How to Tether an Android to your PC via USB

Sometimes it's more convenient to use your Android smartphone's connection and share it with your PC. This article will show you the steps to connect your PC to an Android smartphone using a USB cable, and then share that connection with your other devices using Connectify Hotspot.

Step 1: Download and install Connectify Hotspot on your PC. Your phone's USB connection shows up on your PC as an ordinary Ethernet connection, so every edition of Connectify Hotspot can share it as a Wi-Fi hotspot, including Hotspot Lite (free). Sharing it to a router or other Ethernet devices (Wired router) needs Hotspot PRO or MAX.

Step 2: Make sure you have an active Internet connection on your Android smartphone - either Wi-Fi or mobile data. To do this, you can usually swipe down on the notification bar and tap on the Wi-Fi and/or cellular data connection. Or, you can go to the Settings screen and toggle the switch on.

Step 3: Connect (or “tether”) your Android smartphone to your PC using a USB cable. Go to the Network Settings area on your Android smartphone - you should find there a section on Tethering. Tap on that and toggle the USB tethering switch on.

Step 4: Make sure your PC connected successfully to your tethered Android smartphone. On your computer, the tethered connection appears as a wired (Ethernet) connection. To check it, in Connectify Hotspot go to Help and account, and next to Network connections, click Open. Windows' list of network adapters opens, and your phone is the Ethernet connection whose adapter is named Remote NDIS based Internet Sharing Device. It should not say it's disconnected.

Step 5: Share the connection with Connectify Hotspot. On the Hotspot screen, choose your phone's connection under Internet to share, and then click Start hotspot. It is usually listed as Remote NDIS based Internet Sharing Device.

For every step, see How to share my Android Internet connection to my other Wi-Fi devices, or, to share it with a router, How to share my Android Internet connection to my router.