145
votes
Neighbor stealing Wi-Fi
The other answers so far are about security, but there is another factor that may well be at least part of your trouble.
A wireless network at 2.4 GHz (in Sweden where I am, using b/g/n) allows ...
- 9,704
128
votes
SSID with very similar name, is this an attempt of hacking?
Yes, it is most likely some kind of hacking ploy, although it's a guess as to why.
I do point out that locking your router down to specific MAC addresses might provide a tiny bit of security, but ...
- 71.5k
111
votes
If my Wi-Fi speed is 64 Mbit/s why do I get nowhere near it?
Wi-Fi is half duplex and has more overhead than Ethernet, so you never see TCP/IPv4 thruput even as high as 80% of your physical signalling rate (known as a "PHY rate").
Plus, when sending wireless ...
- 107k
103
votes
When doubling Internet connection speed, will my effective in-house bandwidth also double?
If you increase your WAN speed, your WiFi will stay the same bottleneck it is now. To improve speed "in the furthest corners" you need to improve WiFi connectivity first.
Your water tap is somewhat ...
- 77.2k
80
votes
What is best way to share wifi with a building next door?
To be completely honest the best thing to do is get some armoured CAT6 cable and do it properly.
Wi-Fi might be "convenient" but over any real range it can be intermittent, affected by a whole raft ...
- 94.5k
77
votes
Accepted
Does a virtual machine count as a separate device to the ISP?
Most ISP usually don't have visibility on the actual number of devices connected on your home because you are behind a router (that probably runs a NAT that assigns each of your home devices an ...
- 5,424
66
votes
When doubling Internet connection speed, will my effective in-house bandwidth also double?
Just for clarity there are two links / connections here, not one:
From your ISP to your house.
It has bandwidth of 40 Mbit/s
From your router to the WiFi device(s) "in the furthest corners of your ...
- 20.3k
66
votes
Is hiding your Wi-Fi SSID without password secure?
NO. When you hide your SSID, it is broadcast by clients, so its easy enough to discover anyway (just Googling "discovering hidden SSID" will link you to multiple tools and ways this can be ...
- 71.5k
61
votes
Temporarily disable WLAN internet access for children, but allow it for adults
There are features in some routers that allow you to set up multiple SSID's and a wifi schedule. If your router has these features, you can set up 2 wifi networks with different SSID's and different ...
- 569
61
votes
Accepted
Why is the range of a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot shorter than that of a router?
Good question!
Basically the smartphone can't transmit a very powerful signal, but a router can "hear" a much weaker signal.
Wireless communication waves don't have a hard cutoff line, they ...
- 57.6k
57
votes
SSID with very similar name, is this an attempt of hacking?
It sounds to me that this is something called "Evil Twin".
Basically the attacker creates a network that mimics yours so you (or your machine all by itself) connect to that instead. He achieves that ...
- 681
56
votes
Wi-Fi stops working when I attach wireless mouse to my laptop
That's probably a 2.4 GHz wireless mouse and you're probably using 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi, so your mouse is probably interfering with your Wi-Fi signals.
Try changing your TP-Link router's channel and ...
- 107k
55
votes
Accepted
Can't connect to VPN on Windows 10
Open Device Manager
Find Network Adapters
Uninstall WAN Miniport (IP), WAN Miniport(IPv6) and WAN Miniport (PPTP).
Click Action > Scan for hardware changes
The adapters you just uninstalled should ...
- 1,182
51
votes
Can someone download files from your personal computer when you're using public WiFi?
Question: Can a stranger connected to that same WiFi network download the files from you computer? Can the stranger look at your files?
Yes, but it requires significant carelessness on the victim's ...
- 8,520
46
votes
Windows 10 Wifi Sets Wrong DNS Server When Connecting to Wifi Networks
This is an older question but I just wanted to add my answer here because this question came up when I was searching for an answer and it pointed me in the right direction.
If your nameservers point ...
- 650
44
votes
Is it better to use a WiFi channel with high frequency?
Channel numbers do not denote power and so channel 11 is not "better" than channel 1 simply because it is 10 digits higher.
WiFi does have overlapping channels, which means that devices don't want to ...
- 94.5k
43
votes
SSID with very similar name, is this an attempt of hacking?
I ran into a similar "issue" earlier this year while debugging wireless connectivity issues.
My suggestion is a question: do you own a chromecast?
The connectivity issues ended up being entirely the ...
- 533
43
votes
Accepted
Home Networking: How can I have ethernet in another part of the house?
You could look into a wireless bridge (or WiFi bridge). This may be the component/term you're looking for in your situation. It's basically a reversed access point and it's a feature some WiFi routers ...
- 31.2k
38
votes
Can my ISP see SSIDs on my router/modem provided by the ISP?
Yes,
Modern routers in their firmware have a setting to support CWMP (Customer-Premises Equipment WAN Management Protocol) for remote management. This is also called TR-069 by its name on ...
- 599
38
votes
Accepted
Why are there no wireless switches?
Managed Switches are intelligent networking devices that take signals in from a particular port and then rebroadcast it on a specific port that it knows has previously hosted the intended recipient. ...
- 94.5k
36
votes
Accepted
Ping works fine, but no Internet connection in browser
I can't access the Internet anymore
Try reinitialising the network states. Run the following commands in an elevated cmd shell:
Reset WINSOCK entries to installation defaults:
netsh winsock reset ...
- 159k
34
votes
Accepted
Why is my Wi-Fi Router showing link speed of 72 Mbps?
The maximum Wi-Fi link speed (PHY rate) a given client can get when connecting to a given AP is the intersection of which speed-increasing factors both devices support (the overlap in the venn diagram ...
- 107k
34
votes
Is a hidden network with "X" security less secure than a non-hidden network with that same "X" security?
A hidden network is generally regarded as being less secure for the client.
A client seeking to join a non-hidden network is able to passively listen for the access-point to broadcast it's identity. A ...
- 341
33
votes
Tablet and Wi-Fi AP can't agree on a channel. Which device is violating the 802.11n standard?
Who is violating the 802.11n WiFi standard?
Nobody. They just chose not to bother with all the complex regulations surrounding radio use. So they only support a subset of the available channels.
5 ...
- 64.3k
32
votes
Is hiding your Wi-Fi SSID without password secure?
Hiding SSIDs is also bad for privacy.
In addition to providing exactly zero security (as the other answers have explained), hiding the SSID is also a very bad idea if you care about privacy.
In a &...
- 621
31
votes
Temporarily disable WLAN internet access for children, but allow it for adults
Oh yes. The ability to provide a second or "guest" network is a feature of many home WiFi routers. If you ever go into a business and you see two WiFi networks:
JPS-Private
Joes Pizza Shack ...
31
votes
Accepted
I've turned off DHCP on my TP-LINK router and since then I cannot connect to it - is the router broken?? Windows 10
Your computer is set to obtain its IP address automatically. This sends a request over the network to a DHCP server to provide the IP and the gateway. Since you turned off DHCP on your router, your ...
- 73.8k
29
votes
How to force Network Manager to rescan connections?
Try
nmcli device wifi rescan
and
nmcli device wifi list
to see available networks
- 291
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible