14 DAY TRIAL // Wireshark, world’s most popular open-source network protocol analyzer, has been updated to a new stable series, versioned 2.6, a major update that adds numerous new features and improvements, as well as support for new protocols.
A lot of user interface improvements have been made since Wireshark 2.5, and Wireshark 2.6 appears to be the last release that will support the legacy GTK+ graphical user interface, as the development team announced it wouldn't be supported in the next major series, Wireshark 3.0.
New features in Wireshark 2.6 include support for HTTP Request sequences, support for MaxMind DB files, Microsoft Network Monitor capture file support, as well as LoRaTap capture interface support. The IP map feature was removed, as well as support for the GeoIP and GeoLite Legacy databases.
Also worth mentioning is the fact that the Windows packages of Wireshark are now built using Microsoft Visual Studio 2017. Of course, if you're upgrading from the stable Wireshark 2.4 series, you should know that Wireshark 2.6 brings even more cool new features, all of which you can study in the release notes.
Wireshark now supports dozens of new protocols
With the 2.6 release, Wireshark gained support for dozens of new protocols, among which we can mention ActiveMQ Artemis Core Protocol, AMT (Automatic Multicast Tunneling), AVSP (Arista Vendor Specific Protocol), Bluetooth Mesh, Broadcom tags, CVS password server, Excentis DOCSIS31 XRA header, and CAN-ETH.
The F1 Application Protocol, F5ethtrailer, FP Mux, GRPC (gRPC), IEEE 1905.1a, IEEE 802.11ax (High Efficiency WLAN (HEW)), IEEE 802.15.9 IEEE Recommended Practice for Transport of Key Management Protocol (KMP) Datagrams, and IEEE 802.3br Frame Preemption Protocol are also supported in Wireshark 2.6.
The list continues with ISOBUS, LoRaTap, LoRaWAN, Lustre Filesystem, Lustre Network, Nano / RaiBlocks Cryptocurrency Protocol (UDP), Network Functional Application Platform Interface (NFAPI) Protocol, New Radio Radio Link Control protocol, New Radio Radio Resource Control protocol, and NR (5G) MAC protocol.
Moreover, the NXP 802.15.4 Sniffer protocol, Object Security for Constrained RESTful Environments (OSCORE), PFCP (Packet Forwarding Control Protocol), Protobuf (Protocol Buffers), QUIC (IETF), RFC 4108 Using CMS to Protect Firmware Packages, Session Multiplex Protocol, and SolarEdge monitoring protocol are supported as well.
Lastly, Wireshark 2.6 brings support for the Steam In-Home Streaming Discovery protocol, Wi-SUN FAN protocol, Wi-Fi Device Provisioning protocol, as well as the Tibia, TWAMP and OWAMP protocols. You can download Wireshark 2.6 for GNU/Linux, macOS, and Windows systems right now through our web portal.