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PSA: Wasted $200 on a VPN that did nothing for my real problem
I got that NordVPN deal last year for like $120 for 2 years, thought I was being smart. Then my neighbor's kid kept getting into my wifi and I figured the VPN would fix it. Nope. The VPN only protects traffic outside my network, not someone already on my wifi stealing files from shared folders. I had to buy a $60 TP-Link router with proper guest network settings and turn off SMB sharing on my machines. That actually stopped him cold. The VPN is still running in the background, but honestly I barely use it for anything. Has anyone else bought security stuff that was totally wrong for what they actually needed?
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taraw163d ago
Did you try turning off network discovery and file sharing in Windows before you got the new router? I had basically the same problem where my roommate's guests kept jumping on our network and browsing my stuff. What finally worked for me was a combo of two things: I renamed my main admin account to something random so nobody could guess it, then I went into the router settings and enabled the option that blocks devices from talking to each other on the same network. It's called client isolation or AP isolation depending on your router. That way even if someone gets on your wifi, they can't see your computer at all. The TP-Link router sounds like a solid fix though, those guest network setups are way easier to manage than messing with firewall rules.
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