Charles Web Debugging Proxy

Charles Web Debugging Proxy or Charles for short is a commercial and multi-platform application that provides web developers with an easy way to monitor and debug the HTTP and HTTPS traffic between their web browser and the Internet.

With this software you will be able to save a lot of time, as it helps you to quickly discover and eliminate bugs that may occur during the actual communication between your web browser and the Internet.

Features at a glance

Its key highlights include support for HTTP over SSL (HTTPS) connections, download statistics, simulation of slower Internet connections, as well as the ability to record and store all the traffic between the Internet and their computer, such as cookies, requests, headers, responses, and caching information.

Even though the Firefox add-on is offered as an optional download on the project’s homepage, the application will ask users to install it when running Charles for the first time, as it is used to configure the software as a proxy for the web browser.

It features support for Unicode character encoding, NTLM authentication, HTTP 1.1 protocol, external proxy, AMF parsing, session recording, website blacklist, keyword search of all bodies and headers, as well as reading of HTML, XML, JavaScript, and CSS files.

Under the hood, supported OSes and pricing

The application is written in the Java programming language and it’s compatible with the Linux, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems. It is distributed as binary files for each supported platform, as well as a universal add-on for the Mozilla Firefox web browser.

While Charles is especially useful for Flash developers, it can also be used for XML development in web browsers, such as AJAX and XMLHTTP. It is free only for 30 days, after that you will need to pay $50 (36 EUR) for a single license. However, it’s cheaper with 40% if buying over 10 licenses!

What is new in this release:

• Support for Mac OS X Mavericks: prevents Charles from being starved of CPU resources by App Nap.
• Headless mode fixed (no longer exits immediately on some platforms), and the preference setting to activate Throttling on startup will be respected.
• -throttling command-line switch added to activate Throttling on startup.

What is new in version 3.6.5:

• Charles v3.6.5 released including bug fixes and minor changes.

What is new in version 3.5.2:

• Include response status in filtering for sequence view
• Fix bug in table views for multipart responses
• Fix SSL certificate bugs in Internet Explorer
• Fix bug when using a custom CA cert that needs a password on startup
• Fix bug in reverse proxy not rewriting redirects over SSL
• Add "Use External Proxy Servers" toggle in Windows tray icon menu
• Fix Base64 decode popup positioning over text areas
• Fix multi-monitor positioning of the Charles window
• Fix bug where on Mac OS X the "Grant Privileges" prompt would repeat endlessly
• Fix POST support when authenticating with external proxy servers
• Add Multipart request editor
• Add Authentication request editor
• Add OAuth authentication header support

Requirements:

• Java 2 Standard Edition Runtime Environment

Limitations:

• 30 day trial