12 Downloads to Make Your Wi-Fi Life Easier and Fun

Preston Gralla, PC World

Monday, May 19, 2008 10:00 PM PDT
Increasingly, the world is becoming wireless. At home, at work, and on the road, you'll often connect to Wi-Fi networks and hotspots for Internet access. But doing so isn't always simple. You can use some assistance in finding and connecting to hotspots and networks, making sure that you don't link to any that are dangerous, and protecting yourself when you do connect.

We've found a dozen downloads to make your Wi-Fi life easier. Among other things, they'll help you locate and connect to networks, enable you to set up a virtual private network for staying safe when you're connected, let you switch between networks with ease, and even allow you to do some social networking via Wi-Fi.

Note that many of these programs require that your firewall allow them through, so you may receive notifications from your firewall asking whether to block them. Make sure to tell the firewall not to block. Also, some of them install special drivers, so it's a good idea to set up a Restore Point before installing, so you can revert to a previous state if you run into trouble.

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