NirSoft releases Wifi Collector -- for Android?

NirSoft has announced the release of Wifi Collector, its first Android app.

Yes: Android. NirSoft’s Nir Sofer may be best known as a prolific developer of Windows utilities, but he’s now decided to branch out into the mobile world.

Wifi Collector doesn’t otherwise represent a big change of direction, though. It’s a simple tool which collects data on wireless networks as you walk or drive around, essentially a stripped down Android equivalent of NirSoft’s WifiInfoView.

The app has a very basic interface -- arguably another NirSoft trademark -- but is functional enough, recording plenty of information about any local networks: their name (SSID), MAC address of the access point, manufacturer of the access point, signal level, channel frequency, channel number, security (WEP/WPA/WPA2), WPS support (Yes/No), date and time that the network was detected, and the network’s location (longitude and latitude).

You’re able to filter this data by network encryption, band and type, so the final report will only include the most interesting networks.

As with NirSoft’s PC tools, you can export this data in various text formats (CSV, HTML, tab-delimited).

But Wifi Collector goes a step further with its ability to save the network locations as a .KML file, meaning you can view them all on Google Earth.

Wifi Collector doesn’t collect or display as much network information as NirSoft’s Windows equivalents. But it does enough to be useful, and of course is easier to carry around when you’re doing a local site survey. Give it a try.