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My Phone, the Would-Be Wifi Extender


This is my Galaxy S5;



For the curious, the wallpaper is Splatoon 2 Promo Art.

Today, we are going to try using this as a Wifi Extender.





"Fun" Fact - The battery is so poor, it was charged and still losing power. That's the only reason I stopped using it. It would overheat terribly and shut down, and I didn't enjoy prying off my Otterbox case to take it out and cool it.

 After 5 minutes unplugged it was at 96%. Can it go the distance?

USB Tethering only seems to work if there's a SIM card inside.



 Funny how there's not an option to use this as a WiFi Hotspot (Not the same as an extender) when it's connected to WiFi. I guess the mindset is "If the phone can attach to WiFi, why not the other device?

Time for another app; Because the alternative is rooting the phone. Which I will do shortly, probably using this guide unless someone has other suggestions. I've already downloaded the necessary files.

Today's application is called NetShare (No Promo).



 It's as easy as 1 - Just 1. No '1 - 2 - 3!'.


We're looking at DIRECT-I9-Morgalaxy. I did connect to the device, but couldn't use it as an extender.

Netshare requires we use a proxy, so we're just going to try another app. This is NetShare+



This one also didn't work as intended - but there was a helpful document to work with;



I don't see AirPort on mine, so I just make a new interface.



In the Proxies tab, Web Proxy and Secure Web Proxy - both get the same settings. 8282 is TCP.



My laptop is still struggling to locate the AP, and even having deleted the new interface/profile on my Macbook, it's still looking for something that isn't there until I turn off and turn on WiFi again. It goes back to my default WiFi Network.

So, what went wrong? Your guess is as good as mine. So let's guess anyway;

I don't think it's a matter of outdated technology.

Let's review; Proxies forward HTTP requests. It's like GrubHub, only you're asking the food runner instead of the restaurant to get your food and you never talk to the business (Website) directly. What these apps do, they act as a proxy between you and the far away AP.

Instead of the resources shown in the Help Document, I wonder if putting in one of the US Proxies listed here would have worked.



In fact, I try it, and nothing.

I keep getting the error "This has no IP address", so somewhere down the line, DHCP is not granting this an IP address, and the ones I submit aren't working. Do I need to look at my addressing scheme and select something within my subnet? Possibly!

But it was fun to try.

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