Port scanners are the application that scans server or host for available ports that are used for communication. These applications are often used by network administrators and security specialist to verify security policies; attacker uses this application to find the running services on host and to exploit them.

Here we discussed 4 most popular and best port scanners widely used by network administrators and hackers.

Angry IP Scanner

The Angry IP scanner is a Java based application that discovers host through ping scan. It is cross platform, lightweight and very fast port scanner. It simply pings each host and gather information like hostname, MAC address, port scan etc. Additionally, it also contain features like, NetBIOS information (computer name, logged in user), web server detection etc.  It uses multi-threading to speed up scanning.

Superscan

Superscan is a free Windows based port scanner that only detects open TCP and UDP ports on the target computer. Superscan is used by both network administrator and hackers to determine which service is running on different ports and provide queries like ping, whois, ICMP, traceroute and host name lookups. This tool is not maintained, the latest release was in 2004.

NetScan Tools

NetScan is the application that scans the network based on user provided IP range. NetScan is the collection of more than 40 network utilities for windows, designed with easy to use interface. It includes port scanner, DNS tools, traceroute and other utilities.

Unicornscan

Unicornscan is asynchronous TCP and UDP scanner used by many network administrators all over the world. It includes asynchronous stateless TCP scanning with all variations of TCP flags, active passive remote OS and other hundreds of features. Unicornscan intended to provide a researcher a superior interface to stimulate response from TCP/IP enabled devices. Many used this tool as IP port scanner.