The internet is made from small networks built behind routers called LANs or Local Area Networks. For example, your network at home is a LAN. Other computers, including servers with webpages, are also on LANs. The internet connects these LANs so they can communicate.
When connecting your device or LAN to the internet, it’s best practice to use a router. Having a router improves your internet performance, protects your network, and provides WIFI in your home. Additional features can allow parental control, remote access, and resource sharing on your network.
Even if you only have one computer, having a router on the edge of your network provides many benefits for a relatively low price, making it a highly desirable component of your network.
Why should you try to always connect to the internet through a router?
The primary function of a router is to determine where your web traffic should go. If it doesn’t know, it sends it to all devices until a reply is received or it times out. When a response is received, the router remembers who replied and will send similar traffic there first in the future. This process saves time and improves performance.
Before routers, there were hubs. A hub just sent the same traffic to everyone, and then only the intended recipient would reply while the unintended recipients would just ignore the messages.
Having multiple recipients is bad for security, but the biggest issue was that it was terrible for performance. It wouldn’t take long, and the connected devices would flood the system with so many messages that excessive traffic negatively impacted performance.
In addition to better performance, the router provides a straightforward form of firewall that protects your computers from the open internet. The internet is full of folks who are constantly testing computers on the web for vulnerabilities, and a router can shield you from that.
Fortunately, it’s simple and effective, but it’s not invasive to your surfing activities. All of your internet activities will work the same because the firewall is designed to allow you to connect to points outside your network. All without letting folks from outside your network connect to your computers.
If for no other reason, a router is also a device that provides wireless internet in your home. There are different ways to get WIFI, but this is the most common. When connected, WIFI devices are treated by the router in the same way it treats computers connected to it using cables. So if you want to connect to the web wirelessly, get a WIFI router.
You may find that there are some other features included with higher-end routers that are attractive. For example, routers can have features such as parental controls, remote access that lets you connect to home when you’re away, or the ability to share printers or storage.
How does a router improve internet performance?
There were many competing designs during the early years of network development, but there were many issues. One of the most troublesome issues was performance-based and presented itself in the form of lag. Once the designs settled out and TCP/IP had won out as a protocol, the last real issue involved an early device called a hub.
A hub functioned as a repeater with multiple ports or connections. If one device connected to it sent out a message, it was repeated on all ports, so all devices connected to the hub received them. The end devices would look at the message and accept it or ignore it based on its address.
The device that replies has its messages sent back in the same manner. Thus, the process effectively sent messages, but with multiple devices on the same hub, the small network quickly became overwhelmed with traffic impacting performance.
The solution to this was the switch. The switch learns and saves the address of each machine connected to it and can look at the destination address for each message.
The switch reads a message sent from one device, flips a switch or series of switches, and connects it directly to the receiving device. The process is very similar to an old-fashioned telephone switchboard.
That works for local devices, but what happens when you want to connect to other switches or LANs? That’s where the router comes in. It uses the same process of remembering addresses, but it learns and saves routes between LANs. Then, it keeps them in a routing table for future reference.
If a message can use a previously learned route, the router can skip the learning process, and the router can send the message directly to where it needs to go. Thus, the method used by routers and switches to learn and save both addresses and routes dramatically improves network performance.
How does a router protect your network?
A router protects your network by providing a packet filtering firewall. By default, the packet filtering firewall blocks all incoming connections while allowing all outgoing connections. The filter works because of the three-way handshake used by the TCP/IP protocol for internet traffic. It defines how a connection is started.
The three-way handshake uses a connection request, an acknowledgment of the request, and an acknowledgment of the acknowledgment. It sounds complicated, but it’s not as bad as it seems.
In more common English, it sounds like this: “I want to talk; Ok, I can speak; Alright, let’s start talking” Once these messages have been successfully sent and received, a connection is made.
If someone sends a connection request from outside your network, the packet filtering firewall blocks it unless it’s on a list called an Access Control List. The result is that the connection request times out, and the connection fails.
Note: There’s nothing in your Access Control List by default, but you can edit this in your router settings if you like.
Suppose you send a connection request to a website or some other device on the internet for a webpage or some data. In that case, the packet filtering firewall allows it since the first message requesting a connection came from your computer inside the network.
This feature is really great. It means, from your point of view, you can use the internet without restriction while you are protected from nefarious folks trying to connect to your computers.
So, when should you use a router? If possible, always!