There was a time a few years back when there was no need to apply for password protection at all; anyone who visited your home could automatically connect to your WiFi without bothering anyone to ask for the password.
These were the times when WiFi was very rare and smartphones didn’t have WiFi, or other gathers weren’t there during that time so, people could connect to any WiFi. There was no fear during that time that your data could get stolen; people would just walk in your house with a notebook computer or a rig to play games.
So a lot of people didn’t apply for any password protection. But not the situation is reversed, due to the increase in cyber-crime, all smartphones having WiFi competency, and many other factors. However, for making it convenient for users, manufacturers have created several paths for them on how to login into any WiFi, without password intervention.
WPS stands for WiFi protected Setup; WPS is a standard security protocol that allows connection to the internet using WPA personal or WPA2 security protocol. However, diverting away from technical terms, the primary function of WPS is to create a WiFi network connection that is physically accessible by guests. So besides typing in the password manually, a guest can simply push the WPS button located at the back of the router.
WPS is a very common way to connect to WiFi without password for a home or a small environment. Since people outside the building have no means to physically access the router, it closes the gap to steal the WiFi without password. It’s far simplistic to push the button of a router despite entering a long array of letters.
A pop-up window would appear when you connect stating to push the WPS button on your router. You have a 30-second window to do this before the handshake protocol shuts off. Once pushed, your phone will automatically connect with the WiFi network.
Another alternative of how to connect to any WiFi with guests without the hassle of telling the password to every individual is to simply create a guest connection to your router. Many routers offer the guest Wi-Fi connection feature but one of the drawbacks to having a guest WiFi network is its insecure nature. Guest WiFi networks don’t need any password so you can leave it blank. Guest WiFi networks can work with any device type.
Follow the steps given below to set up a guest network on your router:
One excellent feature of the guest network is throttling the bandwidth so that your guests can be limited to a certain bandwidth.
If you are interested in knowing how to use someone’s WiFi without the password or let them use yours, you can also use QR codes instead. However, the QR code method might be a bit technical for some people. It would be a better option to write down the WiFi password for your guest, but for some, it’s a reliable solution. Below stated are the steps required on how to use QR code to connect to any WiFi network.
Many smartphones now have in-built QR code scanners that don’t require downloading from the store. Furthermore, you can translate the QR code to an NFC tag. It’s performed with the WifiKeyShare app.
Note: what you need to do should be legal, if you are using someone else’s router