Wednesday, March 3, 2021
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.
Friday, February 5, 2021
Saturday, January 16, 2021
The Guide to Choosing Wi-Fi Channel for your Network
The wi-fi router in your house communicates over a wireless channel that has a designated number. Although, wi-fi connection works fine on any channel, there are times when you might need to change the channel because of radio interference, congestion, slow speed and other reasons. This makes it important for homeowners to understand the difference between wi-fi channels. Let’s get started
2.5GHz Band
The 2.4 GHz band has 11 channels wherein 1 channel operates at a centre frequency and 11 channels operate at a higher frequency. The channel 1 operates at a frequency of 2.412 GHz and channel 11 operates at a frequency of 2.462 GHz. The other channels are separated at an interval of 2.412 GHz.
5GHz Band
The 5GHz band has more channels than 2.5 GHz with 36, 40, 44 and 48 being the most popular ones. Each of these channels is separated by 5MHz. This is technically an advanced channel that restricts the available channels to specific numbers just to avoid the chances of overlapping frequencies.
The channel 36 of 5GHz band operates at 5.180 GHz, 40 operates at 5.2 GHz. 165 is the highest frequency channel that operates on a frequency of 5.825 GHz.
The need to change the wi-fi channel number
The routers and parental control device that we use mostly run on 2.4 GHz. If the neighbouring wi-fi network is also running on the same channel, it could cause radio interference. Even the microwaves, bluetooth and other devices in our homes work on 2.5GHz frequency. This can slowdown the performance of the network. Changing the channel can improve the network performance.
Changing the channel
All the best parental control device routers or even the traditional ones have administrator settings. You need to login as admin and look for a drop-down list of the supported channel numbers. Choose a channel that you wish the network to work on, and viola you are done.
The advanced routers come with 5GHz band, giving homeowners the choice to change the settings and ensure they get uninterrupted Internet connectivity.
Service Set Identifier (SSID) Explained
Wi-fi is no longer a technology limited to offices. We have public wi-fi hotspots and wifi connections at home. This brings us to the abbreviation SSID - Service Set Identifier. SSID is the name associated with 802.11 WLAN and is the name for your wi-fi network.
SSID can be up to 32 characters long case-sensitive text string that consists of letters and numbers. When you connect to a wireless network, all the names that appear are the SSIDs for those networks. Every router manufacturer has a different default SSID for their unit, but these SSIDs can be changed. If we talk about home network, an administrator has the right to change it.
How your device uses
SSIDs?
When you connect a phone or laptop to the network, it scans the local area for the networks and presents a list of the names. You can initiate the new connection by choosing a name from the network list.
Other than getting the network name, the wi-fi scan will also allow you to determine if every network has the wireless security options checked in. A secured network will have a lock symbol next to the SSID.
Although if a user rejoins the network, the wireless device identifies it along with the connection preferences. The device will ask the user if they want to reconnect automatically to the network in future. This set up can be done manually also without accessing the network.
The best router for controlling Internet access come with option to disable SSID, in order to provide a more secure network. In this scenario, the user will have to enter two passwords - SSID and network password. To connect to a network that has SSID broadcast disabled, the user will have to create a profile manually.
Some things to take
care of:
• If you have bought a new router, using a default SSID could increase the chances of duplicacy, in case somebody else in the nearby area is also using the router of the same make. This means, your network might not be protected and you could possibly connect to the wrong network.
• When choosing SSID, try to have names with generic information. Displaying your name or having names such as Impossible to Hack could actually provoke people to hack your network.
At last, even if you have the best parental control device for wi-fi, make sure you change the SSID for improved security.
Monday, January 11, 2021
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