New VPN capabilities with Wireguard in FRITZ routers!Box

The ordinary Internet user associates a VPN with a way to be anonymous online, not realizing that this feature is merely a side effect of using a powerful tool like a virtual private network. In addition to the IPSec protocol that has been available for years, there is a new and improved technology - WireGuard.

What is WireGuard?

WireGuard is a complete set of state-of-the-art communication protocols for fast, secure and easy-to-configure remote connectivity over the public Internet. Compared to its predecessor IPSec - the new technology enables faster data transfer, has more modern authorization and encryption algorithms, and setting up the connection is very easy. WireGuard is a free solution, available for all popular operating systems: Windows, Android, macOS, iOS and Linux.

How to use WireGuard

Now that we know what WireGuard is, we can move on to its main uses: connecting a single computer, laptop, or smartphone to a WireGuard VPN server on a remote network, which is often a WireGuard router, and linking remote networks into a single entity.

WireGuard configuration on FRITZ devices!Box

How to use WireGuard in practice? To remotely connect to the network, we need to install the WireGuard application on our computer or phone (downloadable from wireguard.com) and configure the WireGuard VPN connection on the router. Fritz routers! with software version 7.50 support this new technology.

Wireguard configuration on FRITZ devices!Box is extremely simple and comes down to naming the connection: the public and pre-shared key values are generated automatically and stored in the configuration file. Configuration of the WireGuard client only requires importing the previously generated file into the program.

LAN-to-LAN connections are configured in a similar way: a file generated at one router is imported at the remote side.