Scanning wifi networks is something that is often done, both at home and when going around, partly out of curiosity and partly to see how many connections there are around us, perhaps freely accessible. The scanning of the networks in each computer or phone is automatic and is done by the system itself when the network icon is clicked.
On Windows, just press the button of the wifi card which should appear at the bottom right to view the list of available networks to which the computer can connect. In this basic scan, however, many details are missing on the wifi networks found and, above all, the indication is missing whether or not there are hidden wifi networks around. Hidden wireless networks are those that have been configured not to transmit their name or SSID, which therefore remains hidden and not visible to scans.
It is a security option present in every router, very inconvenient to tell the truth, to stop the broadcast of the SSID and make sure that those who search for a wifi using the normal network scan do not find it. The interesting thing is that often, a hidden network is often unsecured, because those who configure it, thinking they are safe, leave it free and without a password.
In this article we therefore see the best programs to find wifi networks with in- depth wireless scans that also discover hidden networks and tell us information such as the BSSID or Mac Address, the type of security and the channel used .
NOTE: The following are PC programs to use for technical curiosity or to work on wireless networks.
IN ANOTHER ARTICLE you will find the Apps to find free Wifi and free wireless networks on the map
1) Acrylic Wifi Scanner is an excellent program that can list all the wireless networks that the PC network card can detect within range.
When installing Acrylic wifi scanner you must ignore the Windows SmartScreen warning that warns about any risks of this app.
If the installation is blocked, click on the more information link to continue and run it anyway.
The installation is clean, without sponsors, adware or strange things. Network scanning with Acrylic Wifi scanner is automatic and after a few seconds it will show, for each wireless network, information such as: the SSID (the name of the network), the MAC address of the device that transmits the wireless signal (or BSSID), signal strength (RSI), the channel used by the network, the network standard, the speed, the type of security and more. Using it in a populated environment, it will be very likely to discover many more wifi networks with this tool than the ones listed by Windows in the network search. This difference will be due to the discovery of wifi networks with weak signal or that are hidden. There is a paid Pro version of this program recommended only for technicians.
2) inSSIDer was the best program in this category and it still is if it were not that its new version is no longer available for free.
However, you can still download the free version of inSSIDer.
3) WirelessNetView is a very simple program from Nirsoft, which allows you to see all the networks within signal range, with the possibility of knowing the brand of the wireless router used based on the MAC address.
4) Xirrus Wi-Fi Inspector is a professional level tool that can be downloaded for free with registration on the site (or by downloading it from Softpedia).
The program has a nice interface (not common for technicians tools like these) and real-time graphs that show the quality of the connection and also the origin of the signal of each of the detected networks. For each network you can see the wifi signal strength, the channel, the SSID, the BSSID (Mac Address) and other information, including the security information to find out if there are unsecured networks and hidden networks.
5) Homedale is a monitor to find very simple wireless networks useful for keeping under control the signal strength even with a graph.
6) NetSurveyor is a more professional tool that includes the popular NetStumbler and that allows you to discover any wifi network detectable by the wireless card and monitor it with super detailed graphics. Hidden networks (displayed as UNKNOWN_SSID_BSSID) and unsecured networks can therefore be detected.
7) Finally, let's see how it is also possible to discover all the available wifi networks without using programs, using the netsh command.
Then open a command prompt (press the Windows-R keys together and run the cmd command) and paste the following command to start a scan and see the list of networks:
netsh wlan show networks mode = bssid
To work scanning networks with netsh you need to disable, if any, the wired network.
Note: As you can see, all the wifi scan tools seen above can find out if there are invisible or hidden wireless networks, but they cannot reveal what is the SSID or name of these networks.
To do this you have to disguise yourself as a small hacker, abandon a moment Windows that does not have suitable tools for the purpose and download a Linux distro such as Kali Linux, which already includes SSID detection tools such as aireplay-ng and which we have already described in another article on how to discover and crack passwords of WPA-protected wifi networks.
