Protect Your Home Wi-Fi Network by Setting Up a VPN on Your Router

Setting up a virtual private network on your phone or laptop means a much better level of privacy and security for you and your data. VPNs help to hide your browsing activity and protect your sensitive data from other people, including the company supplying your broadband service. Using a VPN as a privacy measure is particularly useful when you're on public Wi-Fi networks.

In addition to getting VPNs installed on your various gadgets though, you can also install a VPN on your home internet router. Because the technology runs on your router, everything that connects to it—streaming sticks, game consoles, smartphones—gets the benefit of the added protections. When implemented properly, a router-based VPN is a more comprehensive defense against bad actors and snoops.

Exactly how you go about this is going to depend on your router model and the VPN service you've signed up to. While we can't cover all of the possible permutations in this single guide, we can give you some broad pointers as to how you can get this to work, which you should be able to adapt to your own requirements.

Finding a Match

Not every router supports the use of VPNs, and not every VPN will run on a router—so to begin with, you're going to need hardware and software that matches up. If you're shopping around, these are features you can look out for, but if you've already got a setup in place then you might find you need to change some or all of your configuration.

Most standard routers supplied by internet providers won't have VPN capabilities built in, as that feature typically requires equipment that's a little more advanced. However, there's nothing to stop you buying a VPN-ready router and then connecting that to your existing box via an Ethernet cable, without having to rebuild your home network from scratch.