Using Wireshark or Fiddler to study Android app without using emulator

Question

when I would like to study the network activity of an 3rd party application on desktop

• How do this application send GET request?
• What parameters are POSTed by this application?

Wireshark or Fiddler will come in very handy.

Now, there is a 3rd party application installed in my Android phone. I also like to perform similar study on it, just like I did on desktop's.

I came across this tool https://sites.google.com/site/androidarts/packet-sniffer

I haven't tried it out as I do not root my phone yet. But from what I can see from screen shoot, it may not be something what I am expecting. I am expecting I can get a view of network request and respond text content. But the tool is just showing network hardware ID, IP address and number of bytes information.

I saw one way to study the Android network activity is to use emulator + Wireshark.

Android emulator: How to monitor network traffic?

But, the 3rd party application which I intent to study is installed in my real android phone only. Is there anyway I can get something similar to Wireshark/ Fiddler output, by running the targeted app on real phone?

Answer 1

Share a wifi connection and run Wireshark on your computer.