Six Critical Router Security Settings You Should Enable Today

Did you know that your router has many useful security features you aren’t probably using? Read this article to discover the key settings that should be enabled the minute you purchase and install a brand new router.

The settings below should be enabled on older routers as well, of course. Especially after you’ve updated their firmware to the latest version, which may have fixed lots of security problems.

Of course, if your router is ancient (as in “more than five years old”) you should consider the option of replacing it with a newer model.

So here’s what you need to do to get the maximum security benefits out of your router.

1. Activate WPA2

WPA2 is the latest and greatest security standard. It’s not impenetrable, of course, but it will keep most villains at bay. If you’re using an older protocol, you are practically inviting hackers into your home network.

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You may have heard that WPA is secure enough, but very few people know that WPA uses an insecure stream cipher, which is a part of the very weak WPE protocol. It is true that WPA provides an extra security layer by making use of TKIP, but you want to have a Wi-Fi network that’s as secure as possible, right?

2. Set up a guest network

I know, your visitors want to connect to your Wi-Fi network. Maybe they’re kids and their parents haven’t bought them a cell phone plan that includes Internet access yet.

But if you give your Wi-Fi password away, you’ll either have to live with the idea that you’ve opened your network to hackers, or you’ll have to change the Wi-Fi access password, and then update the password on all your devices.

Fortunately, modern routers allow you to fix this problem easily, by setting up a guest network, a separate Wi-Fi network that will only work for guests. To keep your network 100% secure, you should change the guest network password the minute your guests are out of the door, of course.

3. Diminish the Wi-Fi router power

According to Data Alliance, this step alone can prevent over 90% of the attacks on your network. And their affirmation holds water indeed, because if hackers can’t receive your Wi-Fi signal, they won’t be able to connect to your network.

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Some routers even have switches that can set low, medium and high router power signals. Others have this option built into the router’s admin page. No matter how it is implemented, you should only set a signal level that’s enough for all the devices in your home, but can’t be picked up by people outside your house.

4. Activate the router firewall

Newer routers also include a powerful, built-in firewall that can block unwanted Internet traffic in your network. You can also set the applications and processes on your computer that are allowed to access the Internet, of course.

5. Turn on parental controls

Many responsible parents purchase parental control software, but it’s good to know that your router may include this feature as well.

In fact, some clever router manufacturers have even partnered with content filtering providers, thus managing to keep malware and adult content at bay.

6. Enable time-based restrictions

Most people leave their Wi-Fi network active 24 hours a day. Don’t be like them; set up a schedule that gives you access to the Internet when you need it, and shuts down your network while you are sleeping and when you are at work, for example.

As an added bonus, if you do this you’ll prevent your kids from browsing the Internet late in the night.

I hope that you like these tips. It won’t cost you a dime to implement them, and the entire process shouldn’t take you more than 10…20 minutes. So go and make these changes right now; I guarantee that the security of your Wi-Fi network will significantly improve.

 

Best Free Disk Partitioning Applications

Windows includes some options that allow you to create and delete partitions, but that’s pretty much it when it comes to Microsoft’s disk management features. Fortunately, there are several free applications that go way beyond that. Here are my favorites.

 

EaseUS Partition Master Free claims to have over 30 million users, and the newest version can run on computers using Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 and 10.

In fact, Partition Master Free consists of three different tools: a Partition Manager, a Disk & Partition Copy Wizard and a Partition Recovery Wizard.

Resizing a partition is as easy as dragging a slider to the left or right, an operation that will shrink or expand the desired partition.

easeus-partition-master-free

But what if you’ve made a change by mistake, and now you’d like to undo it? Fortunately, Partition Master Free has got you covered. It will show you what’s supposed to happen with your hard drive, but it won’t make any changes to it until you hit the “Apply” button.

You can also use this application to hide some partitions, copy the Windows installation to a larger drive, merge partitions, and even defragment a drive. Please note that SSD drives don’t need to be defragmented, though; this operation will only shorten their life.

EaseUS will try to make you purchase the professional version of their product, of course. Install the program and you will soon find out that some options are not available in Partition Master Free. Still, you are getting a lot of value without paying a dime, so EaseUS Partition Master Free definitely deserves a place in my top free disk partitioning applications list.

 

GParted aka the GNOME Partition Editor, is another 100% free disk management application. It allows you to resize, copy and move hard disk partitions, and it even helps you rescue data from lost partitions!

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GParted works with most of the known file systems, including ext2, ext3, ext4, fat16, fat32, hfs, hfs+, linux-sway, ntfs, ufs, and more. It can run on computers using Linux, Windows or Mac OS X.

The program runs from either a bootable disc or a USB device. Just like with Partition Master Free, you can set the new partition size by dragging a slider, but changes aren’t applied until you OK them.

 

Paragon Partition Manager Free is an elegant, easy to use disk management application. The not so good news is that it only claims to have full Windows 8.1 support, and this may worry some of you, who have computers running Windows 10.

But the good news is that I’ve successfully used it on Windows 10, and it will probably work fine for you as well. Still, don’t blame it on me if something goes wrong with the free version of the application.

Truth be told, I own the professional version, and that one has full Windows 10 support as well. Just like any other business, Paragon is trying to convince people to buy its products, rather than use them for free.

Still, even the free version offers a lot. Each partitioning operation is presented as a step-by-step process, helping you understand what’s happening at all times.

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The good news is that Paragon runs promotions regularly – that’s how I’ve gotten their Partition Manager Professional version at a 50% discount, for example.