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Wireshark, and the other programs distributed with it such as TShark, are free software, released under the terms of the GNU General Public License. There is also a terminal-based (non-GUI) version called TShark. Wireshark is cross-platform, using the GTK+ widget toolkit in current releases, and Qt in the development version, to implement its user interface, and using pcap to capture packets it runs on GNU/Linux, OS X, BSD, Solaris, some other Unix-like operating systems, and Microsoft Windows. Originally named Ethereal, in May 2006 the project was renamed Wireshark due to trademark issues.
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It is used for network troubleshooting, analysis, software and communications protocol development, and education. Wireshark is a free and open-source packet analyzer.
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