Why You Need a Router

ZyrrahXD asked the Networking forum about the best way to split a home Net connection between multiple computers.

You need an inexpensive device called a router. This is basically a box that goes 'tween your DSL or cable modem and totally of your Internet devices (computers, HDTV, and so happening). The router shares the Internet sign between the multiple devices.

Hera's how it works:

Every device on the Net needs a specific IP address. Your ISP provides you with one, allowing one device to access the Cyberspace. A router will accession the Internet through that IP address, then provide local IP addresses–not overt on the Internet–for the PCs and other devices connected to information technology. This allows you to access code the Internet from multiple computers through one connection.

That agreement has another reward. Because your computer's local IP come up to isn't visible to the Net, it's not visible to criminals, either, giving you another layer of defense.

A typical router

has iv or five ethernet ports, one of which is dedicated for conjunctive to the modem. You can plug computers or other devices into the others. In increase, most routers pass WiFi, allowing you to connect devices without a forceful cable. This lets you take a laptop computer into another elbow room and still have Internet approach.

One thing about a wireless connectedness: It has to be secure. Pick up Do I Have a Freeloader happening my WiFi? for more on this.

Routers not only share the Cyberspace connection; they also put your computers onto a local meshwork, so you can share files and printers between them.

Read the original forum treatment.

Contributing Editor Lincoln Spector writes near technology and cinema. Email your technical school questions to him at answer@pcworld.com , or post them to a profession of helpful folks on the PCW Resolution Line forum . Follow Lincoln on Twitter , or subscribe to the Answer Ancestry newssheet , e-mailed weekly.