inSSIDer works on Windows XP/Vista/7 (32-bit & 64-bit) and also on Android and Mac.Īnother excellent small and portable utility by Nir Sofer called WirelessNetView allows you to view the available wireless networks around you.

The hidden wireless network is shown in the first line with an empty SSID but the rest of the information about the network is displayed. Then the results will be shown in a sortable table in the program displaying information such as SSID, channel, security, RSSI, MAC Address, maximum rate, vendor and network type. After installation, running inSSIDer will automatically select your wireless adapter to start scanning for available access points. It is easy to use and understand without all the confusing configuration.

InSSIDer is the most popular free and open source Wi-Fi scanning tool available today. Non broadcasting wireless networks are not totally invisible as well because they can be detected by any of the 8 tools mentioned below. However, this also allows the nearby hackers to find your network and also see the signal strength with the security type being used directly from Windows without even the need to run a network scanning tool. This option provides a convenience for you to easily connect to it by clicking on your SSID and entering the security key. In this article we will be focusing on one of the option “Broadcast SSID” found in most wireless routers.īasically when the broadcast SSID option is enabled, all wireless capable devices can see your router listed together with a bunch of other wireless networks. Each wireless security mechanism helps to increase the difficulty of unauthorized users from hacking in to your wireless networks but surely does not prevent the determined ones. Most of the wireless routers today comes with some security feature such as security encryption (WEP/WPA), MAC address filtering, lowering transmission power, disabling DHCP & use static IP, and hiding of SSID to help keep your wireless network safe from intruders.

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