:confused:I'm not quite understand what the meaning by manufacturer name... If wanting to disable the SSID broadcasting, you can go to Wireless Settings, cancel the tick in Enable SSID Broadcasting.

Thanks Andrew but as I said I do not want to disable broadcast of the SSID. Along with the SSID, the router also broadcasts the name of the manufacturer and that is what I want to stop. This information is visible with scanning software although not [to my knowledge at least] when you are just using Windows. With the manufacturer name, someone trying to hack my router will be able to look up additional information and that is my concern.

I have attached a screen capture to illustrate what I am referring to in my question; I have deleted the SSIDs and the MAC addresses. Look to the extreme right of the image and you will see a column entitled "Vendor". Some of the vendors do not show but TP-Link [and others] do. I am trying to discover if it is possible to set up the WDR4300 so that it does not show the "vendor" information.

The vendor information that wifi utilities such as inSSIDer shows is determined from the first 6 alphanumeric prefix of the MAC address as determined by IEEE standards.
See http://wintelguy.com and type in "TP-Link" and your MAC address prefix is one of those OR type your MAC address and it will show TP-Link as the vendor.

So your only option is to change the MAC address of your router.

what pjbtpl said.

I have the same router and did not made any chages to my MAC but i don't have the Vendor name displayed at all in inSSider.[ATTACH=CONFIG]0[/ATTACH]

pjbtpl wrote

The vendor information that wifi utilities such as inSSIDer shows is determined from the first 6 alphanumeric prefix of the MAC address as determined by IEEE standards.
See http://wintelguy.com and type in "TP-Link" and your MAC address prefix is one of those OR type your MAC address and it will show TP-Link as the vendor.

So your only option is to change the MAC address of your router.

Thank you for the information and suggestion pjbtpl, I will try changing the MAC and see what happens.

Can you offer guidance regarding any problems that I might run into when changing the MAC? In other words, can I freely change it to whatever I chose without causing connectivity problems?

canuck wrote

Can you offer guidance regarding any problems that I might run into when changing the MAC? In other words, can I freely change it to whatever I chose without causing connectivity problems?

It depends your ISP, sometimes if they can not identify if it is a proper network hardware from the MAC then you may not have internet access. Keep track of the original MAC address of the router, then use the "clone MAC address" feature on your router to change it to the MAC address of your ethernet port or wireless card on your computer.

clocky wrote

I have the same router and did not made any chages to my MAC but i don't have the Vendor name displayed at all in inSSider.

Most likely inSSIDer has not updated its IEEE oui/company id listing which contains the MAC address prefix of manufacturing vendors. When networking vendors run out of unique identifying number from their given prefix, they typically apply for and given new prefixes by IEEE. Which then 3rd party utilities may or may not identify the new prefixes based on the frequency of updates of their oui database.

Well I have tried to change the MAC address using the cloning function in the router. I did it twice using wireless devices and although it said the MAC was changed, it was not. Then I read the manual and it spoke of a wired connection so I tried that. Same result.

What happens is that the MAC clone function shows that the address has been changed BUT when you look at the address in the network status window, it is still the same original MAC; inSSider also shows the original MAC address. I have tried doing hard and soft reboots on both the router and my DSL modem. Still no change in the routers public MAC address.

Anyone have any ideas why this is happening and what I could try??

The router has a handful of MAC addresses, one for each network interface: WAN ethernet port, LAN, wireless for 2.4Ghz, wireless for 5 Ghz. The MAC clone only affects the WAN ethernet port, which would be shown to the internet. What you are seeing in inSSIDer is the MAC addresses for the wireless 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz signal from the router, which I've checked with my TPL 3600 and inSSIDer. Effect of the MAC clone change should be shown on the TP-Link admin page in the Status tab - WAN section.

FYI - inSSIDer 2.1.5 does not show the vendor name for the wireless signal from my TP-Link 3600. However, when I just upgraded to InSSIDer 3, it identifies the wireless signals coming from the vendor TP-Link Technologies. So version 3 updated its oui vendor database.

So I don't know how to change the router's wireless MAC addresses with original firmware. Maybe with alternative firmware such as dd-wrt which I have on my other routers (will check on it later). So maybe the best you can do is hide the wireless signal SSID name, setup MAC filtering to only allow the MAC addresses from your computer and devices, and especially 1. use WPA2 wireless encryption with strong password, and 2. change the router's default administrator username and password. Even if people know who the router vendor is, they would still need to crack the WPA2 encryption if using wireless, and crack the router username and password if they are on your network (wired or wireless).