Acrylic WiFi Scanner is a free software for Windows which can be used for real-time WiFi network analysis. Acrylic WiFi scanner can be used to display WiFi access points and the connected devices near you. It can also gather information from a wide range of WiFi networks which includes 802.11/a, 802.11/b, 802.11/g, 802.11/n, and 802.11/ac.
Acrylic WiFi Scanner for PC
Features:
- Access Points: WiFi network’s information like MAC address, SSID, BSSID can be obtained for all the connected users in your network.
- Signal level: Lists out signal quality charts for WiFi channels and detected devices. With the help of this software one can continuously monitor the signal strength of a given network.
- Inventory: You can pull all the known WiFi devices in one basket called – Inventory. Inventory can be used for your convenience to name known WiFi devices.
- Passwords: With Acrylic WiFi Scanner, the WiFi passwords and default WPS Keys can be obtained. This could be useful for WiFi security analysis.
- Channels: WiFi networks are classified based on channels – 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz.
- Security: Security details and network authentication for WEP, WPA, WPA2 and Enterprise (802.1X) WiFi networks can be obtained.
- Hardware independent: In order to scan the WiFi networks there is no need for special hardware. The installed software itself is enough for monitoring the WiFi networks.
How to install and set up Acrylic WiFi Scanner
Installing Acrylic WiFi scanner is a simple process. You can head over to Acrylic WiFi website and download the free version of Acrylic WiFi scanner, which is about 6 MB. With The free version of Acrylic WiFi scanner, you will get features like monitoring WiFi networks which we have listed above.
If you are an advanced user and are looking for deeper network analysis there are a few advanced features that you can try:
- Hidden networks: Just not the discoverable devices in the network, even the details of hidden WLAN networks can be obtained. By using the monitor mode capture feature one could get hidden network’s SSID names.
- Packet viewer: Acts as a WLAN sniffer where captured network packets are shown.
- Integration: Seamless integration with Wireshark with the help of an acrylic innovative driver enabling Wireshark to capture WLAN packets under windows.
Once you have downloaded the file – Click on it to complete the installation. You can choose the type of installation – Basic (default), Custom, depending on your requirement. Once the installation is complete – you are good to go.
We tried the basic setup of Acrylic WiFi scanner – The software did a quick scan within seconds and showed all the connected WiFi networks near us.
The following details were shown for the scanned networks: SSID, Mac Address, signal strength, no of channels, type of the network ( a, b,g,n or ac), maximum connection speed of network, WEP type (open or private), WPA, WPA2, WPS, password, WPS PIN, vendor, first seen, last seen and type.
The “Actions” section of the application lets you view the real-time signal strength of all the WiFi networks in a graphical representation. You can highlight any WiFi network of your choice and analyze it to see how it is performing. In addition to this, you can filter networks based on access point channel – 2.4 Ghz access point or 5 Ghz access point. In the main panel, you could add networks to your inventory to keep all the known networks in one place to carry out network analysis.
Download this WiFi network scanner from its home page and let us know about your experience.
Is WiFi analyzer free?
There are countless WiFi analyzer tools available for Windows and other operating systems. Some of them are available for free, and some of them are paid. However, if you want to analyze the WiFi network in real-time for free, you can take a look at the Acrylic WiFi Scanner.
How do you use an Acrylic WiFi sniffer?
To use the Acrylic WiFi sniffer on your WiFi network, you can go through the aforementioned guide. This guide explains all the steps in detail so that you can capture and analyze all the WiFi networks available on your computer. Whether you use Windows 11 or Windows 10, or any other version, you can use the aforementioned tool.