Every couple of months or so it is a good idea to change your network password, name and channel on a wireless network to help ward off bandwidth thieves and hackers.

This guide tells you how to do just that on a Linksys router. The same principle applies to other types of routers but the menus may be different.

Type 192.168.0.1 into the address bar of your browser. If that doesn’t work try 192.168.1.1

However, depending on the security settings, you might have to do it from the wired network.

Click on the Wireless tab.

Because some of your neighbors may also have Linksys Wireless Routers and not know how to change the SSID (the SSID is the name of your wireless network.), change your SSID from the default name, which is linksys, to something unique, such as johnsnet or myhomenet.

Caution: Do not use spaces or weird characters, such as $ % ^ & * #, in the SSID.

Change the Wireless Channel to Channel 1 – 2.412 GHz. (The second part of the channel is the frequency: 2.412 Gigahertz.) You can also use 11 – 2.462 GHz. Most people use Channel 6 because this is the default Channel, so you don’t want to select Channel 6; use Channel 1 or 11 instead.

Click on Save Settings.

Click on Continue.

Click on Wireless Security.

Under Security Mode, click on the Down Arrow and then select WPA-Personal, unless you have an older wireless network card in your laptop which can’t use WPA

Under Encryption: or WPA Algorithms:, set this to TKIP if available.

Under WPA Shared Key, type in your desired password, which should be at least 8 characters long, but not contain any spaces or weird characters, such as $ % ^ & * #.

Click on the Save Settings button to save the settings.

Click on the Continue button.