Friday, February 19, 2021

Captive Portal: Definition and Benefits

 A captive portal is something most of might have used, but unknowingly. Whenever you connect to wifi network in hotel, coffee shops or airports, you come across a customised login page, wherein, credentials need to be entered. This is called a captive portal. Ideal for any business, a captive portal is a recommended solution for better market and more security. Let’s look into the benefits of this portal.

Why have a captive portal?
A captive portal presents service terms that a user must agree to for accessing the business wifi hotspot. This way, your business is free from any legal liability.

A captive portal also gives you more control over the bandwidth, router protection and lets you customise the time for which the user can stay connected to the network and access it.

From commercial per se, it gives a business an excellent marketing opportunity. With the help of a captive portal, the business can ask users to fill out a survey before they can access the Internet and even display sponsored advertisements.

How to set up a captive portal?
The set up process depends on the network setup of the business. For starters, make sure your firmware is updated. Here are the steps to follow:

•Access the web-based setup on the access point of your network
•Look for captive portal option under the access point set up menu
•Customize the settings of the portal and choose the name and password of the portal
•You will be redirected to an exited webpage. If it’s not there, create a custom page

To create custom page:
•Look for ‘web customization’, ’splash screen’ and similar options. You can choose the background, logo, color, user name and passwords in this section.
•Link the profile to a wireless radio band and SSID.

What’s next?
Once you are done with creating a captive portal for your wifi parental control router network, use laptop, phone or other wifi enabled device to connect to the hotspot and check the captive portal. If you are able to login successfully, the process is done and you can now share the custom page with your guests.

Tuesday, February 16, 2021

For All Baby Boomers - How to Browse the Internet Securely?

 Internet is a big revolution that changed everything from the way we communicate to how we work, entertain and live our life. While millennials and GenX has adapted itself to the change nicely and quickly, baby boomers are still not confident when it comes to technology. They are trying to get accustomed to WhatsApp, Facebook and other social networking channels, but security is still a concern. How do the generation of Baby Boomers who were born before nobody heard about the word Internet make sure that they are browsing in a safe and secure environment?

Let’s look at a few ways to make Internet a safer place for this generation.

1. Beware of email scams
Your inbox is probably flooded with email from unknown people. While someone is giving you hundreds and thousands pounds of money, others might be giving you a free vacation; too good to be true. A lot of email scams happen these days and you need to be beware of the trick that spammers use to get important information from your PC, laptop or phone.

To stay safe, don’t click on any link or attachment given in the email - if you do not know who the sender is. Also, if you think the email received from the bank is fishy and the email id doesn’t appear to be official, do not open it.

2. Have a strong password
Whether it is net banking app or your social media handle, keep a strong password for everything. The other important thing is that every important app that you have installed in the phone should be password protected. Do not keep your or spouse name with birth dates as passwords because these can be easily guessed. Always have a long password with a combination of upper case, digits and special characters.

3. Get an advanced wifi router
We might look at router as a device that keeps our devices connected to the Internet, but it’s much more than that. If you have the most secure router installed, it will be difficult for anyone to hack your network and steal the data. So, make sure you invest in a good router.

You can look for the best router for child safety, as these comes with some really good security features.

Hope these 3 tips will help baby boomers browse Internet with more peace of mind.