Read Me First
Welcome to Take Control of Wi-Fi Networking and Security, version 1.1, published in October 2019 by alt concepts inc. This book was written by Glenn Fleishman and edited by Scholle Sawyer McFarland and Joe Kissell.
This book explains the ins and outs of setting up, modifying, and increasing the security of a home or small-office Wi-Fi network, from choosing hardware to configuring radio settings to working with adapters in macOS, iOS, iPadOS, Windows, Android, and ChromeOS.
If you want to share this ebook with a friend, we ask that you do so as you would with a physical book: “lend” it for a quick look, but ask your friend to buy a copy for careful reading or reference. Discounted classroom and Mac user group copies are available.
Copyright © 2019, Glenn Fleishman. All rights reserved.
Updates and More
You can access extras related to this ebook on the web (use the link in Ebook Extras, near the end; it’s available only to purchasers). On the ebook’s Take Control Extras page, you can:
Download any available new version of the ebook for free, or buy any subsequent edition at a discount.
Download various formats, including PDF, EPUB, and Mobipocket. (Learn about reading on mobile devices on our Device Advice page.)
Read the ebook’s blog. You may find new tips or information, as well as a link to an author interview.
If you bought this ebook from the Take Control website, it has been added to your account, where you can download it in other formats and access any future updates. However, if you bought this ebook elsewhere, you can add it to your account manually; see Ebook Extras.
What’s New in This Update
Since the first edition of book—revised from a previous title focused just on Apple’s now-discontinued Wi-Fi base stations—several modest but significant changes have happened in the Wi-Fi world. This book is updated to cover a range of changes, big and small:
The Wi-Fi Alliance trade group introduced a numbering system to make generations of standards clearer. The book has been updated to explain the new system and use it throughout. See What’s Wi-Fi?.
The latest wireless networking flavor, 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6), has shifted from being introduced into appearing in actual shipping hardware. See WiFiStandards.
The updated security protocol for Wi-Fi, WPA3, is now starting to become available in routers and operating systems, and I’ve revised to book to include that term and to explain its new features. See WPA, WPA2, and WPA3 Background.
Because mesh networking is a quickly changing part of the market, I’ve updated recommendations and details in Build a Mesh Network to reflect the current shape of what’s available. This includes describing some of the newer hardware on the market, and why the latest inexpensive mesh nodes aren’t worth buying instead of more traditional Wi-Fi gateways.
Apple revamped how it handles connections to iPhone and iPad Personal Hotspots as of iOS 13 and the newly split-off iPadOS 13. The book is updated—in Connect in iOS and iPadOS—to show fresher interfaces for those new operating system releases, too.