How do I know that my wifi has been connected? How can I see which devices are connected to my Wi-Fi network? What should alert router owners

In this article we will touch on an interesting question that interests many users: how can I find out who is connected to my wifi. Wireless Wi-Fi technology is very popular today. In almost every home, Wi-Fi routers are installed for quick and convenient access to the World Wide Web. But no one thought that it was because of this WiFi router that your Internet speed could slow down. And this is not due to a broken router or a problem with the provider. And the fault is that your neighbor is a freeloader who, without permission, connected to your wireless network and downloads movies for days. Now we will show several ways in which you can identify who has connected to your wireless network. We will also tell you how to block a thief who has connected.

Symptoms of a third-party connection to your Wi-Fi network

There is only one symptom, a drop in Internet speed and quality. This is expressed as follows:

First of all, of course, contact your provider's technical support. If they don't identify a problem on their end, then you have a problem. One of the possible problems is your neighbor who decided to use the Internet for free. To check this, see below for options on how to see who is connected to my wifi.

See who is connected to wifi on the router

The first option can be divided into several actions. First you need to enter the router menu, find all the connected devices there and select yours and others from them. See below how to do this.

We go to the router

Open the browser. Enter the router's IP in the address bar; you can view it on the router itself. Next, enter the username, and just below the password, see them also on the device where the IP address is.

We find all devices that are connected to the router

After entering the settings, go to the “ WiFi», « List of Wi-Fi clients" Now you can see which devices are currently connected.

If you have a router D-Link then go to the tab " Monitoring", there will be a map of your network and all connected devices.

We identify our devices and third-party ones

Having seen the list of MAC addresses of devices that are connected, you need to determine which are yours and which are someone else’s. To do this, we will use the options listed below.

Option No. 1: By disabling devices, we calculate someone else’s MAC address

Write down all connected MAC addresses or take a screenshot. Then, one by one, turn off all devices in the house that are connected via Wi-Fi to the router. You will notice how MAC addresses will disappear from the list.

Make a note of which MAC belongs to which device, you will need this later. All that remains is the intruder's MAC, which needs to be blocked. How to do this, read further in the article.

Option No. 1: Look at the MAC address in the devices and find the thief

See the connected MAC addresses of all your devices. Usually on phones and tablets it is written in the “ About the phone" or " Device information».

On a computer, see " Network connections", right-click on the " Wireless network" and select " State" Then press the button “ Intelligence…" Opposite the line " Physical adress» the MAC address will be written. Having found out all your MAC addresses, it will now be easy to find and block the freeloader from the list on your router.

Now you know how to find out who is connected to my wifi router using the router menu.

How to easily find out who is connected to wifi using the utility

One of the easiest ways to view your list of connected devices is to use special programs. Simply download, install and run. Next, the utility will scan the entire network and show a list of gadgets that are on this network. All you have to do is compare the MAC addresses and identify the unknown one. Here are some suitable utilities:

Utility No. 1 - Wireless Network Watcher

This is a very small utility weighing about 350 kb, which does not need to be installed. It is free and has an interface in English. There is no Russian language, but it is so easy to use that you can work in it in English without any problems. After scanning, the application will provide information about the IP, MAC address, manufacturer and computer name.

Utility No. 2 - SoftPerfect WiFi Guard

A good utility for protecting your home network. Suitable for operating systems Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, has an interface in Russian and English. Its functions:

1. Detects all devices on the network and notifies which ones are active.
2. Periodically scans the entire network and notifies if it detects a device unknown to it.

Blocking an unknown device in a Wi-Fi router

We showed how easy it is to find out who is using my wifi. Thanks to this, now you can easily find the one who steals the Internet. Simply disconnecting the thief from the network will not be enough. After all, after a short period of time, the thief will connect again and continue to steal traffic. Here it is necessary to take more radical measures; one of the effective measures is setting up the function “ MAC filter" Let's take a closer look at how to enable this feature.

• We enter the router settings menu, as we have already written above in the article.

• Expand the section “ WiFi" Click on the line “ MAC filter».
• Next, you have a choice of settings for this function. Or in the paragraph " MAC Filter Restriction Mode" put " Allow" Next, click below " Add" Now you will need to enter all the MAC addresses of your gadgets. Thus giving full access to the wireless network.

• Or set the value to " Forbid" With this choice, you will need to enter the MAC addresses of third-party devices. To which access will be denied in the future.

The second option will be faster to set up, because there is usually only one intruder, therefore, only one MAC address needs to be entered into the MAC filter. But there are many times more devices in the house, so more needs to be added to the filter. And don’t forget, when a new gadget appears in the house, you must add it to the filter so that the Internet works on it.

Changing the password on a Wi-Fi wireless network

One of the easiest ways to get rid of a free Internet lover is to change the password for the Wi-Fi network.

Conclusion

We hope the article was useful to you. In it we tried to show in detail all the simple options on how you can find out who is on my wifi. If you have any difficulties with any method from our article, write below in the comments. We will try to answer quickly and give practical advice.

Let's figure out how you can find out who is connected to your Wi-Fi. Today, numerous programs are used to protect personal data; they are considered safe. Some time ago, the use of such protection helped to make sure that access to your Wi-Fi is closed to outsiders, provided that good passwords are used, but looking at the “extra” guests will come in handy.

The use of graphics adapters and other devices allows you to select strong passwords. But if you cannot guarantee that your Wi-Fi network is inviolable, then you need to at least know who has connected and is already using your Wi-Fi. It's one thing when your neighbor uses your network. A completely different situation arises when your network can be used to commit criminal acts. Therefore, in order to avoid trouble, it is necessary to ensure the security of the network, look and find out who can be connected to it.

There are several reasons to look at who has connected to and is using your network:

• A sharp decline in the speed at which data is transferred. But the fact that another user joined the network does not act as the only reason.
• If you know that the devices are disconnected and the light continues to flash, then you should also check the connection of other devices to my WiFi.

What you need to view

To view the list of connected users, you need to go to the interface where the router settings are presented; this can be done from any device. Almost all WiFi routers have standard addresses - “http://192.168.0.1” or “http://192.168.1.1”. This information is usually found on a sticker located at the bottom or back of the router. If you or someone else changed the password during the setup process from the beginning, you will have to make an effort to remember it.

To enter the settings, open your browser and enter the address: http://192.168.1.1

Viewing a list of connected clients

D-Link

Recognizing guests is quite easy. After you enter the WiFi settings interface, you must immediately click on the “advanced settings” item, and then select the “status” tab and click on the arrow pointing to the right until the “clients” link appears. Next, click on the link.
After this, you will see a list of devices that are currently connected to the wireless network; they need to be checked. Initially, it is quite possible that you will not be able to determine which of them are yours and which are not, but you can view information about whether there is a correspondence between the number of Wi-Fi clients and the number of your devices operating on the network. Don’t forget to include phones, TVs, set-top boxes, and so on. If there is some inconsistency, then it may be time to change to a WiFi pair. If you have not installed it yet, then you need to do it immediately, in the router settings section.

Asus

To find out the connections on this device, you need to select the “network map” menu item, and then press the “clients” button. In the list that appears, the user can see not only the number of devices and their addresses, but also network names, which will allow them to quickly and accurately determine the type of device connected to the router.

TP-Link

You shouldn't have any problems with WiFi with this device, since it has a standard login form. To be able to find out how much is connected to my router, just find the word Wireless on the right and select Wireless Statistics, where you can find the information.

Applications and utilities

Wireless Network Watcher

This utility can easily scan wireless networks and also display a list of devices that are currently connected to my router. You can also export a list of connected devices. It is possible that the program can sometimes scan the network in the background and alert the user if inconsistencies are detected.

Soft Perfect Guard

This WiFi application is free and can easily scan your network for the presence/absence of new devices that are connected to it. If the program can find an unfamiliar device, it instantly alerts the user that an intruder has been detected. If there is a device known to you, and you don’t mind it being connected to my router, you can easily add it to the “white list”, then next time the program will ignore it, and you can see who the real attacker is.

Improving wireless network security

1. The first rule is that you must always change your login and password. Combinations invented by manufacturers are easily hacked by attackers. To change the password, you need to go to the advanced settings, select the “system tools” tab and the “password” item. In the tab that opens, you can edit the password.
2. In the WiFi menu, you will need to select the “MAC Address Filtering” tab.
3. You need to enter MMAC addresses in the router's memory. Even if the owner of a third-party device is able to find out your password, he will not be able to quickly connect to your Internet.

Using the above tips, you can find out and see what kind of uninvited guest and how many people are using your WiFi network and connected to the router, and block his access to the free Internet.

Found a typo? Select the text and press Ctrl + Enter

We quickly determine the number of devices connected to the WiFi network (in two different ways), set up rules for limited and secure access to the wireless network, and also understand programs that make it easier to carry out the above actions.

Signs of unauthorized connections

First sign Quite often you can encounter sharp drops in connection throughput. Most often, the problem lies in the work of providers at different levels between you and the remote server, but it is also quite possible that your channel’s traffic will be consumed by unauthorized persons. Second sign Something that makes you think about controlling access to your Wi-Fi channel is sudden access restrictions for your IP address for some sites. In addition, pay attention to the behavior of the wireless connection indicator on the router case - when all devices are disconnected from the network, it should not blink, much less be lit almost constantly.

How can I find out how many devices are connected to my wifi?

How to find out who is connected to my wifi? The easiest way to do this is in the control panel of your router.

To enter it, type in the address bar of your web browser the IP address of your router on the local network (if no one has changed it, it will correspond to what is indicated in the instructions and on the router case; usually this is ) and enter the credentials in the request window (by the default in many routers is admin/admin). Further actions depend on the manufacturer of your router, but there are no fundamental differences, so let’s consider the actions using the example of the shell of Asus routers.

In the control panel of your router, you will see the number of all devices connected to the router in the “Clients” section. Clicking on it opens a detailed list of devices. For example, in the screenshot below we see two connected devices: a laptop and a phone.

For detailed information, you can refer to the “System Log-Wireless Communications” menu; it does not display the network names of devices, but only the MAC addresses of their network interfaces. Since they (MAC addresses) were also indicated in the list of clients (which we looked at earlier), it will not be difficult to figure out who is who. In our example, we see that the phone has been connected to the network for a long time, while the laptop has just been connected.

If for some reason you do not have access to the router, you can get by with third-party programs. The simplest option is a program made freely available by the developer. After pressing the F5 button (or selecting the appropriate item in the menu), the program will scan the entire range of addresses on the local network and display a list of detected devices.

How to see who is connected to a wifi router

More precisely, this question should have been formulated not “how to see who is connected to my wifi,” but “how to see which devices are not mine.” With phones and tablets, everything is simple: temporarily disable the wireless radio module on them, and they will disappear from the list of connected devices. You can find out the network name and MAC address of your computer by pressing the Win+R keys on your keyboard and in the window that appears, typing cmd to open the command console, in which you need to enter the following: ipconfig /all

In our example, the Notebook device found earlier turned out to be our own laptop. Simply put, all the devices found in the example earlier belong to us, and there are no third-party connections.

How to disconnect unknown users from your Wi-Fi

Through the router's control panel, you can prohibit wireless data transmission for any device on the network. Since they are identified by unique MAC addresses, in fact, serial numbers of their network interfaces, turning on the “Reject” filter for a device will mean that it cannot work on your Wi-Fi network, no matter how its owner tries to connect.

How to secure your Wi-Fi? We prohibit connecting to wi-fi unknown devices.

From the previous example, you can understand how to protect yourself from connecting unknown devices: turn on the “Accept” MAC address filter and add to the list all gadgets and computers that will be allowed access to the network. In addition, do not forget about the security settings: use a password protection of a sufficient length with the WPA2 authentication method (unlike the outdated WEP, which is quite easily cracked by a wifi sniffer, this will force an attacker to spend quite a lot of time to hack your network).

Programs for monitoring everyone who is connected to wi-fi

As you have already seen, the most convenient way to monitor the status of your network is through the router’s control panel - this way you can quickly identify an uninvited guest and block his access to the network. However, the router cannot warn the owner about new devices appearing on the network. For this purpose, you can use third-party programs, for example, the one already described above: set in its settings the frequency of scanning the network and the appropriate type of notification about a new device, and you will always be able to find out about new connections in your wireless network.

Another program has similar functionality - . But, unlike the previous program, it can automatically launch in the system tray along with Windows.

According to statistics, almost every second neighbor is hacked. Or someone even leaves their network without a password. Typically hacking occurs using an enabled WPS password. Let me remind you that it is digital and can be hacked using regular brute force. Also, many people simply set digital passwords. But the article is a little different from that.

I constantly receive letters and, oddly enough, one of the popular questions is “How to find out who is connected to my TP-Link WiFi router.” TP-Link is a popular company and a large number of people use their routers. So they get hacked more often. If you notice that in the evening the Internet speed drops or even interruptions appear, this may indicate a hack.

Let's connect

And so first of all you must be connected to the router. You can connect either via wire or Wi-Fi - it doesn't matter. After that, open any browser and enter the address of the device – http://tplinkwifi.net/. If you can't log in, try these addresses: 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1. Next, you should be asked to enter your username and password. The default is "admin" on both lines. If the login and password are not accepted, then try an empty string as a key. Further instructions will depend on the newness of the firmware.

Old firmware

1. Go to “Wireless Mode” – “Wireless Mode Statistics”. Click “Update”. On the right you can see a list of connected devices via the wireless network. Here you can see: the MAC address of the device, whether it is connected or not.

1. More detailed information is in the “DHCP” tab. There you can even see the name of the connected device, as well as the IP address.
2. If you notice someone unnecessary, let's first change the Wi-Fi password and set the required level of protection.

1. In the same section, go to the protection tab. Set the encryption type and version to "WPA2-PSK". Just below, in the marked field, set a password. You need to set a complex password with letters and numbers.

1. In the next “WPS” tab, disable the service. Otherwise, no matter how complex the password you set, it will be “broken” by the UPS.

1. Now let's set up MAC address filtering. Let's move on to this point. Now look, if the top checkbox is checked, then the path to the router’s network will be blocked for the specified devices. You can simply highlight your attacker. Also click the “Enable” button to activate the service. But you can also create a “white list”. You simply click on the “Allow” checkbox and select all your home devices. Then no one else will be able to use your network, even if they hack it. But new devices will also need to be added to the list.

New firmware

1. Checking how many devices are connected is quite simple. In the third tab, click on the Wi-Fi icon in the left menu. Next, go to “Statistics”. If you see that someone strange is sitting on your Wi-Fi, then you should take several actions.
2. If the list is clean, click the “Update” button. It is located immediately above the list.

1. Now go to the “Protection” – “Access Control” section. In the “Access mode” section there will be devices. If the “Black List” is enabled, then all selected devices will not be able to connect to the wireless network. If the White List is enabled, then only these devices will be able to access the router.

The question on the agenda: how to find out who connected to my WiFi router TP-Link, Asus, Zyxel Keenetic, D-Link? Modern wireless networks are encrypted by two protocols, which are considered extremely reliable. Therefore, it is enough to come up with a password more complex than “11111111”, “qwerty123” and the like. And be sure that no one will invade the active network. However, hackers are not asleep, so today there are already methods for hacking this protection and connecting to your router via wifi. Therefore, every user of wireless equipment can become a victim of attackers.

Find out who connected to the WiFi router

Owners of unlimited tariffs can worry least of all. Because they don’t lose absolutely anything if someone decides to download a “heavy” file or just surf the Internet using someone else’s Wi-Fi. Owners of tariff plans, the cost of which depends on the amount of traffic spent, can end up at a huge disadvantage. But it happens that an attacker connects to someone else’s network in order to commit actions that are contrary to the law. Then its goal is not just anonymity, but shifting the blame onto another, innocent user. This is where it’s worth thinking about protecting both categories of users.

You can understand that someone else is using the Internet at the same time as you by paying attention to. As a rule, the speed of any work on the Internet decreases and access to all resources becomes more difficult. Some providers provide daily statistics that include the size of incoming and outgoing traffic. If it's very large and you're sure you couldn't use that much of it, then there's a good chance that your Wi-Fi is being used by someone else.

It is also necessary to see who is connected to your router in cases when

• You want to somehow give them access to the Internet or local network resources. Then yes, we need a list of all active gadgets in order to assign certain rules of behavior to some of them.
• You need to find the IP address of the computer or smartphone for which you want to assign or execute.

So, you can find out that someone is using your Wi-Fi network in the following ways:

A small free program that scans networks and displays a list of connected devices. It helps you find out the IP and MAC addresses, name and name of the PC. The program can run in the background and notify the user with a signal that someone has connected to his network.

An analogue of the first program, which is also free. The operating principle is the same. There is a whitelist. Devices added there will connect to the user's Wi-Fi network, and the program will not notify about this.

You can check third-party connections manually - open the browser and enter 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1 in the address bar, enter the requested login and password. You will be taken to the router settings menu. It is worth remembering that the menu for all routers is different, depending on the manufacturer. However, everywhere there is a tab like Wireless (Wireless Settings, etc.). By clicking on it, you can see the item Wireless Statistics (Station List, etc.). By clicking, a list of all devices connected to this network will be displayed.

Disconnecting the freeloader from the session will not solve the problem. You can read about it in detail in a separate article dedicated to this topic, but here I will remind you of the main methods. So, to protect your Wi-Fi after an unauthorized connection, you need to:

1. Change password.
2. Set the encryption type. WEP is an outdated and insecure encryption type, so it is best to use the already mentioned WPA and WPA2.
3. Enable MAC address filter (if available in the router settings). You can set a list of MAC addresses that will have access to the Wi-Fi network, but everyone else will simply not be able to connect.
4. Enable firewall. This function is not available in all routers, but if it is present, then it would be a sin not to use it.
5. Change SSID (Signature Identifier) ​​and make Wi-Fi invisible. For security purposes, it is best to keep the communication ID name more complex. The invisibility of a Wi-Fi network will further complicate unauthorized access, since only those who know the exact name will be able to connect to the network.

Use these methods to catch resourceful neighbors in time and block their access.

Let's see who is connected to my wifi in the old version of the TP-Link router panel

You can also view devices connected to wifi directly from the admin panel of the router itself. Those who have been reading my blog for a long time know that TP-Link routers now have two versions of the admin panel. Old, in gray-green tones, and white and blue, updated. If your model is several years old and you haven’t updated it for a long time, then most likely you have the first option. If the router was purchased recently, then there may be either new firmware or previous firmware, which can be updated to the latest.

For your convenience, I decided to make instructions for both versions. In the old administrator section, you can see who is connected to TP-Link in the “Wireless mode - Statistics” section

If the router is dual-band, then you need to enter the menu of the corresponding frequency range and open the item of the same name.

List of connected devices in the new version of the TP-Link admin panel

In the new firmware, the number of connected clients is displayed immediately on the main page. They are conveniently grouped into “Wired clients,” that is, those that are connected to the router by cable, and “Wireless,” that is, via wifi.

If you click on the group icon and go inside, you will see a complete list, which is also divided into two categories - home clients (these are those on the main network) and guest clients (that is, connected to).

It is impossible to perform any actions directly from here. Here we simply see the name of the device, its IP and MAC addresses. Now that we know this information, it can be used for its intended purpose in one of the other sections of the control panel - in or settings.

But we can immediately add any client from the list to the blacklist on the start page and block the Internet for him.

How can I see who is connected to my Wi-Fi on a D-Link router?

You can view the list of connected clients to the D-Link router in three places at once.

List of devices connected to the Asus WiFi router

As for Asus routers, it’s even easier to see who is connected to it. On the start page there is a “Clients” icon. Click on it and a list of all computers will open in the right column.

Connected devices in the home WiFi network on the Zyxel Keenetic router

You can also view connected computers on the Zyxel Keenetic router in two places. Firstly, in the start section “System Monitor” on the “WiFi Clients” tab - however, only those connected wirelessly will be displayed here

To see all devices, go to the “Home Network” section in the bottom menu

If you click on the line with the name of the computer, we can assign it a static IP address or block Internet access.

List of connected clients to the Keenetic router

If we look at the new version of the admin panel of Keenetic routers, then you can immediately go to the list of clients from the main page of the panel. Two thematic blocks separately show connected devices via cable or wifi to the home and guest networks.

If you click on them, you will immediately see all active and disabled users in three categories - unregistered, registered and blocked