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Do i need to install WinPcap?

Greetings

Newbie question:

Im new to this BLE and RF world, and i'm trying to read all the info i can before buy the nRF52 DK when it got the IC without all the "erratas" of the preview one (or should i start with the nRF51?, suggestions allowed).

So i install nRF Sniffer and Wireshark, but during the installation of Wireshark it ask me to install WinPCap aswell, did a quick search online and seen it can be used to get into my system, so the question is if i should install it or i can run Wireshark (just for work with nRF Sniffer) propperly without it.

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  • Hi Carlos,

    If you need to get started with development and plan to release a product very soon I would recommend the nRF51 DK, as the 51 is a more mature platform currently. If you need some of the features of the 52, or would like more processing power with lower energy consumption go for the 52.

    As for Wireshark, WinPCap is a dependency, see Wiresharks own pages for a description of WinPCap. WinPCap is used to capture packages, this can be used by several tools that require this feature, that includes malicious software. Whether this is a security issue or not is probably a hot topic, as nearly all software you install on your computer can be malicious if utilized the right(wrong?) way. Basically it's your choice, however you do not need Wireshark to develop with Nordic products.

    Hopefully this answers your questions, best regards,

    Øyvind

Reply
  • Hi Carlos,

    If you need to get started with development and plan to release a product very soon I would recommend the nRF51 DK, as the 51 is a more mature platform currently. If you need some of the features of the 52, or would like more processing power with lower energy consumption go for the 52.

    As for Wireshark, WinPCap is a dependency, see Wiresharks own pages for a description of WinPCap. WinPCap is used to capture packages, this can be used by several tools that require this feature, that includes malicious software. Whether this is a security issue or not is probably a hot topic, as nearly all software you install on your computer can be malicious if utilized the right(wrong?) way. Basically it's your choice, however you do not need Wireshark to develop with Nordic products.

    Hopefully this answers your questions, best regards,

    Øyvind

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