How do I put a password on my router?

Thanks for your help.

 

Well, it probably already has one, all wireless routers have one by default. What you want to do is change it I presume. Depends on the brand, but your manual will tell you how to log in. From there, there will be an option to change the login and password.

 

Usually the log in address is 192.168.1.1.

 

Oh what I meant was like what do I need to do to restrict my wireless access. So neighbors won't be able to connect to my network.

 

You need to set WEP or WPA on it.

This can be done by either going into the network connection under properties, or typing 192.168.1.10x (can be 0, 1, 2, etc. But its more than likely 0.) You type that address into a browsers bar like you would type in to go to a website. If you have a password set on it already, enter it. If not, just hit enter and it shall by pass the username/password box.

Then go under security options, (if you can't find it, all router brands are setup different, just browse around in the menus). You would want to have either WEP, or WPA. I would recommend WPA since it's not as easy to hack into like WEP.

Some other settings to switch would be to enable MAC filtering. And also Disable the SSID broadcast so people can't access your network unless they know the name of it.

 

Which are the first steps I'd take, even before encryption. It's safer if they don't know you exist in the first place.