WarDriving & Tethering

WiFi WarDriving

2023-01-21

No, it's not about "war games" (and also not about tanks – unless they are designed as WiFi APs). Wikipedia defines the term "Wardrive" as follows:

Wardriving is the act of searching for Wi-Fi wireless networks by a person in a moving vehicle, using a portable computer, smartphone or personal digital assistant (PDA).
Wardriving originated from wardialing, a method popularized by a character played by Matthew Broderick in the film WarGames, and named after that film. War dialing consists of dialing every phone number in a specific sequence in search of modems.

There are also indications for a backronym being involved: Wireless Access Revolution, to take away the martial touch from the term. In short: goal of the game is to collect APNs of a given area on a map.

So the goal is to show found networks on a map, or provide this data to projects like OpenCellId or Mozilla Location Service. Comparable apps for cell towers can be found in Monitoring & Mapping.

OpenWLANMini (4.7@20) 8 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2016-01-04 / OpenWLANMap (4.2@74) 11 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2020-05-09 Wikipedia DE; Intro 5/2018
Opensignal - 5G, 4G Speed Test (4.2@438,625) Ǥ 12 2 Wikipedia
G-MoN (4@4,984) Ǥ 13 5 LastUpdate: 2020-03-28
WiGLE WiFi Wardriving (3.9@4,534) Ǥ 19 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ Github; Intro & Howto 8/2017; Tutorial 6/2020; Wikipedia EN
Mozilla Stumbler (3.8@1,527) 10 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2019-04-06 Github; Intro 8/2016; Data gathering for Mozilla Location Service
WiFi Tracker (3.7@1,495) Ǥ 12 5 LastUpdate: 2018-01-15
Wifi Collector (3.7@499) 5 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2019-04-13
RadioBeacon (0@0) 11 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2016-09-15 Github; Wiki; Map wireless networks and cell towers for the radiocells.org database (formerly OpenBmap)

Tethering

WiFi Tethering

2023-01-21

Starting with Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), this comes as a stock-feature, and no longer requires additional apps. Unless your manufacturer removed the feature …

TetherSetting | free tethering (5@755) 4 4 LastUpdate: 2020-05-20 no root required
NetShare - no-root-tethering (3.8@31,655) Ǥ 13 1 Video Howto 11/2017 (Text); Anleitung 2/2019; can act as WiFi repeater
FoxFi (WiFi Tether w/o Root) (3.7@61,168) 10 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2017-12-18 / FoxFi Key (supports PdaNet) (4.2@14,251; ~EUR 8.50) Ǥ 2 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2018-08-31

Bluetooth Tethering

2023-01-21

PdaNet+ (4.1@83,978) 15 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2020-12-22 Review 7/2018; Howto 11/2019
FoxFi (WiFi Tether w/o Root) (3.7@61,168) 10 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2017-12-18 / FoxFi Key (supports PdaNet) (4.2@14,251; ~EUR 8.50) Ǥ 2 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2018-08-31
Easy Tether Lite (No root) (3.2@23,179) 6 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2018-12-06 / EasyTether Full (3.9@9,203; ~EUR 9.25) 5 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2018-12-09 / EasyTether Pro (4@2,274; ~EUR 10.75) 5 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2018-12-26

USB Tethering

2023-01-21

FoxFi (WiFi Tether w/o Root) (3.7@61,168) 10 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2017-12-18 / FoxFi Key (supports PdaNet) (4.2@14,251; ~EUR 8.50) Ǥ 2 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2018-08-31
Easy Tether Lite (No root) (3.2@23,179) 6 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2018-12-06 / EasyTether Full (3.9@9,203; ~EUR 9.25) 5 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2018-12-09 / EasyTether Pro (4@2,274; ~EUR 10.75) 5 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2018-12-26
USB Tethering (3.1@6,462) Ǥ 4 3
Quick USB Tethering Wifi (2.9@1,150) 5 2
Free USB Tethering (2.8@654) Ǥ 6 2 LastUpdate: 2018-09-17
SimpleRT (0@0) 2 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ Github

USB Reverse Tethering

2023-01-21

Reverse Tethering NoRoot Free (4.2@1,017) Ǥ 10 1 LastUpdate: 2019-05-25
Reverse Tether [Trial] (2.3@695) 7 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2014-12-29

WiFi Tether Toggler (Android 2.2+)

2023-01-21

Locale Wifi Hotspot Plug-in (2.1@763) 3 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2018-12-06

Further Readings:

11 Best Tethering Apps for Android (8/2021)

2023-02-04

IzzyOnDroid