We look at your home router and explain the many steps you can take to make sure it is secure.
Check out the latest episode of The Intego Mac Podcast, which I co-host with Josh Long. We talk about Macs and iOS devices, and how to keep them secure.
Writings by Kirk McElhearn
We look at your home router and explain the many steps you can take to make sure it is secure.
Check out the latest episode of The Intego Mac Podcast, which I co-host with Josh Long. We talk about Macs and iOS devices, and how to keep them secure.
An idea for a future show: Talk about VPN, its uses and weaknesses, and its compatibility with Apple OS features. My apologies if you’ve already covered this topic. But here are a couple examples.
If I have wifi turned off on my iPhone (I am connected via cellular only), is there any value in using a VPN service?
If I have wifi turned on on my iPhone and my MacBook Pro, but VPN turned on only on the Mac, I notice that some Apple OS features don’t work. If I take a photo using my iPhone, for example, the photo does not sync to Photos on my Mac. Similarly, changes to Notes do not sync. Safari hand-offs also do not work. If I turn VPN off, all works as expected. It’s as if VPN prevents the two devices from recognising each other. I’m not sure whether these issues relate to something in my device settings or arise simply from the use of a VPN.
Thanks.
An idea for a future show: Talk about VPN, its uses and weaknesses, and its compatibility with Apple OS features. My apologies if you’ve already covered this topic. But here are a couple examples.
If I have wifi turned off on my iPhone (I am connected via cellular only), is there any value in using a VPN service?
If I have wifi turned on on my iPhone and my MacBook Pro, but VPN turned on only on the Mac, I notice that some Apple OS features don’t work. If I take a photo using my iPhone, for example, the photo does not sync to Photos on my Mac. Similarly, changes to Notes do not sync. Safari hand-offs also do not work. If I turn VPN off, all works as expected. It’s as if VPN prevents the two devices from recognising each other. I’m not sure whether these issues relate to something in my device settings or arise simply from the use of a VPN.
Thanks.
Re the Router podcast: I purchased my first “smart home” product recently – a light switch. I’m not yet convinced of the security features built into smart home devices, so I was thinking about connecting the light switch to the password-protected guest wifi network on my home router.
The guest network is a separate wifi network from my regular home wifi network, but both wifi networks emanate from the same ISP-provided router. Strictly from a security perspective, is there any advantage to putting smart home products on the guest wifi network, thus isolating them from my home wifi network?
You could, but then you’d have to switch whatever device you use to control the smart home gizmos to that network any time you want to do anything with them. That seems too complicated.
Re the Router podcast: I purchased my first “smart home” product recently – a light switch. I’m not yet convinced of the security features built into smart home devices, so I was thinking about connecting the light switch to the password-protected guest wifi network on my home router.
The guest network is a separate wifi network from my regular home wifi network, but both wifi networks emanate from the same ISP-provided router. Strictly from a security perspective, is there any advantage to putting smart home products on the guest wifi network, thus isolating them from my home wifi network?
You could, but then you’d have to switch whatever device you use to control the smart home gizmos to that network any time you want to do anything with them. That seems too complicated.