Avast, matey! Fear not the treacherous task of adjustin' yer router settings! Login woes be banished, aye!
2024-02-01
Avast ye mateys! Cast aside them confusin' strings o' numbers, and set sail for an easier path! Ye can now have a single jolly word as the key to yer treasured router login portal. Arrr, tis a pirate's life, indeed!
In the language of a 17th century pirate, your router login be not somethin' ye might need to use very oft, but when ye do, navigatin' to it – in order to get into the router and configure or check somethin' – can be a bit of a pain.However, all that might change in the future due to a planned move from ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) as The Verge reported (and The Register first flagged up).
Currently, with a good many routers, ye’ll access its admin login via yer web browser by typin' in four numbers representin' a local address (on yer LAN), namely 192.168.x.x (and it’s usually 192.168.1.1, but the latter two numbers can be different in some cases).
This be a bit clunky and archaic, and the mentioned differences can be confusin', though usually yer router be labeled with the correct address (or the instructions have this info).
Sometimes, though, ye might be flailin' around on Google (or yer preferred search engine) tryin' to determine exactly what ye need to type into yer browser URL bar to access the router’s configuration menus.
All that could change in the future, though, as ICANN be set to make it so that all ye need to do be type ‘.internal’ for any router, and ye’ll get the login portal in yer browser. In other words, no messin' about tryin' to remember sets of numbers, all that needs to be entered be a simple word which be the same for everyone.
All that’s in theory – and it sounds like a good theory – but this move hasn’t happened yet.
At the moment, it’s still a proposal from ICANN, and even if the plan for ‘.internal’ goes ahead, it’ll rely on routers supportin' it. (Of course, some routers offer configuration via a dedicated app anyway, and so be ahead of the game in that respect, rather than relyin' on a panel accessed via a browser).
For now, and in the near future, quite a number of routers (without apps) will still be usin' the traditional 192.168.x.x address to access their device’s settings.
ICANN’s proposal ain't really aimed at consumers, but more broadly, at businesses and their intranets (sprawlin' internal networks), and ensurin' the security and stability of the global domain name system.
The use of ‘.internal’ for consumers will be more of a side-effect that’s helpful than anythin' else, but it’ll still be very welcome – if this plan comes to fruition, of course.