low cost Best router I can buy for less than $50 (eBay included)?

[dabockster]

Hey all,

I found out that my Netgear R6400 has no way for the user to control the firewall. This is a huge issue for me as I want to use the firewall to control website access on a per-computer basis to improve my focus. I also want to allow distraction access for my roommates (eg I'm working while the guy in the next room is on Facebook). The R6400's interface only allows me to set this sort of filtering if I manually whitelist the network IP addresses of my roommates. However, if one of the IPs changes for any reason (eg mobile phone leaves the house and comes back), then other devices get blocked and the filter is useless.

 

I have tried DD-WRT, both the default build and kongac's custom build. Both cause the router to lock up and kernel panic after a few hours of use. Restoring this router back to stock was even harder, as Netgear's stock images do not have the correct hex values in a few spots (whether or not this is sabotage by Netgear seems to be up in the air). I had to search for days to find one guy who had a modified image on his personal server in Denmark.

 

Oh, and copying files to my USB hard drive causes the thing to crash on both stock firmware and both DD-WRT builds, even though it's an officially advertised feature.

 

Anyways, ranting aside, I want to get a new router. What are some recommendations for routers under $50 that have firewall access? USB 3 and Wireless AC are preferred but aren't a deal breaker. I am willing to take a look at second hand sites like eBay and Craigslist.

 

(...Seriously, who ships a router in 2019 that doesn't have firewall config? My garbage Belkin router that I had ten years ago had better config options than this.)

[mynameisjuan]

$50 is a stretch and most consumer routers don't allow that granularity of control. You can kind of do it with parental control.

 

Also why not just not give your roommates access?

[dabockster]

On 4/5/2019 at 6:53 PM, mynameisjuan said:

$50 is a stretch and most consumer routers don't allow that granularity of control. You can kind of do it with parental control.

 

Also why not just not give your roommates access?

Parental control on my current router is network wide and requires me to sign up for Netgear's cloud service. I want to be able to target only certain devices and not sign up for another platform.

 

As for my roommates, that's the whole point of my post. I want them to be able to do their stuff while I'm blocked so I can work. I want to do it on the network level since I use multiple devices and don't want to configure them all by hand.

[mynameisjuan]

6 hours ago, dabockster said:

Parental control on my current router is network wide and requires me to sign up for Netgear's cloud service. I want to be able to target only certain devices and not sign up for another platform.

 

As for my roommates, that's the whole point of my post. I want them to be able to do their stuff while I'm blocked so I can work. I want to do it on the network level since I use multiple devices and don't want to configure them all by hand.

Again you will not find any device at that price point with that degree of control that I'd all automated.

 

Still don't understand you objective here. You basically want to remove 99% of their access but don't want to block them completely?