Is there currently a more or less ‘go-to’ off-the-shelf router for normies these days? Or even a brand? My dad’s router just went tits up and he wants to buy a new one tomorrow. I’ve never really been all that up on routers and don’t have time to research very much, so looking to see if there’s quick and easy recommendations for something that doesn’t suck for standard consumer use. Last time I did any amount of research, there really wasn’t. The latest and greatest (wifi 7, 2.5gig wired, etc) would be ideal, but not actually required. Triple bonus if it can be flashed with openWRT or similar, kindof want to look into that in the future with the state of router security these days. Caught one of those Wendell snippets telling us basically everything is backdoored, whether to china or somewhere else.
Any ‘aboslutely avoid’ advice would also be welcome.
Glinet, unifi, mikrotik are the only brands that I feel comfortable tell someone to buy cause all the other have so many issues with that it gives me a headache thinking about. Try to go with something Wi-Fi 6,6E ,7 cause it can be at least bleeding edge or modern enough in terms of speed.
Avoid brands like TP Link, Netgear, Asus and any like weird, no name off of Amazon brands cause you don’t know the vulnerabilities in them or back doors possibly
I have heard of unifi, but not the other two. I will do some quick looking at those three, thanks.
Unfortunately if he insists on immediate replacement, we might be limited to whatever is on the shelves of best buy, etc.
Ultimately, the ‘security’ side is going to be pretty meaningless as my parents have happily stuffed the house with all manner of smart everything and act like i’m some kind of paranoid nutjob when I tell them it’s all spying on them (even as mom fills out a form to get her class action payout in the google or amazon or whoever it was spying case). But if I can relatively easily improve that situation a little, hey why not.
Everything on that page except for the first “whole home” thing still says access point. Is “cloud gateway” what they call a router? I’ve never heard that term before.
They wifi 7 cause my current home router is from them and it has it . they don’t put the wifi version in front of there products like most. For better or for worse
Yeah I found the 7 models now. Not sure why I didn’t see those before. Unfortunately the best one is out of stock, but even if dad doesn’t want it, I’m gonna keep my eye on those for myself.
I’d avoid any router with stock firmware, especially the popular consumer level stuff.
Beware not all GL.iNet models can easily run vanilla OpenWRT.
I think if you setup OpenWRT for someone else, the main normie level challenge would be firmware updates. But then again I wonder if the world average home router doesn’t get updated at all(??).
Would take a bit of research to find a router you like, in a priceclass you like.
When it comes to consumer routers, I am disappointed in how short a time they offer firmware updates. I did convert one router to DD-WRT IIRC but even then, the router had too little RAM/ROM to be supported for long even by DD-WRT. I got a few more years out of it at least.
I am super-nervous when I install custom stuff, afraid of bricking ithe device. I’ve flashed custom ROMs onto mobile phones too, it never goes away for me.
And of course it is not “buy, install and forget about it”. DD-WRT was close to that, after flashing the device.
With a mini-PC I got, it came with PFSense, I spent months configuring it. Wasn’t made easier by the fact I am double-NATted since I kept my original router as first router (didn’t want to disrupt the rest of the household by my tinkering with PFSense). I learned a lot tho. Gives me more confidence in my router.
I feel consumer routers should be/are “plug in and play”. But I always configure those too. I maybe spend an hour or a day on that.
Of course, if you set up a router for someone else, now you are probably the support person if there are issues with it =).
I’ve never used an ISP router, I just don’t trust them. In my book, anything is better than those.
If you’re upgrading mainly for better Wi-Fi, I’d look at coverage, client capacity, and firmware support rather than just the advertised speed. A router with solid VLAN, QoS and guest-network options is also worth considering if you have a lot of devices. Sometimes a good router + separate access point setup works better than an all-in-one unit.
If you have MicroCenter near you they have large UniFi sections in many (all?) of their stores now. You can go pick up routers, switches, APs at any time.
I really dont know why people are talking about OpenWRT and pfsense here. I dont think they read the original post at all. These are not off the shelf devices that are easy to use and plop into someones house and not worry about anymore. These are not the systems you want to be looking at for your replacement. Neither is Mikrotik as it is a bit more technical than UniFi is.
For your router, UniFi has two all in ones that are useful (what people are used to as a consumer “router”). Either the UniFi DreamRouter 7 or the UniFi Express 7. Both have the router, firewall, and wifi access point built in, and the UDR7 has a few wired switch ports as well. You can add more Express7 units in access point mode if you want to add wireless backhaul/mesh functionality to the system. More Express7’s can be added when you are using the UDR7 as your main router as well, though currently you need to be on beta/early access firmware for the UDR7 to be able to use full-duplex, low latency wireless backhaul/mesh to the remote/satellite units.
The other way to do it is break each item out to its own hardware. So you get a gateway (router) like the UniFi Cloud Gateway Ultra or Cloud Gateway Fiber. Then you buy a Switch Ultra 60w (PoE switch) or a Flex 2.5g PoE with 210w power supply. Then whatever access point you want for the speeds you want to have. A U7 Lite for just cheap wifi, a U7 Pro XG for much higher end speeds, or a U7 Pro XGS for the highest possible speeds on 6GHz wifi (note that most devices cant even use the full speed yet).
Many people like a basic all in one solution, but if you are going to do a more extensive setup having each type of device as its own hardware often works better. Sounds like you are more interested in an all in one though.
UniFi typically supports products 7-10 years from release and generally an extra 1-2 years after End Of Life with security updates before finally putting a big warning on the interface saying they really need to get a new device.
I know some are scared of vulnerabilities on some brand routers, but If your dad is using Windows or Google it won’t matter about back doors against big tech. If you are connected to the internet, big brother will likely get to you (not that you shouldn’t try and stop them).
I say just find something in the wifi 6 AX range and call it a day (don’t need the latest & save on some cash). If it’s listed as supported by OpenWRT, Merlin, or other, great. If he needs large area coverage, I recommend going with a mesh wifi system. I use Orbi from Netgear, but it is isolated in it’s own subnet and is in bridge mode.
OpenWRT is nice since it does patch vulnerabilities and gives the router extra flexibility, but it still does age out for updates.
My dad has an off the shelf router + pihole. It works for him, since he just does regular internet browsing. I teach him never to click email links and pre-populate all his browser tabs needs.
If you’ve been following the news about router bans by the current administration, it’s about who has controls of the backdoors for off the shelf routers & not if one exist.
Since you need something on short notice, just get whatever from Best Buy.
But ideally, pick a model that is supported by OpenWrt so you can flash a more secure firmware at some point. Just be sure to verify both the model and HW revision for support, and check out the model’s HW wiki page on OpenWrt to see what the flash process is like (e.g. avoid something where it’s technically supported but requires some complicated or risky flash procedure) or if there are any major limitations (like wifi not working, etc.)
Based on OpenWrt forum, Gl.Inet Flint 2 is highly regarded. So if you want an off the shelf right now, that’s probably it. Vanilla OpenWrt support is excellent. Not that I think it’s more secure than the vendor firmware. But if you care..you have the choice. On the long run though, say in 5 years, the vendors may drop its firmware update, then you’re saved from OpenWrt support for prolonged use.
If you want the cutting edge, Flint 4 is also great. If you want more tech savvy options, pick up a BPI-R4 or BPI-R4 Pro.
Thanks all for the input. Looks like he’s decided to be a crotchety old man though and decided he can’t deal with anything other than just grabbing a netgear off the shelf of best buy. I tried.
