or Bing and you should be able to find well over a dozen products and reviews for them. Most of them are very easy to install and use and require very little networking experience to use properly.