I’m setting up a more secure system setup for a friend I used to work with. He had installed a plethora of trojans, keylogggers, about everything you could think of. So I suggested he get a wired router for the extra firewall (plus his teenage son will be getting a computer soon too). They don’t use their systems for any gaming so performance ins’t an issue. What IS an issue is a router that doesn’t fail or have a lot of reset issues. Reading through Amazon, Newegg, Compusa, and Circuit City feedback hasn’t helped one bit. It’s either “perfect” or “horrible”. I’ve even found cross-posting between all these sites.
So, has anyone used Linksys or D-Link wired routers for a bit and feel good recommending one over the other? His price range is up to $60.
When I was looking, the reviews said that D-Link has gone to hell with their latest product line. So I got the Linksys, and haven’t had any problems. The one I got has wireless, but you don’t have to use it.
Routers are just like harddrives. You’ll always find someone who thinks seagates are trash and only maxtors or WD can be trusted, or someone who thinks maxtors are trash, etc. In the real world, all of the major brands tend to make products that work just fine for a high percentage of people who buy them.
As routers are generally used “always on” and because less than a hundred dollars isn’t much to spend on something that is always on, expect it to fail in 2-3 years regardless of which brand you get.
My Linksys router/DSL/wireless thingie died and a D-Link one looked good when I went shopping for a replacement.
I had to return it because the firmware was utterly retarded: It didn’t allow you to specify ranges of ports when setting NAT, you had to enter them one by one. But not content with this they only let you have 20 entries. Which isn’t enough for Steam to work, for example.
I don’t know if they are using that same firmware for other models but I hope the guy that made it has mistaken his fat fingers for sausages and stuck a fork in them.
So back it went and was lucky to find for free some unidentified telco-rebadged piece of crap that just works.
