How to See Who's On Your Wi-FiSee Who's On Your Network
These two apps can help you identify devices using your Wi-Fi connection and stop others from using
Windows detection agent for WhoFi Analytics available within subscription login. Running the software on a Windows computer will show all devices on a network and send this information to analytics service for detailed visitor metrics. Jul 03, 2018 Who Is On My WiFi. To use Who's On My WiFi, launch the program and choose 'Yes, set up continuous automatic scanning' from the popup.
Is your internet moving a little slower than usual? Are you seeing hints of devices you don't recognize in Windows Explorer, or when you cast media to your TV? If you suspect a neighbor is stealing your Wi-Fi, here's how to check (and boot them off).
'So someone's watching Netflix on my internet,' you may say. 'What's the big deal?' Even if you have a little bandwidth to spare, you probably don't want other people on your network, especially if it's unsecured. If someone has access to your network, they have access to all the computers on that network, and that's dangerous. They could access files you're unknowingly sharing, they could infect you with malware, and in certain situations they could even steal your passwords and other personal information.
As a result, you should take care to make sure each device connected to your network is one you can trust. Thankfully, there are free tools that'll help you see everyone on your Wi-Fi right now.
This article originally appeared on PCMag.com.
See Who's On Your Network
Windows users can download a free, portable program called Wireless Network Watcher (scroll down to the Zip download link below 'Feedback' to get it), and Mac users can download a free, slightly more complex program called Who Is On My WiFi from the Mac App Store. Both tools will provide a list of every device currently connected to your network, so you can identify the ones that belong to you.
Wireless Network Watcher
To use Wireless Network Watcher, just launch the program, and it will immediately begin scanning your network. This will take a minute or two—you'll know it's working if the bottom-left corner reads 'Scanning.' Once it's done, that message will disappear, and you'll be presented with a full list of connected devices.
Find Users
The resulting list may look a little cryptic, especially if you aren't super tech-savvy, but don't worry. You can ignore the IP address and MAC address listings for now. If you're using Wireless Network Watcher, just focus on the 'Device Name' and 'Network Adapter Company' columns.
For example, I see an item named 'Dulce' in Wireless Network Watcher, which is the name of my wife's MacBook. I see another with no name, but with 'Philips Lighting BV' as the network adapter manufacturer, which means it's probably the hub for my Philips Hue lights. You can double-click on a device to add 'User Text' that helps you identify each device, which will help you narrow down all the items in this list.
Who Is On My WiFi
To use Who's On My WiFi, launch the program and choose 'Yes, set up continuous automatic scanning' from the popup. Click Proceed on the next window, and the app will begin scanning your network for devices. You'll see the 'Scanning' message in the upper-right-hand corner when it's working, so just give it a minute to do its thing.
Find Users
If you're using Who Is On My WiFi, the 'Description' column and the 'Manufacturer' name that appears in the right pane when you click on an item is what you need. These two values will clue you in to what each device is.
In Who Is On My WiFi, you can't give custom names, but you can give the device a label like 'Desktop' or 'Tablet' and mark it as 'Known.' Go through the list and mark all the items that are familiar to you.
Get a Second Opinion
If you're lucky, you'll be able to recognize all the items on that list, but there may be a few that don't have enough information. After going through my list, for example, I was left with a couple devices that listed no name and no manufacturer. However, I was able to get a little more information from my router's web interface.
Open your router's management page by typing its IP address in your browser's address bar. (If you've never done this before, you can read more about how to do it here). Assetto corsa tech demo crack. Once there, look for an option that sounds like 'Attached Devices' or 'Client List.' This will present you with a similar list as Wireless Network Watcher, but the information may be slightly different. After cross-referencing the unknown devices between the two, I found one of them was listed as 'AzureWave Technology, Inc' in my router's interface, but not Wireless Network Watcher. A little Googling revealed that this was my Rachio sprinkler system, so I was able to mark that down and move on.
Eliminate Alternatives
If you see any other unlabeled devices in the list, check around your house for any internet-connected gadgets you might have missed. I realized that my Amazon Echo wasn’t listed, so after checking the Alexa app on my phone, I was able to match its MAC address to one of the unlabeled items in Wireless Network Watcher.
If all goes well, you should be able to identify every device on your network. If there are any left over, and you’ve combed your house looking for other internet-connected devices and found nothing, there’s a chance someone nearby may be using your Wi-Fi.
Beef Up Your Network Security
Even if you discover that a neighbor is stealing your Wi-Fi, you don't need to hunt them down and start a fuss—you can just kick them off with a change in router security. Head back to your router's web interface and find the option to change your password (usually under the 'Wireless' section somewhere). Napoleon civil war mod. If you don't have a password, you absolutely need to start using one, and it needs to be strong. Without a password, your personal information is up for grabs to any amateur hacker that drives by. Choose WPA2 for the password type, since it's far more difficult to crack than the now-outdated WEP.
If WPS is turned on, you should turn it off, since this feature makes it easier for people to crack your Wi-Fi password. (If you want to let guests on your Wi-Fi without giving them access to your devices and information, you can always enable your router's guest network.)
If you already had a password—maybe it was weak and easy for your neighbors to guess—changing it to something new should be sufficient to kick them off. Of course, you'll also have to re-authenticate all of your devices, but you should be able to rest a little easier knowing that all the devices on your network belong to you.
WiFi technology is everywhere these days and it seems almost every electronic device around has a wireless network connection of some sort. Laptops, tablets, smartphones, digital cameras, printers, gaming consoles, smart home devices, and many other things can connect to each other or the internet through a WiFi connection. A wireless network setup also presents its own set of problems when it comes to your own home network and the devices attached to it.
Setting up your own WiFi network with adequate protection like WPA2 and a strong password is vital. But that still doesn’t mean other people aren’t using your network without your knowledge. It’s possible friends, neighbors, or family members have shared the WiFi credentials with others and people you don’t know could have access to your network and your shared files. While many routers have additional security measures such as MAC address filtering, these might not be configured or someone has circumvented them.
A lot of modern routers will give you a list of the wired and wireless devices making a connection to the network, but some do not and some people wouldn’t actually know how to find that information. Another simple way is using a tool to get the list of connected devices, here’s 7 for you to try out. Jabra biz 620 drivers for mac.
1. Wireless Network Watcher
Wireless Network Watcher is another one of Nirsoft’s small and useful tools that does what it’s supposed to very well. The good thing is it requires no setting up of IP address ranges and starts scanning your main network adapter automatically for connected devices. If you wish to scan a different adapter or a custom IP address range, use the Advanced Options by pressing F9.
Scanning the IP range is fast and only takes a few seconds, after which you get information like IP address, device name, MAC address, adapter manufacturer, detection count, and activity state. The “User Text” column can be used to enter your own custom message or label to help with identification. Double click the entry to add your own text.
While Wireless Network Watcher is open, a background scan continuously looks through the IP range to detect new and disconnected devices. You can set a tray balloon and audio warning when devices are detected or disconnected. Turn on “Put Icon on Tray” to enable tray notifications. The background scan interval can be set from the Advanced Options window (F9). A portable or installer version is available.
Download Wireless Network Watcher
2. Fing Desktop
Fing Desktop is the PC and Mac version of the popular Fing mobile app. A drawback with Fing is you have to create a free online account but temporary email services do work. The installer is also a sizeable 70MB+. Once you have created your Fing account, installed the software, and connected the two together, click on Scan for devices in the “Your current network” section of the Home window.
Fing has the best device identification system we’ve seen to try and detect what’s on the network. The details column will likely already show an accurate description, the type and class of device, and even the operating system of a remote device. If it doesn’t, click on a device in the list. You’ll get a whole page of information about the connected device, the option to manually edit the name, and a recognize button.
With recognize, you can manually search for and find the right name from an internal database. You can even use a QR code or a local web address to help identify connected devices. Fing is more likely than any other program to help correctly identify tricky or unknown devices. Using the “See insights” button shows everything as categories like brand names, product types, used operating systems, and smart home.
Download Fing Desktop
3. SoftPerfect WiFi Guard
WiFi Guard is like a more basic version of SoftPerfect Network Scanner that is more suited for detecting unknown or unauthorized network connections. Ing bittorrent. It will scan your network for connected devices and rescan every xx minutes, popping up a message if a new unknown connection has been found. Softperfect made many of their tools shareware only a few years ago, this is the last free version of WiFi Guard from 2017.
If you have more than one active network adapter the program will pop up the settings window on launch to select the adapter you want to scan. Otherwise, you will be taken to the main window where pressing Scan Now will detect all devices connected to the network.
For every red marked connection you know is authorized, double click on it and tick the “I know this computer or device” box, that will tell the program the device is known and to ignore it on scans. While running or minimized, WiFi Guard will rescan between 0 and 60 minutes (default is 30 mins) and popup a message on screen if a new unknown device has been detected.
Download Softperfect WiFi Guard
4. GlassWire
GlassWire is a very well known piece of software that is part firewall, part network activity monitor, and part network usage monitor. It’s also a very visually appealing program with a great looking user interface. Another feature it has is being able to scan the network and list connected devices while notifying you about their activity.
Once you install GlassWire, you don’t have to set anything up to see the connected WiFi and ethernet devices. Just press on Things at the top of the window and the list will be shown. There is information for IP address, MAC address, first seen time, and the network adapter manufacturer. Hover over the name and a small box will appear to the right where you can enter a more recognizable name or label.
GlassWire can scan for devices every xx minutes. Enable the “Things scan interval” and adjust the time in Settings > General. There’s also an option to show desktop notifications when devices are joining or leaving the network, or when new unknown devices connect. Go to Settings > Security, click the Unlock button, click on “Things Monitor” and set the notification to what you want.
Download GlassWire
5. Advanced IP Scanner
This is an all round network administration tool that can do a number of tasks in addition to scanning your network for connections. There’s also remote options to Wake-on-LAN and shutdown, connect via HTTP/FTP as well as remote control with Remote Desktop and Radmin. Of course, those features are handy but unnecessary for simply scanning your network for wireless connections.
By default Advanced IP Scanner will set the address ranges for all connections on the computer, only the range that the WiFi connections are likely to be on will need to be scanned, such as 192.168.0.1 – 254. If you only have one active connection, there’s no need to touch the IP range.
After the scan, all connections will show along with the wireless device manufacturer, MAC address, and its name. Advanced IP Scanner doesn’t have to be installed and the option to run it as portable can be selected when running the setup executable. If you want to easily identify less obvious entries in the future, right click on the connection and select either Rename or “Edit comment” to add your own note.
Download Advanced IP Scanner
6. Angry IP Scanner
Angry IP Scanner is a Jave based multi platform tool that also works on Mac and Linux. This will obviously mean the Java Runtime Environment needs to be installed on your computer. The tool simply pings every IP address in the selected range for a response and then displays the result along with the information you ask for in the Fetchers window.
You can enter a range of addresses yourself or click the IP button and select the correct network adapter. Then click the drop down to its right to choose the range, /26 will scan up to 63, /24 will scan up to 255 and etc. You can also choose your own IP list text file if you have a complicated setup. The scanning process is quite fast because the program scans using multiple threads.
To see only the hosts that respond to a ping, go to Preferences > Display and choose “Alive hosts only”. The Fetchers for comments, MAC address, and MAC vendor are not turned on by default so you will have to enable them yourself. Double click an entry in the list to add your own comment.
Download Angry IP Scanner
7. Who Is On My WiFi
Sadly, the last free version of Who Is On My WiFi (4.0.5) was in 2018 as the developer shifted focus to its paid analytics service. This tool’s main task is to identify devices your network and warn you when unknown connections are made. You control which connected devices are classed as known or unknown.
On the first launch, cancel the wizard and the program will start a scan (it looks like nothing is happening). If you need to set a custom IP range different to the one shown in the interface, go to Settings > “Scan Options” and enter the range you need. If you are not sure go to the Diagnostic tab in Settings and click “Detect IP Ranges” to see what your network is currently using.
Select each known connection in the list and set its state to KNOWN from the drop down. Optionally add a description by double clicking on “TYPE IN NAME”. Finally press Save Changes. Who Is On My WiFi pops up a visual and audible message when an unknown network device is detected. By default, it will scan every 5 minutes although you can change this time to between 5 and 30 minutes in the settings.
Who Is On My WiFi requires .NET 3.5 to be installed on Windows 10 or 8. During testing, it didn’t pop up a tray notification on some Windows 10 machines while it did on others.
Download Who Is On My WiFi
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Who S On My Wifi Apk
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27 Comments - Write a Comment
Roy Harvey7 months ago
I used Who Is On My WiFi for years. Recently it stopped letting me mark unknown devices as known, and enter a name/description for them. I contacted the vendor and learned it is no longer supported. This is unfortunate as it did exactly what I wanted, and no more.
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I noticed the warning ‘A device is connected to HotSpot’ on my Android Huawei Honor. Rcently I have notice that my data credit was expiring well before the 30-day time limit whereas before I always had 1/2 GB in hand. I understand from these comments that youngsters are buying apps for stealing WiFi from around them. This app must circumvent my password, which is extremely complicated, and fear that their scanning will be successful again very soon. As I only use HotSpot to piggyback with another phone when out of credit I was not too concerned. BUT, on further reflection, I very much feel that my credit is being stolen in the few days leading up to the expiry date of the Data all the time and without using WiFi on those occasions at all. Any suggstions as to how I can combat these thieving bxxxxxds would be most welcome. I have no idea how to use ENCRYPTION if that is one of the kindly suggestions.
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Anonymous3 years ago
Glad I found this! At the apartments where I live, we’ve been having an ongoing issue with people (mostly teenagers) hanging around the buildings and using apps that let their devices connect to other people’s wifi. Now we don’t have to worry about if there are unknown devices connected to our internet. Thank you!
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Thank you …For posting a valuable Information…Even an unknown person can easily understand by seeing this article …….Wireless Network Watcher is very useful and simple one to see others using our wifi ntework……….
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Munna Hossain4 years ago
Who S On My Wifi
Helpful article. This really important for all the users to know who using their wifi. Otherwise, they will lost their valuable data. Your article is excellent. Thanks fr sharing.
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You can use a program called “fing” it is available for smartphones, tablets, computers etc. It not only scans and identifies devices but it also has scanning options for device services
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Lee9 years ago
Well I can see everything via router settings.
I can even limit accounts, log them off, change their speed
turn networks off and different times, example my
daughters will go off between 21:00-06:00.
Software is ok and saves time. Thanks for it.
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Nice update. I’m quite a big follower of your posts. I also work around to find the solution but not like you (haha).
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Rahim Ali9 years ago
In addition to having MAC filtering + WPA2 security enabled on my router, I have flashed it using DD-WRT as well. Pc study bible 5 software, free download. The DD-WRT interface shows at a glance all DHCP clients that have been assigned IP addresses
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Raymond, Thank you! Now I will know who’s hacking on my router. =)
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minnetonka9 years ago
Couldn’t have been more easy to install and using right now. Thank you for the great information and link to the Wireless Network Watcher by Nir Sofer!
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Nirsoft always has great and useful tools. I love learning about new ones through your blog.
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rachel (miyu_07)9 years ago
wow a BIG thanks to your article raymond now I can detect who illegally uses our Wifi.
Honestly i’m not expecting an article respond from this site about my network problem question and I’m so happy.
Thanks for the Big Help.
(I’ll try it as soon as possible)
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Thank you very much. Useful info.
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aliamiri9 years ago
Thanks Raymond.
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Thanks Raymond! A very useful app to have with me!
Wh1t3c0d3r
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kash9 years ago
Thank you very much for sharing this software !
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Useful info thanks Raymond
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Gregg DesElms9 years ago
No self-respecting geek would ever be without ALL of NirSoft’s freeware utilities…
…and those by Sysinternals, too.
And the hands-down best tool for managing/using those is this freeware badboy…
kls-soft.com/wscc/index.php
Hope the helps.
_____________________________ Gregg L. DesElms Napa, California USA gregg at greggdeselms dot com
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Thank you very much
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ilev9 years ago
You don’t need software for this. Every router will display connected devices to your network in it’s logs .