Port Forwarding vs Plug and Play. What Should I Use?

I've read a lot of articles suggesting to disable plug and play on my router or my NAS and enable port forwarding in its place. The articles or people claim its easy. I want to do it but since I'm a bit of a newbie, the venture sounds pretty daunting.

Given that I never took computer science as a major, is this something that I should try to do? I do want to substantially increase the security of my network. I want to do this very badly; however, if it's going to take a long time, it may not be worth it.

I live with 3 other family members that all have various devices. Each family member probably regularly 2-3 devices that seem to connect to multiple ports (I may be wrong about this).

I've given static IP addresses to everyone's devices and that seemed like an ordeal in itself. It gets confusing when guests come over and I have to give permissions for guests to log in as a guest to my router. (My default setting is to not allow new devices to connect to my home network so nobody can hack into my network.)

So, would figuring out what port forwarding/triggering means and then implementing it worth the increase in security? Or should I just leave everything as plug and play. Is it that important in terms of security? Does the fact that my computer in which I would control everything is a Windows 10 Home make a difference?

From a Newbie in Need.

Inn some cases you need to forward ports as some programs cant use plug and prey. Other than that leting software create the ports means it can select a good port instead of using a speciic port some isp block p2p ports etc so these need to find a clear port

Samuria,

Tell me if I am wrong but you are recommending that I should just use plug and play. Right?

Samuria said:

Inn some cases you need to forward ports as some programs cant use plug and prey. Other than that leting software create the ports means it can select a good port instead of using a speciic port some isp block p2p ports etc so these need to find a clear port

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That is a really good darn question and I have no idea.

When it was only me and my girlfriend at the time, we only had 2 devices. And, I read an article that stated that static addresses is much better. I completely forget the reasons. This was about 15 years ago! But, with 2 devices, it was easy. No big deal.

Now, I have kids and so I have devices up the wazoo! There are so many IP addresses listed in my router and I have no idea who it belongs to. I still keep about have of them static like my router, NAS, my computer, other common devices. But, I just gave up on the kids. What I did do is that I won't let anyone new devices connect unless I know who it is. I do this for safety purposes.

But, why did I create static devices in the first place. I have no freakin' clue. It's too long ago to remember what the article told me.

The router I have now is a Netgear R7800 x4s.

It seems that port forwarding would be even more complicated than reserving ip addresses to specific MAC addresses. But, I read that I should do that instead of enabling plug and play.

I'm considering it now because my computer got hacked about a month ago. Somehow they even hacked my phone at the same time. I was like WTF. I don't want them to go through all my stuff. So, I started reading maybe I should port forward so they can't hack my network anymore. I don't know what to do. I do know two things. I don't want to get hacked again. And, I don't want to spend too much time implementing any safety measures.

Compumind said:

May I ask what router you are using?

This could get a bit involved. Hence this article -

What is Port Forwarding vs Port Triggering - What are the Differences?



BTW - Why not DHCP vs your static?

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Uh...I just read about a few paragraphs of that link. Is it going to take a long time to figure out how to do it?

Should I even do it? Does it make my network really safer?

Is there another way to do it that is just as safe my much faster?

By the way, I don't know if this makes a difference but I have a Synology NAS and there is a page in which I have to assign ports to all these services. I check mark the ones that I think I need to check-mark and let the NAS access the router and create ports for all these services that the NAS has to do. That doesn't seem that safe either. Can't anyone hack in through one of these ports?

Compumind said:

May I ask what router you are using?

This could get a bit involved. Hence this article -

What is Port Forwarding vs Port Triggering - What are the Differences?



BTW - Why not DHCP vs your static?

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Compumind,

I thought I sent you a response hours ago but I don't know what happened to it. I hate when that happens. Now, I have to write it all over again. I hate my life. Why does my life suck so bad?

Thank you so much for your help. I am a dunce with computers so I definitely need it.

The router I have is a Netgear R7800 x4s. The admin pages are painfully slow.

I had only read a few paragraphs of the link that you referred to and my brain was already starting to hurt. Is port forwarding/triggering going to be that hard? Is there a real safety problem if I just rely on plug and play? Should everyone be manually port forwarding everything? Wouldn't that take forever? Or is there an easy way to do things? Please give me the answers, wise one!

You also asked me why I use internal static IP addresses. I don't have the faintest idea! Really. Long time ago, while living with my former girlfriend, I read an article that said static IP addresses is really necessary. I can't remember the reason. At the time, we only had like 2 devices so reserving 2 IP addresses on the router was easy peasy lemon squeezy. This was about 11 years ago. Well, my former girlfriend later gave birth to 2 kids and she moved into a small house with me. Now, there's like 20 devices or more! So, I only have static IP addresses to about half of them. The others I can't create static IP addresses because I'm too lazy to figure out what MAC addresses belongs to which device. But, to be safe, I have my router set up so that any new devices can't connect. Her 2 kids will have to ask if they want to connect another device.

Compumind said:

May I ask what router you are using?

This could get a bit involved. Hence this article -

What is Port Forwarding vs Port Triggering - What are the Differences?



BTW - Why not DHCP vs your static?

Wise Master,

Should I be port forwarding or should I just let plug and play do everything?

Wee Mouse

Compumind said:

I misunderstood, lol.

Thought that your ISP provided you with Static IP's...