14 DAY TRIAL // Network tools are not something that I get to see every day. I am talking about new ones, of course, and it's always a pleasure to check such programs, although some of them are still over my head yet, but I can assure you I am working on my network knowledge and I hope to have some ultimate tools here as soon as possible.
Today I found an excellent program that can gather information about the hosts in your network, capture and analyze network packets, show details about your network interface card(s) and more. Its name is LANView, and the first details are coming up right away!
The last version of this program is 2.9, and what I got here is its shareware release. You can use it 21 days for free, and I think that should be enough to decide whether to spend 29.95$ on this program or not. The setup package of this program has 2.4MB in size and is very easy to install, so let's go and check the interface and features now, as usual.
For a long time, I was used to see network tools with boring and gray interfaces, without anything attractive, but it seems time are changing, and the only way to go is up. In our case, LANView is on the bright side - its interface is well organized, simple enough for such a complex program and there's nothing that the producer should be ashamed of here. The elements of the interface that can be removed to get more space available are the toolbar, the status bar and the side bar containing a menu with all the main tools of the program. Apart from these, there's the usual menu bar and the main work area. Let's go on and find out more about what can be done with this program, shall we?
First of all, you can use the LAN Search tool to locate the computers from your network. Using it is very simple, just enter the start and ending address, set the timeout value and then press the Start button from the side bar.
A network tool without monitoring features can't be called a network tool, but LANView is a real one, I can tell you that. The Packet Capture is the first tool that comes to prove that, and its purpose is to analyze data packets that pass through your network adapter and give you details about them, while its companion, Packet Statistics, lets you have an overview of all that, allowing you to get details based on the data transmission protocol for the current capture session.
Next areas handle Network Connections and the details about the Network Interface. When checking the active network connections, you can filter them according to their protocol, local address, port, foreign address, port and other.
The Adapter Traffic zone lets you monitor network transfer speeds and displays them as a graph, but you also have the chance to see the current values inside a table located at the top of the work area.
At last, we have three scanners that can scan ports, ping remote computers and SNMP enabled devices. If you are wondering about this, then find out that SNMP(Simple Network Management) is the standard protocol for managing various network devices, such as servers, routers, switches.
These were the tools located inside the side bar, but it doesn't end here. Inside the Tool menu you can find other useful tools that allow you to perform operations like trace route, map and disconnect network drives and more. These being said, let's move on to the conclusions!
The Good
LANView is a fast, good looking and easy to use network tool with excellent features that can prove useful to a lot of people. You have three weeks to try it, and the well done documentation can help you a lot to uncover its secrets.
The Bad
The confusing part about this program is that the help file says about 15 days of trial and the title bar of the program tells me I have 21 days left...so who lies and who tells the truth?
The Truth
No matter if you're going to use this program 15 days, 15 minutes or a lifetime, LANView is an useful program that was also a pleasure to review, and I am sure you'll like it too, but you don't know the flavor until you smell it...so go ahead and dare to grab your copy!
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
