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AirRadar Offers Better Wi-Fi Network Management
Posted by Gina Trapani at 9:00 PM on July 16, 2008
Mac only: Leopard's built-in Airport utility doesn't do much except show you what Wi-Fi networks are nearby, and which require a password—but free utility AirRadar does much more. AirRadar detects available Wi-Fi networks (in my case, more networks showed up in AirRadar's list than in Leopard's default menubar drop-down), and displays more information like signal strength, last seen timestamp, channel, signal average, max, and min. Disconnect from networks without turning off your Airport card, get Growl notifications, and set the scan interval with AirRadar too. You can even save networks as favourites, instead of just hopping onto any old open network by default. If you've got a spotty signal you'll appreciate AirRadar's signal to noise line graphs, too. AirRadar is a free download for Mac only. For more Wi-Fi know-how, see our top 10 Wi-Fi boosts, tweaks and apps.
Tags: airport | airradar | communicate | mac | wifi
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
pandrus
Posted 12:16 AM 17/7/08
Hmmm.
Colorful, but I can find no way of setting favorites. Or using filter. There is no significant documentation available and no support forum on the developer's website.
Not sure if this is all that helpful, Gina.
pandrus
ronbrinkmann
Posted 1:41 AM 17/7/08
Anybody want to compare this to istumbler for us?
ronbrinkmann
nindoja
Posted 11:46 PM 16/7/08
Has anyone gotten this to work with a WPA connetion secured via 802.1x (username/password login)?
Other than that one hiccup, this software is great.
nindoja
nekochan
Posted 4:04 AM 17/7/08
@pandrus: after a bit of playing, i figured out that to add a favorite, click the plus sign on the lower right of the favorites window. filter seems to work a similar way
@ronbrinkmann: a quick 10-second comparison: iStumbler is a half second faster, and can sense bluetooth and bonjour. AirRadar is pretty and has a favorites list, but seems to underestimate signal strength. on the plus side, it's actually been worked on some time this year.
nekochan
yanokwa
Posted 4:00 AM 17/7/08
istumbler is buggy and not actively developed. the only feature this is lacking is no rendezvous or bluetooth browser.
yanokwa
genbo
Posted 12:04 AM 21/7/08
Big minus: AirRadar doesn't seem to show the type of encryption, ie. WEP or WPA.
I'm sticking with the excellent AirTrafficControl widget.
genbo