Home WiFi is something that has been popular since the late 1990's. Such a peculiarity it is, however, that even the former President of 3Com's Robert Metcalfe once famously said
"After the wireless mobile bubble bursts this year, we will get back to stringing fibers ... bathrooms are still predominantly plumbed. For more or less the same reason, computers will stay wired. "While he was certainly correct in spirit, he did end up eating his words as the popularity of Wireless Networks grew. I myself have no issue with the Wireless networks. I think it is a great thing to be able to go to a Coffee Shop, Restaurant, and so on and borrow for a brief amount of time internet connectivity. However, to have a WiFi connection in the home is quite an odd thing to do, for a number of reasons. Within this article I hope to state the facts of the matter.
WiFi is often slower than Ethernet
When I had my first home WiFi connection I had a simple setup where I was connected to the SSID on 2.4Ghz. The common WiFi reserved bands are 2.4 and 5Ghz. 2.4Ghz is quickly becoming obsoleted, however this was in 2014 when I first had it. My Laptop computer was connected to the SSID, while a Desktop computer was connected to the LAN directly. My Laptop was just in the next room.
I decided one day to run a speed test on both the systems. I knew that this net was rather slow, except seemingly on the LAN. What I discovered was an incredibly disgusting thing: The LAN had nearly 60MBps down speed, with a modest 15MBps up. However, the Laptop in the neighboring bedroom had only 5MBps down and only a few hundred KBps up.
You might think this is an isolated incident and perhaps it was too long ago to adequately state that it is a current issue. While it may seem this way, I am fully capable of providing more contemporary example.
In 2016, and again in 2018, I had a Cable Modem connected to a Router. This Router was re-flashed with DD-WRT, thus making it superior to any ISP-provided router. This system was not (at first) connected to any computer by LAN. I had this system connected to every device compatible with it by the 5GHz band. Well, what happened? Nearly everything was slow, bandwidth was nearly full, and thousands of packets were dropped.
It was not until I connected it with a long Cat 5-e that I had purchased to a switch I got at a garage sale in the guest house that I was able to have adequate internet in this home. The switch itself was an older one, maxing out at 100MBps. The Switch itself had only a few machines connected to it. It was superior, and remained a superior connection to any WLAN devices in the home.
I believe it safe to conclude that it is a slower connection. Really, any radio connection is a slower connection. The modern consumer (read: Normie) does not care, and is after convenience (though he will complain profusely over this).
Home WiFi is not secure
There are multiple modes of WiFi security. For the longest time, the standard was WEP. WEP was a failure as it transmitted passwords in Plain Text. The next solution was WPA1, a temporary solution until the much stronger, RSA-backed WPA2. However, there are still numerous solutions to target the (weak) RSA WPA2. Still, you don't need to target WPA2 directly.
The majority of Home WiFi users use easy passwords (if they're smart enough to use a password) and are fully susceptible to a dictionary attack. Having this radio transceiver running 24/7 also allows time for a dictionary attack to perform. An attacker, say your neighbor, can easily run a dictionary attack that would take 5 days to complete, and after this monitor your connections and steal any data he can.
What are the solutions to this? Well, one obvious one is to schedule the system to have off-time. When I have WiFi (which I don't anymore) I have it scheduled to turn off at midnight, then resume at 8AM. How many people outside of me actually enable this feature? None if at all.
Another solution which some commercial WiFi networks employ is to use an alternative certificate-based encryption called WPA2-Enterprise. How WPA2-Enterprise works is that you must be issued a specific WPA2 certificate to connect to the WiFi network, or else connection will be refused. It is similar to a TLS certificate. However, not everything is compatible with it, especially the common internet devices around the home. Further, I doubt the average home user would know what this is, nor how to use it properly. This therefore is not an option for the home user.
WiFi is potentially dangerous
There have been numerous debates both on the net and off the net about the dangers of Radio waves and the effect they have on the human body. The debate is primarily focused on the 5G crap-ware they plan to fuck the consumer with now-a-days.
Fundamentally, the truth is there is scientific evidence that such large wavelengths can cause harm to not only the human body, but other animals and even plant and insect life.
Having a constant-running radio transmitter in your home is not a good thing, and you are constantly polluting your body with radiation. This is something to consider if you are deciding to get off of Home WiFi.