Please note: This page was retired in March 2006.

You can find current information from the links below

If you need to buy a license for this specific version, please contact us for availability and pricing.

Other information on this page is shown for historical reference only and may have changed considerably since.

What's New in Version 4.0

• A standalone log file viewer known as HttpWatch Studio is now installed with HttpWatch
• The filter can now hide, highlight or discard items based on a set of filter criteria
• There is now an HttpWatch Basic Edition that can be used to record trace files for viewing in HttpWatch Professional Edition. This is available for free from the Evals & Downloads section

HttpWatch™ has two components; a plug-in used to collect, view and save HTTP traffic within IE and a standalone log file viewer know as HttpWatch Studio™.

Two editions of HttpWatch™ are now available:
HttpWatch™ Basic Edition - a free download that can be used by anyone to view basic HTTP/HTTPS information and record trace files
HttpWatch™ Professional Edition - the full unrestricted version of HttpWatch that shows detailed HTTP/HTTPS information for any URL and can be used to view trace files from HttpWatch™ Basic Edition

HttpWatch integrates with Internet Explorer to provide high performance professional HTTP monitoring without the need for separately configured proxies or network sniffers. Simply interact with a web site and HttpWatch will display a log of requests and responses alongside the web page itself. It even shows interactions between Internet Explorer and the browser cache.

Each HTTP transaction can be examined to see the values of headers, cookies, query strings and more... Unlike many network tools the same detailed information is also provided for secure HTTPS sessions. HttpWatch will show all HTTP requests issued by Internet Explorer regardless of the server technology used, e.g. IIS, Apache, Java, ASP.Net, PHP, etc. However, certain plug-in components such as ActiveX controls and Java applets bypass Internet Explorer when they make web requests and their HTTP traffic is not logged by HttpWatch. The log of HTTP requests and responses can either be examined interactively in HttpWatch or saved to a file.

HttpWatch is used in a wide variety of companies and industries for tasks such as:

• Testing a web application to ensure that it is correctly issuing cookies or setting headers that control page expiration
• Finding out how other sites work and how they implement certain features
• Checking the information that Internet Explorer is supplying when you visit a site
• Verifying that a secure web site is not issuing sensitive data in cookies or headers
• Tuning the performance of a web site by measuring download times, caching or the number of network round trips
• Learning about how HTTP works (useful for programming and web design classes)
• Allowing webmasters to fine tune the caching of images and other content
• Performing regression testing on production servers to verify performance and correct behavior

Six reasons to use HttpWatch rather than other HTTP monitoring tools:

• Easy to Use - start logging after just a couple of mouse clicks in Internet Explorer. No other proxies, debuggers or network sniffers have to be configured
• Productive - quickly see cookies, headers, POST data and query strings without having to manually decode raw HTTP packets
• Robust - reliably log thousands of HTTP transactions for hours or days while tracking down intermittent problems
• Accurate - HttpWatch has minimal impact on the normal interaction of Internet Explorer with a web site. No extra network hops are added, allowing you to measure real world HTTP performance
• Flexible - HttpWatch only requires client-side installation and will work with any server side technology that renders HTTP pages in Internet Explorer. No special server-side permissions or configurations are required - ideal for use against production servers on the Internet or Intranet
• Comprehensive - works with HTTP compression, SSL encryption & NTLM authentication

HttpWatch Features:

• Capture HTTP Information - HttpWatch captures and displays the following HTTP related data:
  • URLs being accessed
  • HTTP method, e.g. GET, POST, etc.
  • Mime type of response, e.g. text/html image/gif
  • Time taken to complete a request
  • Size of downloaded page, image or file
  • HTTP status codes or error codes if the request failed
  • Cookies sent and received
  • Headers sent and received
  • Parameters sent in a query strings and POSTs
  • Network operations required, such as DNS lookup or socket connects
  • Whether the content was read from the browser cache or downloaded from the HTTP server
• HTTPS Support - Secure, encrypted browser sessions that use the HTTPS protocol can be logged to the same level of detail as HTTP. This feature is particularly useful when testing production systems that rely on SSL encryption
• Shows Cache Interaction - HttpWatch shows the interaction between Internet Explorer and the browser cache, not just network traffic between the browser and the web site. This is an important feature when a web site is being tuned for performance or to determine why pages are not updating correctly
• Integrates With Internet Explorer - Starting HttpWatch is simple and easy. An extra toolbar button is added to Internet Explorer allowing HttpWatch to bed and started with two mouse clicks
• HTTP Compression - HttpWatch works with systems that have HTTP compression enabled, displaying the expanded content and providing information about the compression savings achieved
• View and Export Content - Text and image based content can be viewed and exported from HttpWatch. This allows easy access to resources such as javascript, style sheets, plug-ins and images
• Filtering - HttpWatch supports filtering of requests by content type so that only requests of the required type are captured
• Save Data - The data captured by HttpWatch can be saved in XML or CSV (comma separated variable) formats
• Easy Access To Data - Individual values, rows or complete lists of values can be quickly copied to the clipboard from HttpWatch using the right click content menu
• Runs on Standard Systems - HttpWatch works with Internet Explorer 6 on Windows 2000, Windows XP or Windows 2003 Server. No device drivers or proxies have to be installed