Knowledge base · Tools
OTDR viewer download — what people install, and when you don't have to
Short version: to look at a .sor you need to install nothing — this page opens by link and reads files from some twenty vendors' instruments. Below is what people usually download, which of it is free, and when a program on your disk really is the answer.
Open a file with nothing installed
We are not talking you out of vendor software: it does work a browser does not. Both halves are named here.
What people usually download
Three different answers to one question, at three different prices.
The instrument maker's software
FastReporter from EXFO, TraceView from Anritsu, AQ7932 from Yokogawa, FiberTrace from VIAVI, LinkWare from Fluke, TRM from AFL. Some of it is free — with an account, or bundled with the instrument. What they share: Windows, an installer, and their best understanding is of their own brand's files.
General-purpose viewers
Programs that open other makers' formats — SORTraceViewer, for instance, which reads .msor, .csor and .trc. Windows again, an installer again; and for several of them a free edition sits next to a paid one.
A browser
Nothing installed, no admin rights, any system — macOS, Windows, Linux, a tablet, a phone. It is what you are reading on now.
When a program on your disk really is the answer
Three cases, and we do not pretend to cover them. Working with no network: out in the field with no signal, an installed program opens the file and a page does not. The instrument's own features beyond the standard: proprietary reports and settings only that vendor's software knows about. And scheduled batch processing of hundreds of files. Everything else — open, look, measure, correct, save — happens here and needs no installer.
What a browser does not give you
It needs a network: the page arrives over a link, and offline it does not arrive at all. The file you open is stored with us — what for is written in the terms of use; that is a deliberate condition, not a side effect. And we ship no threshold values at all: what is acceptable on your site is known by your project and your customer.
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Product names belong to their owners; we are not affiliated with any of the manufacturers listed and do not distribute their software.