Telerik Buys Fiddler Debugging Tool
The company vows to keep the debugging tool free forever.
Telerik has announced that it's bought the Web traffic debugging tool Fiddle; with that purchase comes all of Fiddler's employees.
That will increase Telerik's payroll by exactly one.
Eric Lawrence, formerly of Microsoft and the creator/owner of Fiddler, can now turn his hobby into a fulltime job, Chris Eyhorn, EVP of Testing Tools at Telerik, told Visual Studio Magazine. He explained why Telerik wanted Fiddler -- and Lawrence. "Fiddler's going on year No. 9 of being in the market. It's a powerful way to understand traffic [to and from] a Web site."
Eyhorn said Fiddler was a natural fit for Telerik, since the company's been using it internally within its Test Studio suite for years. But Telerik wanted more than just the tool -- it wanted Lawrence.
"With Eric joining the team he will be able to deliver on his vision for Fiddler with the full financial and resource backing of Telerik," Eyhorn wrote.
He understands, however, that with such purchases often comes apprehension in the user community: will Telerik change Fiddler? Will it go from a simple, powerful tool into a corporate-designed product that forgot what made it great in the first place?
Not to worry, Eyhorn told me. "We're going to keep fiddler free," he said. "Fiddler's always going to be its own free product."
In addition, "We're going to be investing in it," in the form of more community-building, Eyhorn said. One example is already visible on the Fiddler Web site. It's a poll, asking users what they'd like to see from the next update. "We care about what you guys want, [and need you to] help us go after that," Eyhorn added.
Fiddler's an HTTP proxy that runs on Port 8888, allowing users to debug any traffic that accepts HTTP proxies. "WinINET-based applications (E.g. Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, etc) should automatically use Fiddler while it's running and the "Capture Traffic" box is checked on the Fiddler File menu," according to a description on the Fiddler Web site.
Fiddler's a popular product, Eyhorn notes, writing that it receives more than 9,000 installs per day. And with Lawrence now able to give it more attention, don't be surprised to see those numbers go even higher.
About the Author
Keith Ward is the editor in chief of Virtualization & Cloud Review. Follow him on Twitter @VirtReviewKeith.