#MEDIALINK ROUTER SETTINGS SOFTWARE#

D-Link: Select Setup and Wireless Settings from the menus.You’ll need to do this for both 2.4GHz and 5 GHz.

Linksys: Select Wireless and Basic Wireless Settings from the menus.

On other routers, follow the procedure below for the router that matches yours. The procedure to do this varies from router to router. (On older Netgear routers, this may be Enable Wireless Router Radio). On other Netgear routers, you may find this in the Advanced tab, by selecting Wireless settings and unchecking Enable SSID Broadcast.

You’ll need to select Apply at the top of the page for the changes to take effect.

#MEDIALINK ROUTER SETTINGS SOFTWARE#

One example of a free software application that lets you see whether there are any nearby “hidden” networks is NetSpot. Hint: Enabling Wi-Fi encryption can help protect against this kind of unwanted interception of packets.ĭifferent monitoring applications have different levels of capability. When the disabled-SSID network responds to any requests, those responses include the network SSID name. It can also connect to the network by either attempting an initial connection to obtain SSID, or intercepting packets to and from other clients. The software can “see” those management packets and identifies available networks that way, rather than by SSID. There are free and paid software packages anyone can get that can not only see Wi-Fi networks that have no SSID, but they can also identify the SSID fairly easily. The routers send this out regardless of whether or not they’re transmitting an SSID for the network.

The 802.11 standard for wireless networks requires the router managing the wireless network to send out “management beacon packets” that provide basic information about the Wi-Fi network. How People Can See Networks With Disabled SSID If blocking access to your network is what you really want to do, stop here and read our guide on preventing someone else from using your Wi-Fi network. This doesn’t mean the network is inaccessible, it just means the identifier isn’t broadcast. This only happens because when you disable SSID broadcast, the SSID name changes to NULL, which will not show up in any list of available networks.

Medialink router settings