Software review – Daihinia

Daihinia is a tool for WiFi. It turns a simple Ad-Hoc network into a Multi-hop Ad-Hoc network. Multi-hop Ad-Hoc networks offer a higher level of flexibility than the usual Infrastructure Mode: in Infrastructure Mode all the computers have to be in the range of the Access Point, while in Multi-hop Ad-Hoc networks they have to be within one another's range, possibly forming chains longer than one hop.

Basically, Daihinia offers a Mesh Network layer for WiFi Ad-Hoc (IBSS) networks, making the network infrastructure be implicitly maintained by the users themselves. It's a nice idea that a network user supports the network around him/her just by the fact that he/she uses the network.

Unlike other solutions that allow mesh topology only between Access Points, Daihinia uses IBSS Mode and adds mesh functionality directly to computers, and does not use Access Points at all. Daihinia is implemented as an intermediate network driver for Windows systems and is completely transparent for programs.

Facts:

Daihinia is a perfect solution for home and small office networks: wireless computers will use each other to establish a path to the computer that shares its wired internet connection to the wireless mesh network.

Daihinia reduces the risk of being hacked wirelessly because you can enable it only when you are using it, not permanently like with an Access Point.

Daihinia is a must-have for any user with a laptop. Based on the network name (SSID), Daihinia driver only enables itself for networks that are prefixed "Daihinia" in their names, and does not interfere when connected to the usual (infrastructure-mode and non-multihop ad-hoc) networks.

Daihinia is better than any SoftAP solution because the resulting network scales easier and automatically, and the traffic between client computers goes directly, without traveling to the AP and back.

Daihinia's unique routing algorithm has an overhead of less than 1.5% (hardware-based mesh solutions can eat as high as 10%).

Daihinia has the advantage of working on all adapters capable of Ad-Hoc mode (the majority of the adapters currently on the market), not only on a small "softmac" subset as other mesh solutions are requiring.

Daihinia works down at the ethernet level, presenting all stations in the Daihinia network as being in the same ethernet segment. By doing so, it is compatible with many protocols and is not limited to IP.