Wi-Fi made more wonderful

By Jeandre de Beer / PC World

Colorful WiFi symbol in three dimensional shape

Forget about sliced bread—Wi-Fi is easily one of the greatest inventions of the last few decades.

Thanks to Wi-Fi every device in your home can easily get online, whether it’s your iPad, desktop PC, the high-definition television in the living room, and maybe even your coffee pot or fridge.

But are you getting the most out of your wireless Internet connection? Is it truly as fast as your service provider claims?

Are the neighbors screwing up your signal? Do you know how to connect all your various devices together to share files at home?

Here are five free Wi-Fi-enhancing tools that can help you answer “yes” to all of those questions.

1. Channel Changers

Sometimes getting a better Wi-Fi signal is as simple as changing the channel. If you live in a densely populated area such as an apartment or townhouse complex you are probably surrounded by dozens or even hundreds of individual Wi-Fi routers.

Each one is broadcasting a signal to help its owner get online. The problem is that sometimes a bunch of closely situated routers can end up interfering with each other.

When that happens you can help yourself out by changing your router’s broadcast channel. To help you find an ideal channel (or the leastpopulated) use ViStumbler on Windows to get all kinds of data on the Wi-Fi routers around you.

Or you could give Wifi Analyzer for Android a try—this is also a great option to test signal strength at different points in your house.

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