I just posted a side comment on the IoT privacy thread Oscar started that I happened to find a deal on a new router.  For $31 (free shipping) on closeout at Best Buy, it has gigabit ethernet and dual-stream dual-band AC, and even though my existing (dual band, dual-stream N) router works fine, I couldn’t pass that up. DD-WRT has a firmware build for this model too, which is what I had been using on my old router.  It’s a decent upgrade (300 Mbps to 867 Mbps wireless speed) on the wireless end, and all of my main laptops are capable of using that 867 Mbps speed.  My desktop uses wired ethernet.

The point of mentioning it in that other thread was to criticize and poke a little fun at its description as a “Smart wifi” router, as routers are actually SoC computers that are already pretty “smart.”  “Smart” things are devices that usually don’t have (much) computing power, but now they do.  Something that was already a computer doesn’t count!  Making it interface with a mobile app that can control it “from anywhere in the world” doesn’t make it any smarter, but it does make it more vulnerable.

Fortunately, the ability only works if you create a Linksys account and log into that from your mobile device and your router.  The service to operate this bad idea, as I understand, doesn’t even start until it’s initiated from the router locally.  It’s a monumentally bad idea, but you don’t have to use it.  And if there’s concern over the mere existence of the feature, even if it is disabled, there’s the DD-WRT firmware, and there may be others too.  I’ll probably switch to DD-WRT before the router reaches the point where its manufacturer forgets about it and does not offer any more updates.

Other than that silly feature, it seems like a pretty decent router so far.  It’s really cheap, too, and it has a gigabit switch, which I learned is rare in lower priced routers.  They have faster wifi speeds than the ethernet switch!  That’s just… wrong.  How useful is a high speed wireless connection for most people if their internet (and the connection to any wired PC, like NAS would be) is stuck at 100 Mbit?  Who wants that?

Just to add to my original post, I have always stuck with this old router because the latest & greatest routers are advertising high speeds and this router works great after all these years BUT I’m in a rural area with wireless and the top speed I can get on a good day is 15 Mbps so a fast router is a bit of overkill for me. However there would be security concerns with the old router since the last firmware update was quite a few years ago.

Yes, Asus still offers a web interface. Netgear and Synology too. So does my favorite company, Peplink. Here is a writeup on their cheapest router, the Surf SOHO

https://www.routersecurity.org/pepwavesurfsofo.php

It is also getting harder and harder to find a router company that does not spy on you. Peplink is great in this regard too.

See the home page of RouterSecurity.org for some tweaks to improve the security of any router. Running a router with unsupported firmware is no different than running Windows XP. Perhaps even more dangerous.

Yup, that’s the first thing that I disabled way back when I bought the router!

Cheers! 🙂