Colasoft Blog

Gizmo’s Freeware , a non-commercial community website staffed entirely by volunteers, published an article about Colasoft Capsa on Mar.6 2014 which reviewed Colaosft Capsa as the friendliest network traffic monitor ever.

Here’s the review written by Rob.Schifreen.

If you’ve ever wanted to be able to view a log of all the data that passes through your PC’s network connection (either wired or wifi), you may know that this is possible with a network protocol analyzer utility.  Such programs let you find out who your PC’s been talking to, and what was said.  You can view the content of every packet of data that travels to/from your PC and all of the remote computers and websites that you connect to.

By far the best-known of the network protocol analyzer software products is Wireshark.  It’s powerful, free, and does the job.  However, it also has a very steep learning curve and is far from intuitive to use.

Which is why I was so impressed to learn about a product recently called Capsa, which does a similar job but is way more friendly and much easier to understand.Capsa is from Colasoft, and you’ll find it at http://www.colasoft.com/capsa-free/.  Considering the full Enterprise version costs around $1000, the free no-commercial-use version, which offers pretty much all the features you’ll need, is a bargain.

It’s a 20 MB download, malware-free according to VirusTotal, and should work on all recent versions of Windows. So next time you need to know what’s eating up all the network bandwidth on a computer, or precisely what information a certain application is sending out about your PC, you can track it down with Capsa.

See more at Gizmo’s.

Capsa Network Analyzer Free Edition 7.7 Video Review

Today we use the Internet on a regular basis and in order to have a better experience while browsing we need a stable network.Capsa Network Analyzer Free Edition will provide it to you, because it constantly monitors your network, analyzes it and helps you prevent troubleshooting. The only limitation of the program is that you can start one project at a time. If you want more you have to buy the Enterprise version, which costs USD 995 for a one year license and maintenance. If you want to increase the time limit with one more year you have to buy it for additional USD 245. But if you don’t need the app for commercial usage you can use it for free without limitations.

Features

Several working modes
Analyzes networks
Monitors traffic
Shows statistics
Capsa Network Analyzer Free Edition lets you use several modes that are specialized for different tasks. With them you can make a full analysis of your network or you can choose to start theTraffic Monitor. Also, you can make a profile that is aimed at HTTP Analysis, Email Analysis, DNS Analysis, FTP Analysis and IM Analysis.

Interface

The interface of Capsa Network Analyzer Free Edition seems simple at first, but when you start any of the modes you see that it actually has a lot of sides to it. When you double-click on any of the profiles the app offers a lot of setup options that are used for the analysis. If you want to start the monitoring or the analysis you can click on the Start button and you will see that the app has a lot of instruments, which leads to a bit of a complicated interface. But after you spend some time with it you will see that all the monitoring and analysis utilities are easily used and you don’t have to be a specialist in order to use them.

Basic Operations

When you start the Full Analysis option of Capsa Network Analyzer Free Edition it opens a window for you that is comprised of different panes which show the most important functions of the program. With them you can monitor the traffic in bytes, the protocols, the IP conversations and perform many more analyses and monitoring functions. There are a lot of other instruments that you will find useful after you get used to them.

Conclusion

Capsa Network Analyzer Free Edition is a nice application not only because it is free, but also because with it you will be able to monitor all the aspects of your network. It offers a nice visualization for a vast number of utilities, so even though they are a lot you will still be able to use them without any problems.

Pros
Many utilities
Nice visualizations
Completely free version
Cons
None really

Editor review by softplanet.com

Learn more from Colasoft official website.

Reviewed by Michael Black on 13 Feb 2014 (version tested: 7.7.2)

Overview

Anyone working in the IT Industry could benefit from using Capsa Professional, this software is capable of tracking network activity to a very extensive degree. The list of available features goes on and on, with the main feature being detailed packet monitoring, and a tremendous amount of information regarding traffic on your network. Capsa also offers some really helpful guides for new users who aren’t familiar with this type of interface. Using this software can help you track down the root cause of a slow or unstable network, and also assist in fixing the problem.

Installation

You can download and install the 15 day trial of Capsa Professional for free, and it is only compatible with Windows. The trial is also limited in features, but you’ll still get the look and feel of the full program. No bundled software included, just a regular installation and you’re on your way.

Interface

Capsa Professional offers a large, scale-able interface, and is all around pretty easy to navigate once you become acquainted with the software. Most of the tools will open up in a new window, which ensures that your main screen never gets cluttered with different tabs. However, with this much information, it’s pretty much guaranteed to be overwhelming at first — unless you’re a seasoned network professional. In general, Colasoft did a great job organizing the extensive list of features, which is not an easy task.

Interface is a major issue with most suite-style network monitoring software, and it’s very refreshing to see something as well put together as Capsa.

Pros

Along with the aforementioned packet monitoring capabilities, intelligently organized UI, and the fact that it can narrow down network issues to help find the root cause of a problem, there’s plenty more. Capsa Professional can be used to scan all MAC addresses on your network, as well as grab their IPs, names, and information about the manufacturer. You can also monitor a specific network adapter, or multiple, such as your ethernet port, wfii adapter, or both.

The tutorials are fantastic as well, as mentioned above, and there are even specific guides such as “How to monitor Employee Website Visits”.

Cons

The program is stable, offers everything you’ll need in network monitoring, and there’s really nothing I can say that needs work at this point. Obviously the heavy price tag is a bit daunting, but considering this software is really only necessary in a large work environment, it’s nothing to complain about.

Alternatives

Also, Capsa even offers a free version, much more suited towards troubleshooting home network issues.

Conclusion

Troubleshooting network issues can be a major pain for any IT Technician, and I’ve personally been in that situation numerous times. Using Colasoft Capsa Professional will greatly reduce the time you spend trying to find the cause of these problems, and will help you get the issues resolved much quicker.

Requirements: P4 2.8G CPU, 2G RAM, Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher

From: download3k.com

Lee H.Badman, Wirednot, Dec. 28th, 2013

A few weeks back, I was invited by Colasoft to take a look at their Capsa 7 Enterpriseanalyzer. Having a little time off around the holidays, I finally got around to spending a couple of hours with the product. This hardly constitutes an in-depth review, but I can share some of the first impressions this interesting and powerful tool made on me during playtime.

I was vaguely familiar with Colasoft, having looked at some of their rather nifty freebies (like a multi-host ping tool) in the past. Wanting to get oriented before digging in, I popped in on the website to see what the promise of Capsa 7 Enterprise amounts to. Lifted from Colasoft’spages:

Key Features of Capsa Enterprise:

• Real-time packet capture as well as the ability to save data transmitted over local networks, including wired network and wireless network like802.11a/b/g/n;
• Identify and analyze more than 500 network protocols, as well as network applications based on the protocol analysis;
• Identify “Top Talkers” by monitoring network bandwidth and usage by capturing data packets transmitted over the network and providing summary and decoding information about these packets;
• Overview Dashboard allows you to view network statistics at a single glance, allowing for easy interpretation of network utilization data;
• Monitor and save Internet e-mail and instant messaging traffic, helping identify security and confidential data handling violations;
• Diagnose and pinpoint network problems in seconds by detecting and locating suspicious hosts;
• Ability to Map the traffic, IP address, and MAC of each host on the network, allowing for easy identification of each host and the traffic that passes through each;
• Visualize the entire network in an ellipse that shows the connections and traffic between each host.

It’s a pretty ambitious feature set, for a $995 price tag. (“Enterprise” differs from “Professional” in that Professional doesn’t do WLAN.) Capsa is only available for Windows (all versions), and this is a laptop analysis tool rather than a datacenter-racked super-sleuther. Also- WLAN support includes up to 802.11n, but not .11ac yet.

That’s the intro, but how does the product actually perform? I’ll admit to being impressed.

Though I know my way around plenty of CLIs, I’m a UI guy- I hate sucky, confusing, ill-laid out interfaces. Colasoft passes my muster in this regard- Capsa 7 packs a surprising amount of analysis info into a peppy and nicely designed dashboard. Having little Ethernet in my home these days and not wanting to get up off my duff to set up a wired test scenario (it’s the holiday break, after all) I aimed most of my tire-kicking at my home WLAN environment (currently a mix of Aerohive and Meraki). As with any analysis tool, you start by selecting your adapter, and in this case a WLAN channel and one or more SSIDs, and off you go- no AirPcap needed or any sort of special drivers (I tested it with a number of adapters, all did well).

You get variety of analysis profiles to pick from (Full, Traffic Monitoring, Security, HTTP, Email, DNS, FTP, Instant Messaging), and deep views into the gory details of 802.11/802.3 packets as you would with any competing tool. You also get just a nice range of different views that feel AirMagnet-y (or WildPackets-y) at times, but what you don’t get is any of the spectrum type channel plots that MetaGeek gives. Short of that, Capsa 7 is pretty comprehensive.

My “testing” amounted to generating a bunch of nothing-special network traffic both locally and across the Internet, and then drilling into it looking for anyplace I might want to go for analysis that Capsa fell short on. There just wasn’t any.

I am intrigued enough to play further, and my fully-functional eval copy will also get turned loose on my big WLAN when I get back to work to see how it does in the presence of an enterprise-grade 802.1x Wi-FI environment with a ridiculous order of magnitude more clients than I have at home. If there is anything good or bad to add, I’ll come back and amend this post.

Meanwhile, Colasoft does make Capsa 7 available for free 15-day trials.

If you’re in the market for a decent all-in-one wired/wireless analyzer, AND you don’t need 11ac support, AND you run Windows, you might want to have a look at Capsa 7 Enterprise.

http://www.networkcomputing.com/data-networking-management/10-free-network-analysis-tools/240163757?queryText=capsa

The article was written by Ericka Chickowski .She is an award-winning freelance writer, Ericka Chickowski specializes in coverage of information technology and business innovation. She has focused on information security for the better part of a decade and regularly writes about the security industry as a contributor to Dark Reading. Chickowski’s perspectives on business and technology have also appeared in dozens of trade and consumer magazines, includingChannel Insider, Consumers Digest,  Entrepreneur,  InformationWeek, Network Computing and SC Magazine.(Information from http://www.networkcomputing.com)

Ericka Chickowski  recommended 10 free network analysis tools in her article,the first one is Capsa Free.

This is how Ericka Chickowski describes Capsa Free.

“Capsa Free is an network analyzer designed for monitoring, troubleshooting and analysis, Capsa Freefrom Colasoft provides the capability to identify and monitor more than 300 different protocols. Users can record network profiles, create customizable reports and set customizable alarm trigger combinations. Additionally, Capsa offers MSN and Yahoo Messenger monitoring statistics, email monitoring and auto-saving of email content and an easy-to-use TCP timing sequence chart.” (Actually Capsa can  identify and monitor more than 400 different protocols now.)

Thanks Ericka, Thanks all the people who like Capsa.

Capsa Network Anlayzer 7.6 is newly released! You are welcomed to try all the new features and improvements. The free trail is avaliable for download at Colasoft website.

New features and improvements in Capsa network analyzer 7.6:

Unique Analysis Task Scheduler Used to Preset Time for Analysis Projects;
Global Configurations Can Be Exported & Imported;
Display Filters Are Provided for Isolating & Viewing Particular Items;
Report with User-defined Name & Optional Statistic Items is Available;
Logs can be automatically saved in *.csv format.
Capsa can now identify encryption type of AP automatically.
An MAC address column is added to the Log tab.
Settings for analysis profile have been optimized.
Local engine settings are merged into Options on the Menu button.
Capsa can now decode Tunnel IP in IP protocol.
Analysis profiles, such as Traffic Monitor, Protocol Analysis and IM Analysis have been

Read the detailed descriptions about the new features here. For more information, please visit www.colasoft.com.

Although Capsa network analyzer supports more than 160 protocols, there are still circumstances that you need add your private protocol rules. For example, you have a special service using a private TCP port in the network, and you want Capsa to recognize it. Or a protocol uses non-standard port. This document is to show you how to create your own custom protocols and edit built-in protocols as your need.
Create Custom Protocols
If you want to create a private protocol rule, follow the instructions below.
Step 1, run Capsa network analyzer. On the Start Page, click the Menu button (on the top-left corner). Choose Local Engine Settings -> Custom Protocol from the menu.
Step 2, on the Custom Protocol window, you can click the Add… button to create a custom protocol. For example, you are testing a new protocol, which uses TCP port 8080. You can just click Add, and type in protocol name, short name and port number, and choose a color for the protocol on the new dialog box. Then click OK to save the custom protocol.

Note: if the capture is running, you need to go back to the start page. Otherwise the Add button and Edit button will be grayed out.
Edit Protocols
If you use non-standard protocols in your network, for example, DNS isn’t on port 53 (TCP or UDP), or HTTP isn’t on TCP port 80, you should modify the default port number for these two built-in protocols. Or Capsa will recognize them as TCP/UDP Other type. Let’s make an example that HTTP uses TCP port 8080, rather than port 80.
Step 1, open the Custom Protocol window, type in http in the search box.
Step 2, double-click on the HTTP protocol item, and modify its port number to 8080 in the dialog box. Click OK to save.

Now if you start a capture, or replay a packet file, all packets using TCP port 81 will be labeled as HTTP protocol. On the Custom Protocol window, you can create private protocols on TCP/UDP ports, IP protocol type, and Ethernet type. TCP and UDP port numbers are used more often rather than the other two. And also you can use the Import button and Export button to back up your private protocols.

FAQ: Why the Add/Edit/Delete buttons of the Custom Protocol window are grayed out?
You are not allowed to change protocol rules while there is a capture running because the changes could crash the program. If you need to add/edit protocol rules, you need stop the capture and go back to the Start Page (if you run multiple instances, you need to close all others). Then click on the Menu button on the top-left corner of the Start Page, and choose Local Engine Settings > Custom Protocol to open the Custom Protocol window. Now you will find the buttons are clickable.

As the big holiday Thanksgiving is coming very soon, Colasoft are wishing all of our customers and software users a great Thanksgiving! It’s time to sharing and spreading happiness, to celebrate this great holiday, we are preparing a big sale to offer you the most cost-effective software. It is coming very soon and up to 40% discount for both Capsa network analyzer and Colasoft nChronos will be available.

Free trail of Capsa network analyzer and nChronos is available for download at our website www.colasoft.com.

We are very excited to release the availability of Capsa Network Analyzer7.5. Except for the enhanced user interface, the biggest highlight of Capsa Network Analyzer7.5 is TCP flow analysis which makes it easier for network administrators to analyze application performance and pinpoint critical performance issues.

Capsa Network Analyzer 7.5 presents a comprehensive high-level overview of application health on your network. From TCP transaction analysis, you can easily access to more detailed information, including TCP server/client response time, delay, retransmissions, and further down to the server flow to observe the actual media content of the flow. “This unparalleled level of control and visibility speeds time to resolve application problems and minimize overall network downtime,” said Ocean Yu, Vice President at Colasoft.

In addition to MSN and Yahoo Messenger monitor, Capsa Network Analyzer 7.5 added ICQ monitor to meet the market demands. ICQ logs can be easily found at the log tab where detailed information is vividly displayed. Moreover, RADIUS protocol is supported as a new member in the more than 300 protocol analysis family.

Top Highlights of Capsa Network Analyzer 7.5:

1. Powerful TCP flow analysis for application performance optimization
2. Add ICQ monitor to analyze and log ICQ activities
3. Support RADIUS protocol analysis
4. Intuitive TCP transaction sequence diagram
5. Enhanced user interface & performance

Capsa 7.5 runs under Windows XP/2003/2008/Vista/7. A trial version is available for download.

We are very pleased to announce that Colasoft Capsa network analyzer has been upgraded to version 7.4, with great new features and enhanced interface and user experience.

Colasoft Capsa 7.4 is now capable of monitoring, troubleshooting and analyzing 802.11 a/b/g/n wireless networks, which make Capsa not only an Ethernet network analyzer, but a packet sniffer for both wired and wireless networks. Besides that, Capsa interface and user experience has been highly enhanced, too. We have made many changes and improvements like optimize start page layout, network profile settings, and so on.

Key Features of Colasoft Capsa 7.4:

Enterprise-class capabilities including NOC level visibility
Network Monitoring and Application Performance Monitoring
24*7 Continuous Network Traffic Capturing
Expert Analytics in Real-time and Post-capture
Extended Security Analysis
Traffic Statistics & Bandwidth Utilization
In-depth Packet Decoding and Ability to Drill Down for Network & Security Forensics

Colasoft Capsa 7.4 now has full different editions to meet different demands: enterprise edition, professional edition, WiFi edition and free edition. Free trails are all available at www.colasoft.com.