Airport internet sharing: WEP only?

Hi...

Found out I can turn my iMac into a wireless access point by enabling airport internet sharing (system preferences > Sharing > Internet). That's nice because in my setup that would be better than paying for a wireless router and having even more cables and ac adapters cluttering up the place.

But, the airport settings for internet sharing only allows for WEP. No WPA??? That's a bit surprising, and a bit disappointing. I'd rather leave this sharing enabled all the time and I'm not thrilled about using WEP like that.

Is there a way around that?

From what I can see here on my iMac with Tiger 10.4.10, the only choice is WEP with 40 and 128 Bit encryption.

Adding another question to this thread.

What is the range of this sharing? I'm assuming not as wide as a normal wireless router.

Different Mac models will be different but on my iMac G5 the range is decent but not as great at my Linksys WRT54GL with Linux Firmware and dual antennas. I can pick it up though all over the house. If I walk outside and away from the house, the iMac goes away but the Linksys is still there. I have a NetGear as an access point and it has about the range of the iMac. The Linksys 54GL blows it down and any other router or access point I have had here at my place. I can't speak for other Macs but did try my iBook once. Worked well.

dtravis7 said:

Different Mac models will be different but on my iMac G5 the range is decent but not as great at my Linksys WRT54GL with Linux Firmware and dual antennas. I can pick it up though all over the house. If I walk outside and away from the house, the iMac goes away but the Linksys is still there. I have a NetGear as an access point and it has about the range of the iMac. The Linksys 54GL blows it down and any other router or access point I have had here at my place. I can't speak for other Macs but did try my iBook once. Worked well.

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I am very surprised at the range of your iMac. I wouldn't think it could be that strong. Now I'm off to test my MBP.

Thanks for the info.

yellow19man said:

I am very surprised at the range of your iMac. I wouldn't think it could be that strong. Now I'm off to test my MBP.

Thanks for the info.

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Let me know what you find. I just did some brief tests as I did not want to leave it at WEP here very long as there are a lot of hacker type neighbors, but it did much better than I thought it would do.

dtravis7 said:

Let me know what you find. I just did some brief tests as I did not want to leave it at WEP here very long as there are a lot of hacker type neighbors, but it did much better than I thought it would do.

Click to expand...

I tested the access point on my MBP and it didn't fair too well. I used a Toshiba Laptop to connect and well, lets say it had to be very close. It might because of the walls around me. Not too sure. I'll try to connect with another laptop and see if that makes a difference.

I'm not a big fan of wireless, feel more comfortable with the hard line ethernet cords!