Many Android phones can create handy hotspots to share your phone's internet connections, but they can be tedious to set up. Google wants to fix this with its new Instant Tethering feature.

Mac: When you're tethering your Mac to your phone, you usually want to make sure you're using the least amount of data as possible. TripMode is an app that allows you to quickly and easily block specific apps the second you connect to a hotspot.

Dear Lifehacker, I'm going overseas soon, and am considering picking up a local SIM in my destination country. The only problem is tethering is explicitly prohibited by the plan I want to use.

The Raspberry Pi is a powerful device, but many of its benefits rely on being connected to the internet. If you want to take your Pi with you on the go, try this method of tethering it to your smartphone to get it online.

You have three choices when it comes to tethering your smartphone's internet connection to your laptop: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and USB. It turns out there's a bigger difference between them than you might expect.

Android/Windows/Mac: Open Garden is both a Wi-Fi tethering app and a mesh network. Install it on your Android phone and you can use your mobile data wirelessly on your Windows or Mac laptop, as well as Android tablets. Not only that — you can piggyback on other people's mobile connections.

Windows/Mac: The iPhone jailbreak tool Redsn0w has been updated this morning to support a tethered jailbreak for the just released iOS 5.1.

Need an iPhone tethering app? For $1.99 (and likely a very limited time only), you can download QuasiDisk, a file-viewing app that can also share a connection over a proxy.

Android and Windows/Mac/Linux: Most tethering apps require root, or at the very least cost a fair amount of money. ClockworkMod Tether is a completely free wired tether app for unrooted Android phones.

Unlike iOS, there are plenty of tethering options for Android, and most of them work well, depending on what you're trying to do and the type of user you are. Some are wired, some are wireless, some require root, others don't. We found that for most people not using built-in functions, PdaNet is the best tethering option because it's reliable, accessible, easy to install and use, and easy to troubleshoot.

There are no perfect tethering options for iPhone. All come with some sort of drawback. That said, among your limited options we feel the best is PDANet for its simple configuration, versatility and its ability to hide the fact that you're tethering from your carrier.

Apple's iOS 5 is currently jailbreakable, but only with a tethered jailbreak. That means if your phone ever crashes, or if you have to reboot it for any reason, you need to have it connected to a Mac or PC. That sucks! If someone ever wants to murder you they'd just reboot your phone and you'd have no way to call the cops. But ho! SemiTether solves this problem.

Windows: Remember Microsoft's Virtual Wi-Fi project for Windows 7? Well the project is officially dead, but the source code is still available, and free application Maryfi takes advantage of this to provide a software router that can share single-serve Wi-Fi networks such as those used at airports and hotels.

One of the handy features of phones and tablets running Android 2.2 and later is that you can share their Internet connection with other devices (a process often known as tethering). However, it seems that not everyone selling those devices is aware of that.

To say that Vodafone's decision to charge extra for if you use the data allowance on its Infinite plans for tethering was unpopular would be an understatement. So it's no big surprise that Vodafone has now backtracked on that proposal, and says that tethering won't attract additional fees.

In an interview/town hall session with Univision, President Obama reveals that he now owns an iPad, a device he somewhat derided as "a distraction" in a commencement speech last year.

If you've got a Wi-Fi-only iPad or iPad 2, you're generally unable to use GPS to get more accurate location pin-pointing. Unless you also happen to own an iPhone and use its Personal Hotspot feature to tether — which, it turns out, passes along GPS data.

Unlike US customers, Australian customers generally don't need to pay extra for tethering when using an iPhone 4 as a wireless hotspot. But there's one plan where you should be cautious: the Infinite plans launched by Vodafone last November don't allow their included data to be used for tethering.

Wi-Fi tethering is one of the most prominent features for iPhone users in the iOS 4.3 upgrade, and Australians don't have to pay extra to use it. But if you've been using the long-in-place Bluetooth tethering option, is switching to Wi-Fi a better bet? Nick at our sibling title Gizmodo investigated, and concluded "not really".