Connectify Hotspot: Best Virtual Wi-Fi Router Software for Windows to Create Wi-Fi Hotspots

Often you need to share an Internet connection with other devices, extend a Wi-Fi network, or just create a network between your devices. That calls for the functions of a Wi-Fi router, but there is no reason to carry a bulky piece of hardware around to stay connected on the road or at a job site. With your PC’s internal Wi-Fi card and Connectify Hotspot software, you have a fully featured virtual router right inside your Windows PC.

Best of all: it is free to use. Read below to see how simple it is.

Why You Need Virtual Router Software

Here are a few scenarios you might recognise:

• You are stuck in a hotel room with only a wired Ethernet connection and no way of getting your Wi-Fi devices online.
• You are outside your home, on the lawn, and you cannot get your Wi-Fi network’s signal on your mobile devices.

In all of these cases the goal is the same: get your devices online quickly.

This is where a virtual router does something a physical router cannot. A hotel, airport or campus network usually puts a sign-in page in front of you, where you have to enter a username and password or click a button on a website before anything works. A travel router has no browser and no way to fill that page in. A PC does, which is why the computer you are already carrying is often the only thing in your bag that can get the rest of your devices onto that network.

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What is a Virtual Router?

How to Turn Your Windows PC Into a Virtual Router

Solved: Best Virtual Router Software for Windows

Connectify Hotspot Turns Your Windows Laptop Into a Virtual Router

Connectify Hotspot’s virtual router functions work with any routing scenario. The app runs on Windows PCs and laptops and lets you share any type of Internet connection via Wi-Fi hotspot or wired Ethernet.

So whether you are sharing a Wi-Fi Internet connection over Wi-Fi to your smartphone, or trying to get an Ethernet-only game console onto your 4G hotspot, Connectify can do it: wired router mode (PRO) shares your computer’s mobile Internet connection over an Ethernet cable to get all your devices online.

Connectify Hotspot 27 runs on 64-bit Windows 10 (version 1703 or later) and Windows 11. On a Windows 7 or 8 PC, use Connectify Hotspot 2021 instead: see our Windows 7 and Windows 8 guides. Those older versions of Windows have no built-in Mobile hotspot setting at all.

QUICK GUIDE: See here how to turn your laptop into a Wi-Fi hotspot and share Internet with all your devices.

Connectify Hotspot: Much More Than Just a Virtual Router App for Windows

Alongside the main function of sharing any type of Internet connection via Wi-Fi or Ethernet, Connectify Hotspot comes packed with other advanced virtual router features:

• Boost Your Range Instantly with Wi-Fi Repeater Mode: easily extend the range of your existing Wi-Fi network. Repeater mode is part of MAX and needs a Wi-Fi adapter that supports it.
• Save time, bandwidth and battery life on your devices by turning your Windows laptop or PC into a whole house ad blocker. The ad blocking is universal: it also works with in-app ads and is a viable way to block iPhone app ads.
• Connectify Hotspot also works with gaming consoles: PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo and the rest. Set a console’s gaming mode from the Clients screen, free, and UPnP is on by default.

Looking for the best virtual router software for Windows? Get started quickly and easily with Connectify Hotspot for FREE!