Which router brand is reliable these days?

[tanjackson]

I have a Netgear wndr4500 which is maxed out at less than 400Mbps, but it is very reliable. I'm researching for new 1G router. I see many bad review about Netgear is no longer reliable as they used to be. Which brand do you recommend in 2024? NO TP LINK(I used their wifi adapter and it sucks) + TP Link is a Chinese company.

[DrMacintosh]

I don't think there is anything wrong with TP-Links routers. That being said, I have 2 Linksys MX4200 routers and they are great. They have some nice Wifi 6, 6E, and 7 mesh routers. The Atlas Pro and Velop models are great.

[LAwLz]

Stop trying to judge products by the sticker that is on the box.

Just because one product from a company is bad does not mean all products from that company are bad. Likewise, just because you had a good experience with one product from one company does not mean all products from that company are good.

 

It's also worth remembering that people are more likely to leave negative reviews than positive reviews.

When it comes to tech products a lot of things are "user errors" or the wrong expectations as well. People shoving their router into a metal box and leaving it in the corner of the house, then being mad that they don't have excellent reception at the other side of the house.

[tanjackson]

8 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Stop trying to judge products by the sticker that is on the box.

Just because one product from a company is bad does not mean all products from that company are bad. Likewise, just because you had a good experience with one product from one company does not mean all products from that company are good.

 

It's also worth remembering that people are more likely to leave negative reviews than positive reviews.

When it comes to tech products a lot of things are "user errors" or the wrong expectations as well. People shoving their router into a metal box and leaving it in the corner of the house, then being mad that they don't have excellent reception at the other side of the house.

True, but TP Link is a Chinese company so I'm out. 

[voyager_]

10 minutes ago, tanjackson said:

True, but TP Link is a Chinese company so I'm out. 

Where do you think the products are made, there is nothing wrong with TP Link and they a significant portion of the networking market. If you're going to exclude a Chinese company or anyone with Chinese affiliation you won't have many options. Asus and Linksys are Taiwanese but guess who does some of the most business with them? I have always had good luck with their products and no matter what you get there will be people with problems.

[Alex Atkin UK]

2 hours ago, tanjackson said:

True, but TP Link is a Chinese company so I'm out. 

Which is why a lot of us stick to their models with OpenWRT support, so you know exactly what you're getting in the firmware.

 

That said if there was something nefarious in the stock firmware, surely someone would have noticed by now?

[Lurick]

6 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Which is why a lot of us stick to their models with OpenWRT support, so you know exactly what you're getting in the firmware.

 

That said if there was something nefarious in the stock firmware, surely someone would have noticed by now?

If there was something nefarious that could decrypt your TLS 1.2 and 1.3 traffic at or near line rate (which requires super expensive and powerful ASICs) and shoot it off to Chinese servers it wouldn't be in a home router either.

[Alex Atkin UK]

8 minutes ago, Lurick said:

If there was something nefarious that could decrypt your TLS 1.2 and 1.3 traffic at or near line rate (which requires super expensive and powerful ASICs) and shoot it off to Chinese servers it wouldn't be in a home router either.

Its not like home user traffic is going to be remotely useful to the Chinese government, unless they targeted someone specifically.

 

I was thinking more like malware that could make the router part of a botnet, as I can't think of anything else that might be useful to China other than having consumer routers become part of a DDoS.

 

Of course you also have to weigh up the economic harm.  China relies on the rest of the world buying their hardware, so it would be a pretty dumb to destroy that market.

[Lurick]

Just now, Alex Atkin UK said:

Its not like home user traffic is going to be remotely useful to the Chinese government.

 

I was thinking more like malware that could make the router part of a botnet, as I can't think of anything else that might be useful to China other than having consumer routers become part of a DDoS.

 

Of course you also have to weigh up the economic harm.  China relies on the rest of the world buying their hardware, so it would be a pretty dumb to destroy that market.

True, most of the time I hear people talking about nefarious stuff is decryption and whatnot but a backdoor that makes a device vulnerable on a home router isn't generally going to do much for standard DDoS attacks. Certain reflection/amplification based attacks can get away with it in a more stealthy manner but they aren't stealing someones credentials or anything for sure, not with the weak hardware the consumer stuff comes with, haha.

 

I'm not saying there aren't crappy code practices in firmware either but that's a completely different topic and definitely not limited to one company or region of companies

[Alex Atkin UK]

4 minutes ago, Lurick said:

True, most of the time I hear people talking about nefarious stuff is decryption and whatnot but a backdoor that makes a device vulnerable on a home router isn't generally going to do much for standard DDoS attacks. Certain reflection/amplification based attacks can get away with it in a more stealthy manner but they aren't stealing someones credentials or anything for sure, not with the weak hardware the consumer stuff comes with, haha.

 

I'm not saying there aren't crappy code practices in firmware either but that's a completely different topic and definitely not limited to one company or region of companies

I ditched consumer routers over a decade ago anyway, purely because I was sick of them not being up to the task.  Of course I replaced it with a Chinese made PC off Aliexpress.

 

As for security, my ONT is Huawei anyway connected to a Huawei box in the exchange, so if I was being paranoid....

 

The security concern is exactly the latter, getting Chinese brands out of the core network, not the home.  There's still a lot of debate if the last-mile is even a concern, its really much deeper in the backahaul networks that they're worried about where the REAL damage could be done.

[Donut417]

19 hours ago, tanjackson said:

Which brand do you recommend in 2024

I have a Synology RT2600AC, it wont do Gigabit internet tops out at 850 Mbps or so, but they do have an updated WiFi 6 version id imagine that probably will do better. The router has been operating for 4 or 5 years with no issues.

[tanjackson]

Most of you support TP Link, but how reliable are they in term of connectivities?

 

Does the wifi drop a lot?

 

if not, which wifi 6e do you recommend?

[brich4750]

Since I purchased my TP-Link Deco X55, I have had nothing but issues with Wi-Fi connection drops. Hated it so much went back to My Netgear MR60. Purchased the Deco for 3 reasons. Netgear was failing a little at times requiring reboots to fix, Great deal on Deco, Currently Supported with newer Firmware. That being said it is being returned to Amazon shortly.

 

TP-Link support was saying my 55 devices were too much for the Router. Forcing appx half to main Deco, next 20 to Office Deco, and final 6 to Downstairs Deco and i was still having Wi-Fi drops during work with teams calls being dropped/reconnected.

Switched back to Netgear and no drops, none period.

 

Now looking at Netgear Orbi Pro as possible replacement.

[tanjackson]

Btw, Do I need a router if I get ATT fiber in the future?

[Donut417]

1 hour ago, tanjackson said:

Btw, Do I need a router if I get ATT fiber in the future?

AT&T provides a modem/router with their service. Most American ISP’s provides a modem/router combo. 

[Falcon1986]

On 2/23/2024 at 1:28 PM, tanjackson said:

Btw, Do I need a router if I get ATT fiber in the future?

If what you have now is sufficient for your needs, stick with it.

 

When you upgrade, see if the performance you get from the AT&T setup is adequate for you. If not, you can consider 3rd party routers.

 

BTW, are you referring to an all-in-one consumer wireless router or a more advanced setup with separate router, switch, AP, etc?

 

I've had good experience with Synology and Ubiquiti (EdgeMax, AmpliFi and UniFi lines) brands. The only TP-Link router I have is running in AP mode on the last-supported DD-WRT firmware, and it performs decently. I like unmanaged Netgear switches and the Nighthawk R7000 (played around with Tomato/FreshTomato). The last Linksys product I owned was a WRT54G running DD-WRT, which you can imagine is retired.

[Bdavis]

Pfsense or Ubiquiti are the only 2 routers I would consider using again.

[tanjackson]

Btw, can I use  Linksys Atlas Max 6E as a regular router?

 

I know they are mesh system. 

[Falcon1986]

22 hours ago, tanjackson said:

Btw, can I use  Linksys Atlas Max 6E as a regular router?

 

I know they are mesh system. 

Sure.

[Stahlmann]

I got the TP-Link Archer AX10 a year ago and it's been working without hiccups.

 

I only have a 100 Mbps connection though and no WiFi 6 devices though so take from that what you will. Gigabit is oficially supported over both ethernet and WiFi.

[voyager_]

On 2/23/2024 at 1:28 PM, tanjackson said:

Btw, Do I need a router if I get ATT fiber in the future?

I have Fiber with AT&T and the box the shipped is ehhhhhhh... I had it handling routing duties then Ubiquiti handleing my switches and access points but I started having issues and bought a ubiquiti router and reset the AT&T garbage and put it in as close as pass through mode that it allows. If you go AT&T make sure to disable some of their wifi functions it will let other AT&T users use your wifi 

[LAwLz]

On 2/23/2024 at 1:40 AM, tanjackson said:

Most of you support TP Link, but how reliable are they in term of connectivities?

 

Does the wifi drop a lot?

 

if not, which wifi 6e do you recommend?

Whether or not your WiFi drops highly depends on a lot of factors. Where is the router located? What devices do you have connected to it? What is the radio environment like? And so on, and so forth.

 

You can't judge entire brands like that based on some anecdotal experience. For all we know, someone complaining about a brand being unreliable might have had a completely different model of router (I would argue the model matters far more than the brand), they might have put it inside a drawer so most of the signals get blocked, and they might have had plenty of neighbors with really wide channels, thus creating a very noisy environment. They might also have had unrealistic expectations like "why am I only getting 800Mbps download speeds when I should be getting 1000?". Basically no Wi-Fi router would do well in that scenario.

 

Meanwhile, someone telling you about a great experience might have had a really good model, had it in a great position, and been living somewhere where there is basically zero interference. On top of that the might only have used their Wi-Fi for really simple stuff like sending instant messages and email, things that aren't that sensitive to latency and don't require a lot of bandwidth. Even my old wireless-G router would be able to handle that scenario.

[Alex Atkin UK]

38 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Meanwhile, someone telling you about a great experience might have had a really good model, had it in a great position, and been living somewhere where there is basically zero interference.

Very much this.  Example being once I moved all my WiFi 5 clients off the WiFi 6 AP, my inconsistent performance disappeared.

 

I'm also in an area without DFS problems and all the neighbours in range are on none-DFS channels, so I have tons of spectrum to myself.

 

I also mostly use WiFi in the same room as the AP so do not suffer range related issues, speeds drop quickly in other rooms but all important devices are wired so its a none-issue.

 

Someone completely relying on WiFi for everything, expecting full performance in the bedroom on their laptop when the router is two floors down behind them (so their body is blocking the signal as well as the floor and furniture) is never going to get a good experience.  If they're also in a condo where everyone has their own WiFi, its going to be terrible unless they have an AP in every room on a high 6Ghz signal so that there is little interference from other networks due to the short range.

 

People expect miracles from WiFi when in reality you're only going to get that perfect experience if you really invest in the network design to create something more similar to a commercial building.

[brich4750]

On 2/22/2024 at 11:47 PM, brich4750 said:

Since I purchased my TP-Link Deco X55, I have had nothing but issues with Wi-Fi connection drops. Hated it so much went back to My Netgear MR60. Purchased the Deco for 3 reasons. Netgear was failing a little at times requiring reboots to fix, Great deal on Deco, Currently Supported with newer Firmware. That being said it is being returned to Amazon shortly.

 

TP-Link support was saying my 55 devices were too much for the Router. Forcing appx half to main Deco, next 20 to Office Deco, and final 6 to Downstairs Deco and i was still having Wi-Fi drops during work with teams calls being dropped/reconnected.

Switched back to Netgear and no drops, none period.

 

Now looking at Netgear Orbi Pro as possible replacement.

UPDATE - worked with Deco support and got beta firmware that seemed to resolve the issue.

 

Update #2 - not saying Deco is to blame but i got email from Verizon Abuse days after installing the firmware about my IP address trying to telnet to other IP's.

The telnets from my IP started the day after the install though.

I still saw a few issues, so purchased Eero 6+ mesh router. now to return the Deco's.

email from Verizon Abuse about telnet to a few IP addresses, and the Firmware from Deco was named this - "X50_X55-SP1-up-ver1-1-0-P1[20231218-rel52363]_beta_telnet_fix_beacon_burst.bin"

 

days after testing the firmware and the night before replacing Deco with Eero Deco released a new firmware.

 

I am hoping it was missed code in the firmware.

[Alex Atkin UK]

20 hours ago, brich4750 said:

UPDATE - worked with Deco support and got beta firmware that seemed to resolve the issue.

 

Update #2 - not saying Deco is to blame but i got email from Verizon Abuse days after installing the firmware about my IP address trying to telnet to other IP's.

The telnets from my IP started the day after the install though.

I still saw a few issues, so purchased Eero 6+ mesh router. now to return the Deco's.

email from Verizon Abuse about telnet to a few IP addresses, and the Firmware from Deco was named this - "X50_X55-SP1-up-ver1-1-0-P1[20231218-rel52363]_beta_telnet_fix_beacon_burst.bin"

 

days after testing the firmware and the night before replacing Deco with Eero Deco released a new firmware.

 

I am hoping it was missed code in the firmware.

Did they not mention what IP addresses it was trying to access?