Routers today are more powerful than before and that it reaches your neighbour’s home is no surprise. But if you have noticed that your internet has been slow lately then there it is a high chance that your neighbour is using your WiFi for streaming Netflix (on HD). But don’t worry because in this post I will show you how to how to check if someone is using your WiFi and how to block them.
Method 1: Using apps and software’s
There are a lot of apps and software’s available which can show you how many and which devices are connected to your wifi network.
For android phones:
Who is on my WiFi is the best app which will help you detect and block unauthorized users from your wifi.
It is only 5.5MB and has over 1 million downloads.
Also Read: How to Boost WiFi Signal on Windows
For iOS users:
Fing – Network Scanner an iOS app that allows you to see all the connected devices, their operating systems and the nature of their connection, MAC address and many more parameters.
You can also run WiFi and cellular internet speed tests, download speed and upload speed and do analysis and check their latencies.
If you have kids then you can also set parental control features to schedule screen time and pause internet access.
For Desktop users:
1.) Wireless Network Watcher is one of the best network analyzer software that requires no setting up of IP address ranges and starts scanning your main network adapter automatically for connected devices.
Once it scans the IP addresses on your WiFi network (which it does very fast) you will get information like IP address, device name, MAC address, device manufacturer, and detection count.
2.) SoftPerfect WiFi Guard is another best tool for detecting unknown and unauthorized network connections on your WiFi. This tool rescans after every X minutes and pops up a message whenever an unknown connection has been found. The timer for rescanning is between 0 to 60 minutes.
You can remove a device from popping up continuously by double-clicking on the device and selecting the “I know this computer or device” box, that will tell the software to ignore the device the next time it scans for unauthorized devices.
Method 2: Log into your router’s admin panel
First press Win+R then type cmd if you are on Windows PC and then typing ipconfig in the window and press Enter. Copy the number next to IPv4 Address.
Now open your browser and copy that IP address in the URL. Now login into your router settings by typing the appropriate username and password.
If you can’t perform the above steps then flip over your router and find the link, username, and password.
Enter all the login details and login to the admin panel.
Once you have logged into the admin panel you will have to find the tab where you can see all the MAC (Media Access Control) addresses of the devices connected to your PC.
Since I use TP-Link I can view the MAC addresses by going into Wireless Statistics option under the Wireless tab. Now you will see all those devices that are connected to your WiFi.
Suppose you have only 3 mobile phones in your home and see 4 MAC addresses then somebody is surely stealing your internet bandwidth.
How to block someone using my wifi?
One of the ways you can use to block someone from using your wifi is by simply changing the password of your WiFi. To do this login into your router’s admin dashboard and under the Wireless Security tab, you can easily change the password of your WiFi. Make sure you enter a strong and robust password that cannot be easily guessed by.
All those devices which were previously logged in will be logged out and they will have to enter the new password to log back in.
Conclusion:
Now I hope you know how to stop someone from using your Wifi and block them as well.
