Belkin 802.11g Wireless DSL/Cable Gateway Router - Configuration
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Configuring this router is just like any other router. You open your browser of choice (for me it is Firefox) and type in the IP address of the router, or the default gateway. I would recommend first updating the firmware, in case any security flaws need to be fixed. After that I would enable WAP/WEP. From there you can customize to your liking.
Do you like to play games over the Internet? It is very easy to configure the router to allow the games to pass through it. All you have to do is select the game from the drop down box, and click “add.” That's it. No need to figure out what ports to open up and then manually configure the router from there. You can configure them manually for other applications when they need port forwarding. It is kind of confusing trying to locate port forwarding. I looked for a "port forwarding" on the side panel, but couldn't find it. Instead, it is called "Virtual Server."
Next I tried out the Parental Control, which is a good feature if you want to keep tabs on your children. The service is built into the router, so you don't need to worry that your children have figured out how to disable the software. The service is provided through Cerberian. The router comes with a 6 month trial service of the filter, and it is $25 a year after that. For a $10 one time fee, it will keep track of each page visited by a computer on the network.
If your children are tech savvy, you will have to create a very hard to break password, since that is the only thing holding them back. Still, they won't be able to just stumble across the router's configuration page. After setting up the Parental Control, I tried to make my way to a spew of “bad” sites. The blocker seemed to do a good job. It blocked many of the top Google results that were considered filter material. The trick I used when I was in school involved a translator: you make the translator translate the website from a foreign language to English, and the site would come up. I tried that trick with this parental control, and it did not work; the sites were still blocked. This gets my pick as the best Web filter I have run into yet.
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