How we review

Who we are

NetProbe24 is a small, independent publication about the everyday tools of office IT: the scanners, analysers and remote-access clients that the one-person IT department, the managed-service technician and the networking student install on their Windows PCs. It is published by NetProbe24 Media LLC in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

We write for people who are responsible for a network but do not spend all day on it. That means plain English, one task at a time, and an honest note when a tool is not the right one for the job.

How we choose what to review

A tool earns a place on the top picks page if it meets all of these:

• It is free, or has a genuinely usable free edition.
• It is still available from its developer’s own website.
• It does a job office IT people need regularly: finding devices, checking shares, reading traffic, working on servers or moving files.
• Its developer publishes clear information about versions and licensing.

We would rather review six tools properly than sixty superficially. When a better option appears, or a tool stops being maintained, the list changes.

How each guide is checked

Every program has two guides — download and install, then how to use it. Before a guide is published or updated we check its facts against the developer’s own pages: the download page for versions, file types and editions; the release notes for what changed; the licence page for what is allowed; and the documentation for menu names and options. The version each guide was checked against is shown in its side panel. Where the developer does not document something, we say so rather than guess.

Example addresses in the guides (such as 192.168.20.0/24 and the server web01) are illustrative. Commands are shown without output so that you see your own results, not ours.

Independence and money

No developer has paid for a review or a position on this site, and none has seen a guide before publication. We do not use affiliate links, we host no installers and we sell nothing: every download button opens the developer’s official page. The site sets no analytics or advertising cookies (see the Privacy Policy).

Updates and corrections

Software changes faster than any review. We re-check the whole site when a reviewed program has a major release and at least every few months; the date at the top of each page shows the last check. If you spot something out of date, write to editors@netprobe24.work — corrections are the most useful email we get.

Image credits

Program screenshots and icons belong to their developers and are shown only to identify and explain the software. We crop and resize them; we do not alter what they show.