HttpWatch

HttpWatch — Free Download. HTTP traffic analysis

HttpWatch is an HTTP viewer and debugger that integrates directly into Internet Explorer and Firefox, enabling HTTP and HTTPS monitoring without leaving the browser window. The program records all network traffic generated by a web page, displays request and response headers, cookies, query strings, and timing data, and helps identify performance bottlenecks, security weaknesses, and coding errors. It is available in a free Basic Edition and a paid PRO version with extended capabilities.

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Download HttpWatch (Official links)
File size: 24.8 MB
The latest version of HttpWatch is: 16.2.4
Operating system: Windows
Languages: English
Developer: Simtec Limited
Price: $0.00 USD (Freemium product)
  • In-browser HTTP monitoring. HttpWatch operates as an embedded panel inside Internet Explorer and Firefox, capturing every HTTP and HTTPS request and response generated by the loaded page. This design removes the need to launch a separate proxy or standalone sniffer, so the developer observes live traffic in the same window where the page is rendered and can correlate visual elements with the underlying network calls.
  • Page performance measurement. The tool records detailed timing information for each request, including DNS lookup, TCP connect, SSL handshake, time to first byte, content download, and total elapsed time. A summary view aggregates these values and presents a time chart that reveals which resources delay rendering, allowing precise identification of slow scripts, images, or third-party calls.
  • HTTPS decryption without proxy setup. HttpWatch decrypts encrypted traffic without requiring a separate proxy server or manual certificate installation for each session. It hooks into the browser's own SSL layer, so HTTPS requests are displayed in plain form alongside unencrypted HTTP traffic, which simplifies inspection of secure sessions and mixed-content behavior.
  • SSL and security inspection. The program examines the SSL configuration negotiated by the server, reports the protocol version and cipher suite used, and flags weak or deprecated settings. It also highlights security-related warnings such as invalid certificates, mixed HTTP and HTTPS content, and insecure cookie attributes, assisting in the hardening of web servers.
  • Request and response header analysis. Every captured entry exposes the complete set of sent and received headers, including cookies, cache directives, content encoding, redirects, and custom fields. This data helps verify caching rules, compression settings, content types, and authentication flows, and it supports comparison between expected and actual server responses.
  • Cookie and query string inspection. HttpWatch lists all cookies exchanged during a session, showing their names, values, domains, paths, expiration dates, and security flags. Query strings attached to URLs are likewise parsed and displayed, which aids in debugging session management, tracking parameters, and state preservation across requests.
  • Content and stream viewing. The tool provides access to the actual body of each response, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JSON, XML, and images. Content can be viewed in raw or formatted form, and binary streams can be saved to disk for external examination, which assists in verifying what the server truly returned.
  • Time chart visualization. A graphical timeline displays all requests arranged by start time and duration, making concurrency, gaps, and blocking relationships visible at a glance. This chart exposes serialization problems, idle periods, and resource contention that are difficult to detect from raw log data alone.
  • Warning and error reporting. HttpWatch automatically generates warnings for common problems such as missing cache headers, inefficient redirects, large uncompressed responses, and deprecated SSL versions. Each warning is linked to the affected request and often accompanied by a suggested correction, which shortens the diagnostic cycle.
  • Remote diagnosis through log files. Users of the free Basic Edition can record traffic and save it to an HWL log file, which can be sent to another person for analysis. The recipient opens the file in HttpWatch PRO, examines the full session, and identifies errors or performance issues without needing direct access to the original environment.
  • Automation through the HttpWatch API. The program exposes a programming interface that allows developers to start and stop recording, read performance data, and export results from automated test scripts. This makes it possible to integrate HTTP measurement into continuous testing pipelines and to collect metrics across many page loads.
  • Filtering and search. Captured entries can be filtered by URL pattern, content type, status code, or method, and free-text search locates specific values within headers or bodies. Filtering reduces large recordings to the requests relevant to a particular investigation, which improves clarity when sessions contain hundreds of entries.
  • Export and reporting. Recorded data can be exported to formats such as CSV, XML, and HAR, or saved as native log files for later review. These exports support further processing in spreadsheets, custom reporting tools, and comparison against baseline measurements taken at different times.
  • Integration with development tools. HttpWatch links captured requests to their originating page elements and can open a selected URL directly in the browser for closer inspection. This connection between the network log and the rendered document helps trace a visible defect back to the specific resource responsible for it.

HttpWatch was created by Simtec Limited, a software company based in the United Kingdom. The first public release appeared in 2004 as an add-on for Internet Explorer, addressing the need for HTTP inspection inside the browser at a time when most analyzers operated as external proxies. Support for Firefox followed in later versions, expanding the range of environments in which the tool could be used. The program is written primarily in C++ and is distributed as a compiled browser extension with a companion API library.

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