Charles is an HTTP web proxy and monitor for Windows and Mac. This tool enables you to seamlessly capture and visualize every piece of data exchanged between your device apps and the Internet by efficiently configuring and routing all traffic through the program. The tool operates a man-in-the-middle attack specifically designed for HTTP and SSL communication, which allows you to intercept and analyze the data being transmitted during HTTPS sessions. By doing so, it grants you the capability to debug and inspect the content of these secure communications.
Charles Proxy is an invaluable and reliable tool for web and internet development and security analysis, especially when it comes to quickly troubleshooting any issues. It empowers developers to monitor all HTTP and SSL/HTTPS traffic flowing between their machine and the Internet. This encompasses requests, responses, and HTTP headers, which carry essential information such as cookies and caching details.
Charles greatly enhances XML development in web browsers, particularly with AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) and XMLHTTP. It allows you to observe the actual XML data transmitted between the client and the server, providing invaluable insights for developers. Additionally, it can emulate modem speeds by skillfully limiting your bandwidth and adding latency, allowing you to test different speeds just as a visitor would experience them.
Charles will autoconfigure your browser's proxy settings on the following browsers:
- Windows system proxy settings (includes Internet Explorer and most other applications)
- Mac OS X system proxy settings (includes Safari and most other applications)
- Mozilla Firefox (on all platforms)
Key Features:
- SSL Proxying – man-in-the-middle for HTTP/SSL communication.
- Bandwidth Throttling to simulate slower Internet connections including latency
- AJAX debugging – view XML and JSON requests and responses as a tree or as text
- AMF – view the contents of Flash Remoting / Flex Remoting messages as a tree
- Repeat requests to test back-end changes
- Edit requests to test different inputs
- Breakpoints to intercept and edit requests or responses
- Validate recorded HTML, CSS and RSS/atom responses using the W3C validator
Last Update: March 12, 2025
Current Version: 5.0
License: Shareware
Languages: Multiple Languages
Supported Operating Systems:
Windows XP / Vista / 7 / 8 / 8.1 / 10 / 11
Mac OS X 10.7 - 10.15
Linux
Developer: XK72
Homepage: CharlesProxy.com