gHacks technology news » router

Fon lets you download without your computer

Daniel Pataki — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 15:14:29 +0000

I don’t know if you guys know about the Fon router, I have personally used one for ages. It is a community based project, the thinking is that a lot of people buy fon routers, and with the router you get a passcode. If you’re anywhere in the world and you find a Fon router, you can use that password to use it for free. People without Fon passwords can also use your Fon router for a small fee, so you can also earn from buying one.

Now, the Fon 2.0 router is out, which allows you to download to a pendrive, external hard drive, upload to Youtube, all that fun stuff, but without having your PC or laptop turned on! Just set up a Youtube upload, add some torrent files, switch off your laptop, and the download/upload goes on. There are tons of cool apps built into the firmware, as the screencast about it says, it’s like a mini linux in there.

The price is EUR 50, which is roughly $65 now. Compared to the price of the old Fon this is pricey, but not compared to other top of the line routers which can’t do half as much. I purchased three routers pooling with my friends for about $10 each, and I have been using it since, it really is a great pieve of hardware, so I can’t wait to get my hands on the new one. Even if you don’t need these functions check it out, you will be helping out a great cause. I don’t travel as much, but one of my friends spends all his time doing so and he finds Fon routers everywhere in the World!

Tags: fon, fonera, router

uTorrent Port Checker Online

Martin — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 17:47:42 +0000

Port forwarding is not something that needs to be configured on most computer systems. It basically describes the concept of forwarding connections to a specific local computer system. Usually a computer router, firewall or other hardware device that is managing or controlling traffic is involved in the process and needs to be configured to forward the port. Port forwarding can be a big issue when running P2P applications like uTorrent as a wrongly configured router can reduce or even block the traffic to the local computer running the P2P application.

Port forwarding can be configured in the router or traffic controlling device. It basically consists of telling the router route to send incoming traffic to a specific computer by specifying a port and IP address.

One of easiest ways to check if a port is properly forwarded is to use an online port checker like the one provided by uTorrent. To verify the port forwarding open the following url in your web browser http://www.utorrent.com/testport.php?port=1337 and change the number at the end to the port that you want to forward.

The script will check if the port is forwarded properly:

The above screen is displaying that the port forwarding has been properly configured. It will display that an error has occured. The port forwarding test can be repeated after adjusting the configuration settings.

Tags: online service, P2p, port forwarding, port mapping, ports, router, utorrent

Simple Port Forwarding

Martin — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 19:56:27 +0000

Inexperienced computer users are usually having troubles understanding the port forwarding concept. Most of them hear about port forwarding in gaming or P2P forums where this is usually discussed when troubleshooting connections.

Simple Port Forwarding is a portable software that tries to lessen the knowledge that is needed to configure port forwarding in a computer network. Port Forwarding on the other hand is only a issue of the computers connect to a router that establishes the connection to the Internet.

It basically tells the router where to send information that are being received on a specific port. The software currently supports 197 different routers and the software developer provides the means to suggest new routers if the current router is not available in the list.

Among the support routers are several popular brands like Zyxel, Belkin, Netgear or LinkSys. All the user needs to do is pick his router from the list of available ones and enter the username and password which are used to connect to the admin interface.

Simple Port Forwarding will automatically enter the default values which can be used if the values have not been changed.

The port forwarding software comes with a database of 677 programs that can be automatically added. This includes applications like Yahoo Messenger, Telnet and Teamspeak but mainly games like Age of Conan, Stalker or World of Warcraft.

If the application is not in the list it has to be added manually. All that needs to be done by the user is to pick a name, select a connection type and the start and end port.

The information can then be updated in the router by clicking on the Update Router button. The main advantage of Simple Port Forwarding is the interface and the database that contains lots of popular programs.

Tags: port forwarding, portable software, ports, router, router forwarding, routers, simple port forwarding, windows software

UPNP Port Mapper

Martin — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 06:17:56 +0000

Universal Plug And Play was designed to simplify the connection between two devices in a computer network. Most users probably come into touch with UPNP when they start configuring their router for the first time. Most modern routers support UPNP which admittedly has one major flaw. UPNP does not support authentication which means that the devices have to provide authentication on their own which many fail to do.

The UPNP Mapper, or UPNP Router Port Mapping Tool, provides a set of tools to display and configure router related Universal Plug and Play settings. It does that by directly implementing the UPNP protocol with direct sockets meaning it does not rely on the operating system to provide the information but its own functions.

Probably the most interesting feature of the software program is the ability to scan the network for UPNP devices and display the port mapping info of those devices in its interface. UPNP Port Mapper can also map or unmap ports on a discovered device.

The tool was tested on Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista and should run fine on computers running those operating systems. The software is portable and uses a single executable file with a size of 204 Kilobytes. Some routers, especially older ones are reported to work incorrectly or not at all with that software which is usually caused by a faulty implementation of UPNP in the router.

Tags: portable software, router, universal plug and play, upnp, upnp router, upnp software, windows software

Netgear WGR614L Open Source Wireless-G Router

Martin — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 07:55:49 +0000

Netgear decided to hop onto the Open-Source bandwagon by developing a wireless router that would take user created firmwares without complaints, heck that was developed just for this purposes. I covered some of those firmwares in the past that can be applied to several non-Open-Source routers as well. The difference is that if something goes wrong during the firmware update you cannot count on the guarantee to replace the router.

The Netgear WGR614L Open Source Wireless-G Router is compatible to well known firmwares like Tomato and DD-WRT with several others in the making. You might be asking about the benefits of running an Open-Source router in comparison to one that is not. It all boils down to something that gets updated regularly with new features versus something that does not get updated anymore after some time has passed since the initial release.

Netgear seem to have at least one person on board that is proficient with today’s Internet. They have created a community website just for their new line of Open Source routers which perfectly catches the latest Internet trend: Social community.

The website contains blogs, a news sections, downloads, tutorials and a nicely populated forum that is slowly picking up pace. While the Netgear WGR614L Open Source Wireless-G Router is clearly aimed at Linux users Windows users can obviously use the router as well. It retails for a reasonable price of $69 and got mostly positive comments at Amazon and other online shops that sell it.

Tags: Hardware, netgear, router, wireless, wireless router

Where’s that darn router password?

Daniel Pataki — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 08:22:37 +0000

I think this has happened to many of us before. There are as many passwords and user names to routers as stars in the sky and even if you’ve used one before, you’ll ask: “is it admin – admin, or admin – password, or user – admin?”

Now you can stop wondering, since Routerpasswords has all the answers. Just select your router, click find password and it will list all default user names and passwords for the routers of that company.

This is an immensely helpful tool if you’re trying to work out someone else’s router problem, or your own, in case you’ve lost the manual. I’m afraid if you’ve changed your password from the default one this won’t work, but then shame on you for not remembering!

Found via Emergingtechs

Tags: lost password, password, router

Port Forwarding Tester

Martin — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 07:29:51 +0000

You might have encountered the term Port Forwarding when configuring bittorrent on your computer or analyzing slow or none existing traffic with bittorrent. One of the first answers of those helpful support guys in all forums is always check Port Forwarding, but what the heck is it ?

Port Forwarding can be described as a way to tell your router to send specific traffic to a specific computer inside the network. For bittorrent it would mean that the bittorrent ports that are used are forwarded to the network device that is running your bittorrent client.

Bittorrent is however not the only possible application. You could forward requests for port 21 to a home ftp server or requests for port 80 to a web server.

The Port Forwarding Tester tests if this is setup correctly. This can be done by simply entering the computers IP and the port that you want to check. The port forwarding script scans for your IP by default, you only need to change it if you want to test a different computer that has a different IP.

If the result is that the port is blocked at that IP Port Forwarding is not setup properly. A great site to find out how you setup port forwarding for your router is the website Port Forward which has instructions for hundreds of routers.

Tags: bittorrent, port forwarding, router

Open Ports 1.0

Martin — Mon, 08 May 2006 08:57:14 +0000

Open Ports displays all open TCP and UPD ports using a cli (command line interface). We all know the netstat command that lists all tcp and udp connections (netstat -an). The problem with this is that it does not show the application that uses the ports listed there. Open Ports lists the applications that use the ports which makes it easier to identify applications that should not be connected to the internet at all.

The freeware requires no installation and does not change the system, just run it using the windows run command. Every user that is logged on can use the application, that´s right even guests can use it. Another great tool that uses a gui is Currports. Just follow the link if you like it.

Tags: open ports, ports, router, Security, software, Windows

Home Network Router Security Secrets

Martin — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 08:43:50 +0000

Todays world is becoming a wireless one. If you signup for a new internet provider you have most of the time the choice of a modem that uses cables and one that is wireless. Now, most people tend to chose the wireless one because their homes don´t look that messy after all, cables everywhere seems to turn certain people off quite a bit.

Those people normally get the wireless router up and running and forget / don´t know about the security risks involved. If the router is not thoroughly secured others might use it to surf the web itself and do things far worse than that. It´s basically a free connection to the internet (and probably your pc as well).

The informit.com article Home Network Router Security Secrets gives advice how to reduce the security risk. Its 11 chapters address each a certain security risk and give tips on how to avoid or reduce the risk. For example chapter one “Turn off UPnP” advises you to turn of the universal plug and play service.

A Trojan horse or virus on a computer inside your network could use UPnP to open a hole in your router’s firewall to let outsiders in.

If you are using a wireless router make sure you read the article, it´s worth the time.

Tags: network security, router, router security, Security

gHacks technology news » router

Fon lets you download without your computer

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