Free wi-fi is a windfall, especially if you're working from the library or airport, or if you just want to save data on your phone or laptop. Still, you do have to care about security when you're out and about. Here's how to surf safely, on any device.

As technologies go, Wi-Fi has moved ahead quite quickly. We went from the first mainstream wireless networking option, 802.11b running at 11Mbps in the 2.4GHz band to the current 802.11ac that offers up to 1Gbps over dual frequency bands in less than 15 years. But another new standard, dubbed Wi-Fi 6 presumably because 801.11ax isn't good for marketing things that are new, will increase performance almost five-fold. Why should you care?

As someone who flys several times a month, on-board Wi-Fi has increasingly becoming a pain point for me. If you've done any air travel lately you may have noticed that aeroplane Wi-Fi is starting to get a little better.

It's annoying when you run out of Ethernet ports on your router. That, or when you have a home entertainment centre and want wired connections for all your devices, but you don't want to string a bundle of Ethernet cables from your living room to wherever your router happens to be.

If you're sick of suffering from poor Wi-Fi connections or slow streaming speeds in your house or brick-lined apartment, that one router tucked away in a corner may not be capable of effectively covering your home. In that case, you may need not just a new router, but a new type of router.

Though more router manufacturers are making routers easier to set up and configure — even via handy little apps instead of annoying web-based interfaces — most people probably don't tweak many options after purchasing a new router. They log in, change the name and passwords for their Wi-Fi networks and call it a day.

Wi-Fi is one of the most useful and important parts of using a computer and yet it's also one of the most frustrating. If you're plagued by slow speeds, bad reception, and other Wi-Fi issues, here are 10 ways you can power up the Wi-Fi in your home.

Tackling black spots around your home, Telstra's Smart Wi-Fi Booster ensures your wireless gadgets are never caught offline.

WiFi is one of the most important developments in the evolution of the internet -- no one wants to be chained to a desktop -- but it's also one of the most frustrating. If you're plagued by slow speeds, bad reception, and other WiFi issues, here are 10 ways you can power up the WiFi in your home.

You check into your hotel after a hard day of travelling. All you want to do is kick off your shoes, set the temperature to whatever hot or cold extreme you wouldn't be able to get away with at home, and say hello to your Netflix queue before some much-earned rest. And then you realise the terrible truth: Your Wi-Fi connection is horrible or, worse, non-existent.

The first thing I do when my internet goes down is panic. I panic thinking about all the things in the world that I'll be missing out on. The viral tweets, the breaches of my privacy by Facebook and god, all those images of delicious donuts on Instagram. I imagine that's what Julian Assange thought when they cut off his internet earlier this week.

What should you do when your internet goes down to get yourself back online as quickly as possible?

Qantas has released their half yearly results yesterday and, for the most part, the information was not that interesting. But if you're a frequent traveller with Qantas, a single line in their earnings report might bring a smile to your face. The company says they currently have 22 Wi-Fi enabled Boeing 737s with another plane being upgraded each week.

There are literally thousands of Wi-Fi routers on the market. Look through the catalog of an office supply or local computer store, and you'll be faced with a plethora of choices. And some vendors make it hard to compare models by giving marketing-based names to features that are really the same as competitors. This is our guide to the must-have features in a home Wi-Fi router today and five of the best to choose from.

Google Home and Chromecast devices are reportedly killing peoples' Wi-Fi. The problem, first reported by Android Police, originally seemed localised to users of the Google Home Max speaker (unavailable in Australia) and the cheap, but usually excellent, TP-Link Archer C7 router. However since Android Police first reported the problem, it seems to have spread to other Google devices and TP-Link routers.

You probably don't give it much thought, but your router is one of the most important gadgets in your home - without it there's no wi-fi for your laptops, your phones, and all the other web-connected devices you've got set up.

iOS: Having an elaborate, secure password on your Wi-Fi network can be a great thing. A great thing until that weekend you have guests visiting from out of town and they have to try your 20-character Wi-Fi password a dozen different times because a zero looks like an O or they couldn't tell from your chicken scratch which letters are capitalised and which aren't.

According to Qantas' latest financial results, its domestic trial of free Wi-Fi has gone swimmingly -- so much so that from late next month, the airline plans to "accelerate" the service's rollout.

You might pay top-dollar for your Wi-Fi connection, but it probably doesn't feel that way when your connection cuts out around the house. That's why NetSpot Home is a essential for keeping tabs on your network's performance.

If you've ever had a Mac with a Wi-Fi hardware problem, then you know that attempting to use a USB dongle to fix your Wi-Fi has long been a funky experience. That's especially been the case over the last couple versions of macOS. Thankfully, Edimax has released an adaptor that not only works on current and previous operating systems, it might even work in the future.