In addition to being faster than their predecessors, new Wi-Fi-certified 802.11g wireless products promise better protection from snoops, thanks to Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) encryption technology. But even though the WPA standard was introduced about a year ago, some 802.11g products may not support it.

The good news: In our informal tests with a half dozen Wi-Fi access points and 14 internal and external adapters, WPA worked on all products certified for interoperability by the Wi-Fi Alliance industry group. Also, a Windows XP patch that Microsoft issued last fall can fix some incompatibilities. The bad news: Certification is far from universal, especially in certain Wi-Fi product categories; some uncertified products had problems; and it's not always easy to tell what offerings (and technologies) have been certified.

By Seán Captain at PC World.

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