The term ethereal is defined as meaning delicate, airy, elegant, and exquisite; almost magical. The definition seems fitting, as Ethereal, and then later Wireshark, almost magically allows us to understand what is happening on a network.

In the late 1990s, Gerald Combs developed Ethereal as a tool to analyze network problems. In July 1998, Ethereal version 0.2.0. was released. In the following image, we can see an email sharing news of the release of Ethereal version 0.3.14 (https://www.wireshark.org/lists/ethereal-announce/199809/msg00000.html). Even in the beginning, developers joined the effort and collectively sought to create a solid application:

Combs invested a great deal of his time and money to keep the project alive. He developed and shared information about Ethereal during a time when hosting a website was difficult and expensive, and the internet was so new that nearly every website was under construction.  However, despite the odds, the project continued to grow and expand, as we’ll see in the next section.