Have you
ever been in a situation where you have no W-Fi router, just one network
cable and five people who need to use the Internet? Or maybe you have a
3G dongle that works with your laptop, but leaves your Wi-Fi-only
tablet offline. Sounds familiar? It would certainly be handy to share
the Internet connection amongst all users and devices without a router,
right?
Or maybe this scenario will ring a bell. Many hotels offer
wired Internet access for free, but charge you for Wi-Fi and/ or for
using the Internet on more than one device. So should you just pay the
crazy amount they ask for? Not necessarily.
You can share your
laptop or desktop Internet connection via Wi-Fi to other devices, and
for the most part, it's quite simple. Mac users face no trouble at all,
as setting up Internet sharing in OS X is just a couple of click away,
but for Windows users the process can be a little bit more laboured. The
built-in options don't always cut it due to the complicated setup and
reliability problems.
Internet sharing on Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 8.1
Thankfully,
there are quite a few apps that let you use your machine as a Wi-Fi
hotspot. Before you use any of these apps, you may want to check the
steps on
Microsoft's site
to see Windows' built-in Internet sharing and see if you have better
luck than we did. We do recommend that you skip that and use a
third-party app instead, since the experience is usually much better.
We
tested some popular apps that let you do this - Connectify and Virtual
Router Plus. The latter didn't work very well for us. Our anti-virus
flagged it as a threat and during installation it tried to make us
install unwanted software.
We didn't have the same issues with
Connectify. It is a reliable app for turning your computer into a Wi-Fi
hotspot. Before you proceed, know that you will need a Windows PC with a
Wi-Fi adapter (or built-in Wi-Fi) to make this work. If your computer
does not have Wi-Fi, then you can buy one that connects via USB, such as
this one.
Here are the steps to setup your Windows machine as a Wi-Fi hotspot:
1. Download
Connectify and install it. The installation is pretty straightforward and when installation is complete, restart your computer.
2. After restarting the computer, check whether it is connected to the Internet. If it is, run the
Connectify Hotspot app.
3. You'll see two tabs in the app -
Settings and
Clients. In the
Settings tab, under "Create a..." click Wi-Fi Hotspot.
4. Under
Internet to Share,
you'll see a drop-down menu. Expand it and select the connection you
want to share. We tested this app with a wired and a wireless connection
and found that it worked perfectly with both.
5. Under that, you'll see some more options. Add a Wi-Fi password. Click
Start Hotspot.
That's
all you need to do. Now other devices will detect a Wi-Fi network
labelled Connectify-me. Key in the password and you're good to go.
Connectify
is a paid app, but it has a stripped down free version. You can create a
hotspot with the free version, but the main limitation is that it
automatically disconnects every 30 minutes and shows pop-ups asking you
to buy the pro version. You'll have to re-enable the hotspot manually to
start using it again.
The Pro version has more features and costs
$25 (Rs. 1,550) for a year and $40 (Rs. 2,450) for a full licence.
Apart from unlimited hotspot uptime, you get features such as custom
hotspot naming, the ability to share Internet from 3G and 4G networks
(for sharing USB Internet dongles), and advanced firewall controls
(choose which devices can access Internet and personal files on your
LAN).
Internet Sharing on OS X
Mac users have it a lot easier. Here's how to share your Mac's Internet connection.
1. Open
System Preferences >
Sharing > check
Internet Sharing on the left.
2. On the right, expand the drop-down menu next to
Share your connection from:
and select the connection you want to share. You can share Internet
connections from Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or even iPhone USB.
Typically, you'd want to select
Ethernet,
if you are using a wired Internet connection iMac, Mac Pro, or MacBook
Pro. If you are using an external Ethernet adapter with a MacBook Air,
you'll want to select
USB Ethernet or
Thunderbolt Ethernet, depending upon the kind of dongle you are using (usually it's USB).
3. Just below that, there's a box next to
To computers using: where you should check the box next to
Wi-Fi.
4. Click the Wi-Fi Options button below the box. Pick a
Network Name,
Security Type and enter the password twice in fields named
Password and
Verify. We strongly recommend you choose a password, instead of leaving the Security option has None. You can leave
Channel as the default value unless you know what you are doing. Click OK.
5. If the connection is active, you'll see a green icon and text Internet Sharing: On under System Preferences.
That's
all. You'll be able to use the Internet on other devices now by
connecting to the network you specified under Network Name.
That
is how you turn your PC or Mac into a Wi-Fi hotspot. Are there any other
ways that you used to get this done? Let us know via the comments. As
always, you can read more tutorials in our
How To section.
