How To Protect Your WiFi Network

Wi-Fi Network is one of the commonest entry-point for hackers and they can use it to get inside your network and steal your data without you having any idea about it and the bad thing about it that all of this can be done wirelessly and the hacker won’t even have to do anything physically to steal your data. Everyone secure their Wi-Fi network using a passphrase, but there is a lot more to securing your Wi-Fi Network than just setting a simple passphrase. Even with a simple passphrase, the can gain access to your network.

How To Protect Your WiFi Network?

You should try to make your Wi-Fi Network even more secure so, that it impedes the entry of the hackers. Here are a few tips that will help you in protecting your Wi-Fi Network:

Using a strong and complex passphrase

A common mistake that most people make is that when they set up a new router, then by default it already has a passphrase set and they don’t bother to change. This can cause trouble for them as default passphrases can easily be guessed by the hacking tools and hence hackers are able to gain access into your wireless network.

You should set such a strong and complex passphrase as the password for your Wi-Fi Network that contains alphabets, digits, and special characters. These complex passphrases aren’t easily crackable and hence your Wi-Fi network remains secure.

Changing the SSID

SSID, in layman terms, is the name of your Wi-Fi Networks. It can tell what kind of person owns a Wi-Fi network. If the SSID of the wireless network is simple like TP-Link or any other default name, then it means that user doesn’t have much knowledge about how things work and it makes it easier for hackers to figure out the best way to attack your network.

You should change the SSID of the wireless network to something custom and if possible then hide your wireless network by turning off the Wireless Broadcasting. This will require you or anyone else to connect to the network manually by entering the proper credentials, but it will impede the entry of the hackers.

Setting up a Guest Network

A guest network is meant for the purpose to make your Wi-Fi network secure. By creating a guest network, you give the internet access to the guests, but it has an advantage that the guest users won’t know the passphrase of your wireless network and if there was something to affect the device of the guest users then it won’t be able to cross the barrier and affect your Wi-Fi network.

Also, if their device was to get compromised then no data will accessible through the guest network and a passphrase can be set up on the guest network to make it even more secure.

Setting up a Firewall

A firewall is a barrier that controls the traffic going in and out of your network. A firewall can be set up on both the level of the wireless router (hardware) and also on the level on your PC (software). A firewall on your wireless router will regulate all types of incoming and outgoing traffic. It will block all the traffic that it considers as harmful or bad for your network.

Firewalls use packet filtering and filter the packets of the data by looking at the header of the packets. The information between the incoming packet and pre-defined rules is compared and governed whether it is to be allowed or discarded.

You can set up a firewall on your router and then configure it according to the level of security that you need. By default, the firewall is set on a moderate level of security.

Setting up MAC Filtering

MAC Filtering is another way by which you can protect your Wi-Fi Network. It is a feature that is found in most of the Wi-Fi routers nowadays. The basic principle of MAC FIltering is to filter out the devices on the basis of their MAC Address. Once you filter out the devices on the basis of their MAC Address, only the whitelisted devices will be able to connect your Wi-Fi Network, others will be blocked from doing so.

Top 10 Most Downloaded PC Software

We have created a list of the best and the most downloaded PC Softwares of all time. These are some of the best softwares that you can use on your PC. All of the softwares included in this list are free to use and don’t have restrictions after the trial period finishes.

CCleaner

CCleaner is one of the most important utilities required for your PC to run optimally. It can clean unused, temporary and unnecessary files off your hard disk and the best thing is that its free version has all the features that you will need to clean any unnecessary files of your PC. It is relatively easy to use and lets you choose a few options to control what you want to remove.

WinRAR

WinRAR is another software that is downloaded for PCs millions of times. It is free software that lets you unpack and extract different archived files, supporting different formats including RAR, ZIP, CAB, ARJ, LZH, TAR, GZip, UUE, ISO, BZIP2, Z, and 7-Zip. Even after the trial expires, you will still be able to use WinRAR without any difficulty.

Google Chrome

Since its debut, Google Chrome has been dominating the browser market because it is easy to use, fast, secure, highly adaptable, and cross-platform compatible. It is better and faster than most of the browsers out there and most of the websites recommend that their users browse their website on Google Chrome.

Irfan View

IrfanView is one of the best choices for free image viewer and editor. It is free software that is easy to use and navigate, supports all major formats, including BMP, DIB, JPEG, GIF, animated GIF, WEBP, PNG, PCX, multipage TIFF, and TGA. As far as the editing goes, it has a lot of different options available to edit your photos including batch conversion, color depth, crop, blur, and sharpen, etc.

Tor Browser

Tor or The Onion Router Browser is one of the most used softwares to surf anonymously. It provides a secure and anonymous connection, protecting you from any trackers and hackers. It routes your connection through multiple layers of security, making it almost impossible to find from where your data is coming from. A downside is that the browsing on Tor Browser can be really slow, but privacy and security come with a price.

VLC Media Player

VLC Media Player is probably the most downloaded media player, because not only it is free & open source but it is also one of the best media players out there, supporting almost every video format with almost no crashes, cross-platform support, and also supports DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.

uTorrent

uTorrent is the most widely used free torrent client that is fast, equitable and efficient. It is probably the best torrent client that has a lot of different features to offer including scheduling, bandwidth prioritization, RSS auto-downloading and compatibility with BitComet-Mainline DHT. UTorrent also supports peer exchange and Protocol Encryption. Unlike other torrent clients, uTorrent doesn’t take much of the RAM and runs on very low RAM, conserving the memory of your PC.

FileZilla

FileZilla is currently the best FTP client available in the market. Not only is it free, but it is cross-platform available and highly customizable. It has all the features that you would need in an FTP client including encryption and flexible file transferring.

Google Photos

Google Photos (formerly Picassa) is another software that is very popular across all the platforms. It is pre-installed on all the Android devices and has been very popular on other platforms including PC. You can manage, sync and backup your photos from different devices using Google Photos.

Internet Download Manager

It is important that you have a decent download manager on your PC and IDM or Internet Download Manager is just the tool that you need. Internet Download Manager is a tool using which you can download Internet files with comfort and speed. You can download multiple files at once with the ability to pause or resume downloads with a single click and also resume the downloading of the files that were interrupted due to some reason. IDM takes over the downloads from web browser and lets you download files through its simple interface.

10 Productivity Tools for Programmers

For Programmers and Developers, getting distracted and procrastinating is a common thing because when they are coding and programming then they get bored and every other thing seems to interest them. They also get lazy and don’t complete their daily tasks. For programmers to stay productive, we have created a list of 10 Productivity Tools for Programmers.

1. Habitica

Habitica is an app that acts as an RPG game where you can progress and level up by completing your daily tasks. As you progress forward by completing your tasks, you find different pets, equipment, and coins, a way to motivate you to keep moving forward.

After you create your account and sign in, you will have to create your character and indicate:

  • Daily Tasks
  • To-Dos
  • Habits

If you are unable to complete a task in a given time frame, your character suffers and for group projects, you can try Habitica’s guilds and group quests.

2. Clockify

For programmers, it is important to keep a track of their time and Clockify is just the program that will help programmers to track the time that they spend on different projects and then get data that shows how productive you were during a certain time (weekly, monthly or yearly).

The app is relatively easy to use and you just have to type in the project that you are working and then start the time. Once you have completed the project, you can click on the end button and it will be added to your time entries.

3. F.lux

F.lux is a program that adjusts and changes the color and temperature of your display according to your location and time which helps your eyes to rest and make sure that you can work comfortably. As the program detects the sunset is near, it changes the tone of the display to a warmer version and when the sunrise is near then the colors return to their usual settings. You can change the settings of the program as you like and change them accordingly.

4. The Silver Searcher

For programmers, searching for a specific code can be both time-consuming and interruptive, therefore, they can save a significant amount of time with the Silver Searcher.

The Silver Searcher is a  code-searching tool, one of the fastest. It saves your time and can search for the codes that you are looking for, much faster than any other program.

5. Intellij IDEA

Intellij IDEA is a Java IDE that has a lot of different functions that will help you in coding across various frameworks and languages. If you run across any code issue or error then it provides the users with suggestions and fixes for code errors. To save time, it offers smart code completion, which occurs after the system analyzes your already finished work.

You can also use Intellij IDEA to analyze your code across different projects and languages to find any kind of connection between them.

6. Rainy Mood

Rainy Mood is an online platform that runs endless sounds of falling rain and thunder.

The sound of falling rain can be soothing for many people and to avoid any disturbance and listening to unnecessary things, one can use the headphones and listen to this for as long as they want to.

7. MantisBT

MantisBT is a bug tracking system that tracks the defects in the softwares and then report them. The program can also be configured to work as a project management tool. When the software detects any issue then it can send updates to the members of your team via email so, everyone gets notified. It also records the changes made to issues, so you can easily track the changes.

8. Git

Git is a program that is used to track any changes made in the files on your PC. It is used mainly for the purpose of source code management.

This is meant usually for a team of developers and each member of the developer team gets a copy of the development history, documents and copies of all the changes made. Instead of functioning over the internet, it works locally providing speed and saving your time.

9. Focusmate

Developers and programmers are always prone to procrastinating because during code they get bored and distracted. Focusmate is a community of different programmers where you are assigned with a random partner who reminds you and makes sure that you do your tasks.

As you create an account and sign in, you will have to set a time for a session. You will be connected with your partner and tell him about your daily tasks. Both of you can then work and also motivate the other one to do the same.

10. Sublime Text

Developers and programmers that are looking for productivity must work in a good coding program. Sublime Text is a code editor that supports various markup and program languages and is also a good choice for a code editor.

The program runs relatively fast and has a clean, simple and enjoyable interface. It lets you navigate through lines and files, make changes to different areas of the code, simultaneously. It also has a distraction-free mode, a full-screen editor, with all UI chrome features hidden.