Everyone has noticed that from time to time their internet slows down. This can be caused by anything: operator failures, router overheating, problems with the server that hosts the data… or because someone is stealing our bandwidth.

Many people wonder: How can I know who is connected to my WiFi network? Nowadays a multitude of devices are connected to our WiFi: televisions, tablets, telephones, computers, consoles… that is why it is very easy for an intruder to sneak in and start stealing our bandwidth.

To know who is connected to your WiFi network, the best way is to consult the web interface of your router. Your router hosts your WiFi network, so it has the most accurate data about the devices that are connected to it. Be very careful when connecting to a public network.

Most routers offer a way to view a list of connected devices, although some do not. That’s why the ideal way to check connected devices is usually to use the web interface of your router.

However, some routers don’t offer this feature, so you may want to try a scanning tool instead. This is software that runs on your computer and scans the WiFi network you are connected to for active devices and lists them.

Unlike router web interface tools, these scan tools have no way of listing devices that have come online, but are currently offline. That is, you will only see the connected devices.

There are many tools to do this, but we recommend NirSoft’s Wireless Network Watcher. Like other NirSoft programs, is a handy little tool with no ads or malware.

In addition, it is not necessary to install it on the computer. Download the tool, run it, and it will watch your WiFi network for active devices, displaying their names, MAC addresses, and the manufacturer of their WiFi network hardware.

Manufacturer name is very useful to identify specific devices without device nameespecially Android devices.

Although internet theft was very common 10 years ago, this is not something you should constantly worry about. If you use WPA2-PSK encryption and have a good password, you can feel safe.

It is unlikely that someone will connect to your WiFi without your permission. If you are worried about this happening for some reason, you can always change the network password, the downside is that you’ll have to re-enter it on all your approved devices, of course.

Make sure WPS (that button that remotely binds any device looking for WiFi) is disabled before doing this, as WPS is vulnerable and could be used by attackers to reconnect to your network without the passphrase.