14 DAY TRIAL // As I always say, in the modern era, information is more than just "important", it can be the most powerful weapon available, if used wisely. When talking about computers, there are a lot of wars raging on this field, and I am going to stop today at the connections informational battle.
When your computer is attacked or tracked by unwanted persons, they will create new connections to it, of course. If you can distinguish "good" and "bad" connections you should also be able to disallow access to the last ones.
But how can one tell if a connection is OK or not? Well, for this you can first track down the owner of a certain IP and if he is not trustworthy, disallow access. You can do this with a lot of different programs just by using a single one.
Today's power pack is called X-NetStat Professional and its latest version, 5.49, is still cooling down after getting out from the Fresh Software forge only yesterday. The purpose of this program? To display information on all your current Internet and network connections in a graphical interface and even more than this.
First, the download and installation should be no problem - 1.7MB setup package and nothing special to do while installing, apart from clicking some "Next" buttons. The program is free to test for 15 days with all features enabled, after which you will have to register it (after the trial period ends, the program ceases to function).
The interface of this program is clean, easy to use and doesn't look old at all. It has a menu bar, a toolbar, a connection table and an info panel.
The connection table is the place where you can view all connections recognized by X-NetStat. You can find out details such as local and remote ports, status, protocol or the process that has opened a certain connection. If you need to do more than just watch, you can use the contextual menu for one of the connections.
In order to disallow a connection, you can kill it, but it can come back later. Extended Kill can kill a connection and then set a rule in order to auto-kill it in the future.
Traceroute and WHOIS functions can help you check the route from your computer to a remote location or find out who stands behind a certain IP address.
When talking about things like remote connections to your computer, is like talking about friends and strangers. People usually give nick names to their close friends, and this is what you can do with your recognized "good" connections. All you have to do is right click the connection and use the "Recognize As..." menu item.
There are also a lot of useful things to do with X-NetStat. Let's list some of them. Network connections can be logged to a file, the connections list can be printed, you can prevent outgoing connections, get one-click access to common DOS network commands or nuke your connections (sounds really funny to hear it, but nuking connections is extremely safe, it won't leave any nuclear radiations; all it does is killing all active connections at the moment of the launch).
X-NetStat Professional is a program that I've been using for a while now and I am extremely satisfied with it. It's small, easy to use, extremely rich in information and a real pleasure to explore all its features.
The Good
Information is everything and X-NetStat Professional is all about network and connections information. It's small, easy to use, has a fair price and can do a lot of things. The user manual is very detailed and interesting.
The Bad
The Sniffer can consume all your CPU time, especially with older processors. Other than that, I couldn't really find anything wrong with this program...
The Truth
X-NetStat Professional is the best network and connections information program for me. Its price is good and the wide range of features available make it a worthy choice for all people who care about what's happening inside their computer and who connects to it. Get ready for the 15 days trial and start saving money for this "best buy"!
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
