Personal Network Monitor (PNetMon)

It’s a well-known fact that the Internet is not really the safest virtual space, although it’s the main way to get in touch with others and general info nowadays. As such, you might want to keep an eye on incoming data packets, and Personal Network Monitor is a reliable application you can use in this regard.

The application takes little time to install, but it requires Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable Package to function which, fortunately, is included in the setup package. Your computer also needs to restart so that the monitoring service can properly start and capture data packets.

As far as the visual design is concerned, the application presents its set of features in a classic window frame. The main view enlists all connections in a table with column headers for program, host origin, host URL, as well as host country. These headers can be used as filters and moved across the container bar.

What the application actually does is to monitor incoming and outgoing data packets through your network adapter. More than this, it traces it to the target application and highlights the entry if it’s from a suspicious or even blacklisted domain. Although the view updates in real-time, you can refresh at any moment.

Several filters can be applied. The dedicated menu holds entries to exclude local IPs, to collapse the list, show the number of lookup entries, compact columns, set number of inactive entries, as well as program name filter. Filters can be disabled at the press of a button.

Unfortunately, the application doesn’t alert you whenever suspicious connections are detected, which means you constantly need to keep an eye on the list. On the other hand, it comes with a stealth mode which hides the window frame and makes the list transparent. Controls are brought back in sight when interacting with the tray icon.

Taking everything into consideration, we can state that Personal Network Monitor, or PNetMon, is sure to come in handy if you often have to wonder off in suspicious parts of the Internet or use applications which might request or contact blacklisted domains.