# Sniffing network traffic on Mac vs PC (windows/linux)

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/sniffing-network-traffic-on-mac-vs-pc-windows-linux/256055>\
**Category:** random\
**Created:** [March 30, 2008, 3:13am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/sniffing-network-traffic-on-mac-vs-pc-windows-linux/256055 "2008-03-30T03:13:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![MTsoul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/91b2a8/32.png) [@MTsoul](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/MTsoul)\
**Post date:** [March 30, 2008, 3:13am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/sniffing-network-traffic-on-mac-vs-pc-windows-linux/256055/1 "2008-03-30T03:13:29Z")

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I was just wowed a few days ago when a friend with a Macbook Pro showed me that he could sniff wireless traffic in Wireshark that’s not sent to him - like in a wired hub. On Windows XP (I got a Dell Inspiron laptop), I can only view my own wireless traffic. Is this a matter of hardware or software? I know Wireshark for Windows uses WinPCAP, which is a port of the equivalent linux version. So if I install Ubuntu on my laptop, I can view wireless traffic?