Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and good night, dear readers, and welcome once again to... drum roll, please... Friday Factday! I'm your eloquent executive of elocution, Ben, and this week I'm bringing you some sizzling certitudes about a piece of hardware most modern households possess (and quite possibly loathe): the Internet Router!
Without further fanfare or frivolity, let's dive right in:
The Proto-Router
The origins of the router can be traced way back to 1966 when a man called Donald Davies proposed the idea of an interface computer. This same idea was independently developed the following year into Interface Message Processors (IMPs) used in ARPANET.
The twelve-month million-dollar deal to build the first IMPs – four in total – went to Massachusetts-based company Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN) and was a significant milestone. It was of such note that the Massachusetts Senator at the time, one Edward Kennedy, sent a letter of congratulations to BBN on being contracted to build the first “Interfaith Message Processor”...
Works With a Phone Book
For those unaware, the web addresses you put into your browser aren't the actual addresses – the real ones are those funky strings of numbers, or sometimes numbers and letters. Expecting users to remember these is a ridiculous proposition, however, so the Domain Name System was developed as a sort of phone book of the internet; when you enter a URL like, say, blog.windscribe.com, a DNS list is referenced, and the IP address found.
Most Routers will default to using your ISPs' DNS and the vast majority of users aren't even aware they can change it. Some routers come with their own in-built DNS and you can use 3rd-party DNS resolvers like our wonderful sister, Control D!
Redundant Connections
Internet outages are a major pain for everyone, but they are especially impactful on businesses with critical applications that should ideally never experience uptime disruptions. Think websites, customer service, or even VPN servers!
Enter failover routers, a special type of router designed to switch to a backup internet connection in a heartbeat should the primary connection get disrupted for some reason. There are even some that can be set up with multiple redundant connections for those wanting to be extra secure.
Flash the Cash
Speaking of business routers, many larger businesses require, well, larger routers! These can range in price, size, scale, and functionality, with the biggest able to handle truly absurd amounts of traffic.
The biggest bankbuster I could find was the Cisco ASR-9922, a unit that will set you back thousands of dollars just for a refurbished one. Word is, a fully configured brand new one can cost up to a quarter of a million dollars – a figure that makes me at least reconsider my complaints at the price of a domestic unit.
Windscribe For Routers
And finally, did you know that Windscribe can be set up directly on some routers? It requires a smidgeon of technical aptitude and a router with VPN compatibility, but you can check out our guides for step-by-step setup processes.
If you're wondering why you would want to set up at the router level, well, that's simple: it means all traffic that goes through your network, regardless of the device used, will be subject to your Windscribe preferences. This is useful both to save time setting Windscribe up on all of your individual smart devices and to ensure your network is more protected.
If that sounds like a solution for you, then what are you waiting for? Get yourself a Windscribe subscription now!
