Fiddler Acquired by Telerik

eweek - Telerik Buys Fiddler Web Debugging Tool

In a move to bolster its software testing capabilities, Telerik, a maker of software development tools, has announced its acquisition of the Fiddler Web Debugger, a popular tool created to inspect Web traffic and “fiddle” with incoming or outgoing data.

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As part of the acquisition, Fiddler will remain a free tool and will be part of the Telerik Test Studio product family. Fiddler is already in use as the core technology behind Telerik Test Studio’s load and performance features. And Lawrence will lend his knowledge and expertise to the advancement of the overall testing product portfolio. Telerik is an end-to-end provider of software application, lifecycle and content management solutions ..."

Fiddler - Fiddler has joined the Telerik family (Letter from Eric)

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I'm delighted to announce that Telerik has acquired the Fiddler project. I will be joining the company to work on Fiddler full-time in order to deliver on my vision. With 100% of my attention and aided by an expanded development team, Fiddler and the Fiddler community will benefit in myriad ways. As a supported project in a successful tooling company, Fiddler will receive more investment in its first year than it's had throughout its entire history-- I have dozens of pages of plans for Fiddler that I've longed to implement but simply haven't had the time. The Fiddler website will be enhanced (retiring my 1999-era tag-soup!), and improved documentation will finally become available. Telerik has committed to keeping the Fiddler Web Debugger available for free. [GD: Emphasis added]

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Christopher Eyhorn - Here we grow again. Telerik acquires Fiddler. What’s next?

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The Fiddler community is very important to us. We have learned from the mistakes of others who have acquired free tools only to turn the tables on the community and monetize them at a later date.  We admire what Fiddler has delivered to the community and want to expand that value by investing in things like expanded platform support, user interface improvements and a first class website with extensive community and support features.

That is why, as part of our commitment to keeping Fiddler free and making further investments into the tool, we have launched a poll on the Fiddler website asking the community to vote on the first improvements we will target.  Whether you are an avid or occasional Fiddler user we would love to get your opinions on what you would like to see happen first.

To give you some insight into how popular Fiddler really is here are some stats, year to date.  On average Fiddler receives over 9,000 installations EVERY DAY, and when I say average that is including weekends.  That number jumps to over 10,000 for weekdays.  The website has received more than 5 million unique visitors this year alone with over 80% of them being first time visits.  Needless to say that the Fiddler community is not just big, it's HUGE.

So please help me in welcoming Eric and the Fiddler community into the Telerik family.

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Let's hope that Telerik has learned a lesson from Red Gate's Reflector purchase and does the right thing by Fiddler and the community. That said, this might be a great thing for Telerik, Fiddler and its community if handled right.

Update: See the comment from Chris below (and snip from Eric's blog post above), but it looks like we're going to be seeing some great things from Telerik and Fiddler. Nice!