Nessus 4.4.1

 Nessus is a network scanner that checks for vulnerabilities. You will have to register for an activation code but it's free. Nessus is famous for it's plugins and boasts it on their website as well. You can find several videos on their website that show instructions for installing and even operating Nessus. You can download it here.


I don't mind registering products that are free. In fact, as a developer I sometimes go out of my way to register products that are free. I suggest you do the same, plus I don't think you have access to the plugins if you don't register it. We are using the Windows version, and that is the only version under review here today.

After installing and registering it will take a long time to download and update their immense plugin library. Why was I not allowed to pick or just get a small minimal set? I thought the process took a long time to download and update and I definitely wasn't expecting it. You can view a full list of the plugins and the latest plugins added on their website. I checked back several minutes later and found that it was only at 26%.

Despite taking forever to "initialize" Nessus has a very nice browser based interface with easy to use controls for scanning entire ranges of addresses. I definitely recommend this product.