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I need to use a shared LAN with other people I don't know, which I can't control and about which I know nothing about. That means I can't change settings in the router and I don't know how isolated will my PC be from the rest.

I was wondering what the best option would be to secure myself and I came across this question, which suggest using two routers to isolate devices on a network. My question is:

Will using another router work in my case? That is, can i use another router without access to the main one?

If not, do I have any other options? I know not using the network at all would be great, but it is not an option unfortunately.

If yes, what should I look for in a router to buy?

PS: I use Windows 10 and both connections (router to LAN and router to PC) would be wired (Ethernet cable).

Edit: I have learnt I will not need to identify myself to use the network

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    The thing you have not explained is why. Do you work for the FBI? Are they all hackers who want nothing more than to read the files on your computer? Why don't these hackers/FBI agents just steal your computer? If you disable file sharing in Windows, what other risks do you think there are?
    – Gantendo
    Sep 5 at 19:03
  • You should trust the Windows firewall, which by default does not allow connections from the outside.
    – harrymc
    Sep 5 at 19:07
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    These application ask for firewall bypass for communicating from the inside to the outside, meaning outgoing rules, not incoming rules. These application outgoing rules are superfluous in the default setup, because by default every inside app can communicate freely with the outside. They are just in case that your firewall setup is much more restrictive than the default.
    – harrymc
    Sep 5 at 19:36
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    @harrymc "These application ask for firewall bypass for communicating from the inside to the outside, meaning outgoing rules, not incoming rules." This is not correct. All these dialogs are exclusively about inbound rules.
    – Daniel B
    Sep 5 at 20:42
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    The comments suggesting that OP just fly with the Windows firewall are missing the point. OP is asking about connecting a personal machine to a large, untrusted network. Do you know what else is a large, untrusted network? The internet. Which of you commenters will be the first to jack your Windows PC directly onto the internet? Anyone? Hello?
    – picobit
    Sep 5 at 20:53

1 Answer 1

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Yes, you can use a NAT router to shield yourself, as described in the linked question. (This or may not be frowned upon by the network operators, not that they can reliably detect it.)

But you don’t need to. I feel that the built-in firewall in Windows is enough. You simply need to scrutinize requests for inbound exceptions a little more. You don’t have to grant them. Simply press cancel. The program will still work. The dialog will not pop up again. Revoking existing exceptions is a bit of a pain, but you only have to do it once.

Keep in mind that Windows supports two firewall profiles: One for private networks (you wouldn’t use that) and one for public networks (the one you want). You can see which network adapter is using which in Windows Defender Firewall. To switch the profile, you’ll have to navigate the modern Settings app.

There’s also another possibility with the Windows firewall: You can set it (per profile) to disregard any exceptions. You can do this from Windows Defender Firewall, where the option is under Change notification settings. This would allow you to leave the existing exceptions as-is.

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  • Thank you. And I understand that using the Wi-Fi from my own router (connected but isolated to the public network) would be much better than connecting Android devices to the public Wi-Fi directly (everyone nowadays is talking about not using public Wi-Fi). The reason I had left Android devices out of the original question is because I can leave them disconnected altogether from the public network, using cell data.
    – ComputerUser121212
    Sep 6 at 11:14
  • Let us continue this discussion in chat.
    – Tom Yan
    Sep 6 at 12:52

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