If you're in the market for a new router, it's time to make some changes. In this article, we'll discuss five settings you should change on your router right now. By doing so, you'll optimize your network and improve your online experience.
5 Router Settings You Should Change Now
There are a few router settings you should change right now in order to improve your internet connection. By optimizing these settings, you'll be able to boost your speed, reduce your ping times, and optimize your network for better performance.
1. Change your router's port forwarding configuration. By default, routers use a limited number of ports for their services. By disabling some ports, you can open up more ports on your router for other programs or devices.
For many of us, after you get your WiFi and router initially set up, you don't think about it again, unless of course it starts acting up. But there are a lot more settings for your router then you're probably aware of, and some of them you might want to change for either security or performance reasons.
I'm going to go over how to actually find these settings, five in particular, and explain why you might want to change them depending on your circumstances. And don't worry about any technical terms. I'll explain everything in a way hopefully everyone can understand.
how to get to router settings
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change router settings
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Now, this will vary slightly depending on your brand of router, but is mostly the same, so just open up your usual web browser and go to the URL bar here. You'll need to enter the default network address of your router, which is in the form of an IP address. The most common ones are going to be either 192-6811 or 192-6801, but there are a few other less common ones I'll just put on the screen here.
If none of these work, try Googling the specific model number of your router plus admin login page, or config IP address, something like that, to find it. In some cases, it might be printed on the bottom or the back of the router, and it may even be like this Netgear one that says routerlogin.net, which redirects to the IP address at 192-1681 one.
So both work. In this example, after you get to the login page, unless it had you change the password when you first set it up, you'll have to get the default login for your router. It might also say it right on the router itself, like it does with this one, where it's just admin as the username and password for the password.
And actually, no matter what router you have, I would just try that first, because it's the most common admin password. If it doesn't tell you on the router itself and the admin password combination doesn't work again, just Google the model number and default admin password to find it.
wireless router settings
Or you can try instead of the model number, the router brand, because each manufacturer usually uses the same login on all their models anyway. So once you're able to log in, we're now ready to talk about the main topic, the actual settings, and starting off with number one, let's just get this one out of the way.
But you've got to change that default password, not the WiFi password, but the one to access that admin page. Imagine, for example, if a virus were to infect one of your computers and your router has the default password, then it could theoretically go in there, change a couple of settings.
and then redirect your entire networks traffic wherever it wants and do who knows what with it. The settings pages are all going to look different across brands and models, but in most consumer routers, there's usually a section somewhere called administration or something similar, so just look for that.
And in this case it's under an advanced tab, and then under administration, it says Set password. And of course, for all of these, you can just consult the official support page for your particular model onto number two.
This one will take a bit of explanation, so bear with me. I do consider it important, and that is a feature called Universal Plug and Play, which is usually abbreviated as UPnP. It's enabled by default on most router these days, but many people in the security industry consider it too much of a security risk to leave enabled.
The feature does serve a legitimate purpose, and the technical explanation is that it allows any program from within your network to open ports on your router's firewall and forward them to your computer.
Now, in regular terms, imagine your internet connection being a highway with a whole bunch of lanes over 600 actually, which are the ports, and the firewall is like a toll booth or checkpoint that allows or blocks all packets of data, which you can think of like cars based on rules.
For the most part, all traffic is allowed to be sent out unless there is some specific block rule for it, but it only lets data in if it's basically a response to something that went out first. That's a simplified explanation, but it's the general idea. And for 99% of programs, this is all that's needed.
router settings
In some cases, though, someone might use a program that needs to receive unsolicited connections, such as actually hosting a game server, doing peer to peer file sharing, stuff like that. In that case, for the program to work properly, it needs to have one of the ports open. So for example, some random player on the internet can request to connect to your server.
For this, one option is to go into the router and manually for the ports to your computer, so the Lane goes directly to your computer and the program can listen to that Lane report. Or the other option is Universal Plug and Play, which lets any program just open whatever ports it needs.
That's fine and dandy until some clever virus or exploit comes along and then is allowed to just open every Port on your router to your computer. Now, your computer should have its own firewall, but presumably the virus or exploit would also be trying to mess with that at the same time. And by the way, this isn't just speculation, there have been several UPnP exploits in the past, so my recommendation is find this setting in your router, disable it, and see if it causes any problems.
I can almost guarantee that you will not notice a difference, but if you do randomly have unexplained connection issues with certain problems, you can always try re enabling it. If you find it is needed for something you use, you can either just keep UPnP enabled, or if you're willing to put in a bit of effort, you could look up the ports used by that program and for them yourself manually.
It's really up to you. Okay, next up is number three, which is your default DNS server. And no, it's not as boring as it sounds. I actually think you'll find this one cool, and it's useful for more than just what you might assume. Initially, DNS stands for Domain Name System, but you don't need to know that.
router firewall
How this works is when you enter a domain name for a website like Youtube.com, your computer needs to get the IP address to connect to it, and the DNS server is the thing, your computer asks to translate a domain name to an IP address for it. It does not route all your traffic through the DNS server.
Your computer just asks it for the website's IP address, and then once it has it, you connect directly to the website you want using that IP address. By default, your router and computer will just use the DNS servers automatically provided by your Internet service provider. However, if you want to get fancy, there are other free DNS providers out there you can choose to use that may be significantly faster than your ISPs or have additional features such as malicious domain blocking.
For example, even Google provides a public DNS server anyone can use. These DNS settings might be under something called Network Settings, Internet Settings, or maybe Advanced Settings, but again, it's going to vary, so you'll just have to find it yourself. But it will be in there.
Regardless, though, you'll almost
always be given two settings, the primary and secondary DNS servers, both of
which the DNS provider will tell you. One example, like I mentioned is Google's
DNS, which is known to be pretty fast, and the IPS for those primary and
secondary are eight, eight, eight and 8844.
Another one I like is Cloudflare's DNS, the default of which is one one and 10 one. But they also have other options, like a malware domain blocking one, and even one for blocking malware and adult content for those with kids.
The malware blocking isn't a guarantee, obviously, and again only blocks malicious domains. It's not like it can scan your traffic and see what you're downloading, but it's a nice extra layer. As a side note, you can also change the DNS settings for your individual devices instead of the whole network on your router.
All right, on to number four. We have the WiFi channel width. What does that mean? Basically, a certain range of frequencies is allocated to be used by WiFi, and this range is split up into smaller ranges called channels. The default size of these channels is either 20 MHz or 40 MHz, depending on whether you're using the 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz band, which is what is meant when a router says it's dual band.
FAQs
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Conclusion
here are five router settings you should change now:
1. Change the DNS servers to your provider’s recommended servers.
2. Disable automatic updates and install only the security patches that are issued.
3. Configure your router to use a static IP address.
4. Disable anonymous browsing and enable encrypted connections only if you need them.
5. Secure your home network with a password and make sure everyone knows it.