[ale] Looks like time for a new wireless router

[DJPfulio at jdpfu.com]

There are 2 reasonable answers.

a) Be a "consumer" and stick with an Asus "consumer" router that is popular and Asus provides firmware for many years.  Asus was sued by the FTC due to poor security practices and forced into an agreement to follow best practices until 2035.  Read more about it here: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2016/02/asus-settles-ftc-charges-insecure-home-routers-cloud-services-put-consumers-privacy-risk  This settlement makes Asus routers, even the cheap ones, a good option.

b) Get off the "consumer" treadmill and get a generic x86-64 router system (perhaps something from PC-Engines?) and use one of the many x876-64 router distros like OPNSense, pfSense, OpenWRT, etc ... to get 10+ yrs from your hardware.  Don't get wifi with it as wifi standards change every 5 yrs, so you'll want to use cheaper wifi options than any built-in option.  Do you really want to trust wifi at all?

So, what do I actually do myself?  I have a PCEngines box from 2015 running OPNsense for my WAN router. It was $150-ish back then and still working fine.  A few years ago, I needed newer wifi standards support, so I found the cheapest reburb Asus wifi router (in bridge mode) that still had support for $30 and use it in bridge mode.  Looked a few weeks ago and it is still recommended as a replacement for older Asus models that are losing support.  Works well enough for my guests.  I much prefer wired ethernet at home, so it is only those devices that ONLY have wifi which use it. It is connected to a Comcast Business router and all traffic from the Asus are treated like raw internet traffic. That means those devices need to run a VPN to gain access to the main internal LAN.

If the last 25 yrs has taught us anything, it is NEVER trust wifi if you care about security.

There are other reputable wifi router makers. If I were shopping today, I'd look for a wifi-7 compliant router as my minimal starting point to support faster connection for the next few years.  If your computers wifi are old, find some $14 USB wifi dongles to get them current, safer, wifi connections.  No, I don't have any recommended wifi usb dongles.

On 12/27/24 21:46, Leam Hall via Ale wrote:
> Currently using a 3 year old ASUS RT-ACRH18 with two wired and 4-6
> wireless clients, usually low load. It was having issues delivering a
> video, and the log showed a bunch of dropped connections from all
> over the IPv4 range.
> 
> When I remotely rebooted, its IP pinged but the routing and web
> interface didn't come back up. Tried a short power off, same issue. A
> little longer power off worked, at least for the moment. Did a
> firmware update once it came back up fully. After I send this I'm
> going to shut it off for the night and see if it helps clear things
> out.
> 
> However, having a backup is always a good idea. Recommendations?
> House isn't too big, wood and whiteboard internal walls. Main issue
> is that my wife's Mac is old and sometimes doesn't keep a good
> connection. Cost is a consideration, still haven't found a job yet.
> 
> Recommendations?
> 
> Leam
>