At risk of sounding stupid, I need some pointers on how to set up a Wi-Fi router and make it as private and secure as possible.
To sound even more stupid, I don’t really know what PiHole is, or why some people route their traffic through a VPN. I suppose my main questions are these:
- What Wi-Fi router should I get?
- How do I configurate it as somebody who is somewhat privacy-conscious but not very tech-savvy?
I don’t really know how regular Wi-Fi routers work, what the common worries are, how/if data is at risk of being leaked, and so on. So, any pointers would be appreciated! Feel free to direct me to any privacy guides, as well. Cheers!
Brand doesn’t matter. They’re all equally bad.
There’s two passwords to change: your routers administrator password and your WiFi password.
There’s mainly one setting to disable, but it’s often broken up into many across several parts of the device’s configuration page: wan administration or access to anything under any circumstances.
The smart starting point with dns is: dns over https. It’s probably all you need so don’t worry about pihole or other stuff. You mentioned mullvad. Use theirs.
These recommendations will provide a good baseline for security that doesn’t break the places you want to go on the internet. You could do more on the client side like use a vpn from your computer or configure your browser to use encrypted client hello and never store cookies or cache.
I also had another question. I’ve tried to get my parents to use NextDNS, but they think it’s blocking too many sites (like "sponsored websites) so they don’t use it. I wonder if I should use a DNS on my router at all because I don’t want my visitors to get blocked from any sites, or is there a way to configurate NextDNS so it doesn’t block those sponsored sites?
Furthermore, what are the consequences of using a VPN and DNS on a router AND your phone (different locations, etc)?