Traffic Inspector

Traffic Inspector is a resourceful application that supplies you with a wide range of network-related statistics, in addition to several features designed for security and Internet access control.

It integrates with Active Directory and has its own proxy server, firewall with customizable rules, accounting for various traffic modes, a remote access function, and reports, among others.

The app needs some prerequisites installed, and it can automatically download and set them up if they don't already exist on the computer. You can choose the setup type between console, which installs only the administration console, and gateway, which contains all components: the main app, admin console, web portal and plugins.

In custom setup mode you can exclude any gateway modules when it comes the web portal, phishing blocker, RAS dialer, anti-spam or antivirus (powered by Kaspersky), or the console. A remote installation can be performed via the Remote Desktop Services.

Once launched, you are greeted by a quick configuration wizard that invites you to choose between gateway and single interface mode. The first mode requires you to have at least network interfaces (one linked to the internal network and the other to the Internet), while the second mode applies to a single network interface connected to the internal network and can be used for traffic accounting and as a a web/SOCKS proxy.

The main application window has a clear-cut structure and shows a different kinds of information. For example, you can find the total amount of sent and received packets for each IP address of the network interfaces, along with the firewall's current status.

It's possible to create and manage IP and URL lists, categories (e.g. phishing), attributes (e.g. antivirus and antispam), together with scripts. When it comes to accounting and billing, you can administer billing plans and shared bills, inspect a user monitor, or put together account templates.

Rules can be defined and executed in regard to the network traffic, firewall, authentication, and TCP redirection. Traffic Inspector also lets you examine services for the web proxy, web proxy chaining rules, email sender, SMTP gateway, web server, and service publishing.

In-depth reports can be generated for Internet usage (traffic by users, hourly and daily traffic, bandwidth consumption) network statistics, current connection, web proxy and filtering, billing, web search, and the antivirus activity.

Moreover, you can maintain the database, run backup and cleanup tasks, schedule jobs, view driver statistics, the IP routing table, DLLs and TCP/UDP sockets, reconfigure network settings, check out details about sessions and administrators, as well as read more about any important events with errors, warnings or notifications.

Data can be copied, printed and exported to file for safekeeping. The utility lets you add or remove snap-ins to the console (e.g. ActiveX control, certificates, component services), customize the viewing mode by hiding any unwanted elements from the main window, or create and organize favorites for easy access.

Surprisingly, Traffic Inspector had minimal impact on computer performance our tests. No error dialogs popped up and the tool didn't hang or crash. Taking into account its generous features, it should meet the requirements of a lot of serious users who want to take over many aspects of their network.