Connecting NordVPN onto my Netgear router using OpenVPN

RomantheFabulous · February 27

NordVPN don't support my router which is a NETGEAR R8000 Nighthawk but they suggested some 3rd party firmware that it would support which are the following:

https://openwrt.org/toh/netgear/r8000

https://tomato.groov.pl/?page_id=69

https://wiki.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Supported_Devices#Netgear

Firstly, is it a bad idea to be changing my routers firmware? Seccondly, which of these would anyone recomend given past experiences with them? And lastly, is it even worth this much trouble for having a VPN on my whole network?

NikolakiH · February 28

I tried fresh tomato on my old R6300v2 just to see what would happen, and it worked pretty well. It gave me more options than the default router firmware did, and I had fun messing around with it. It seems like tomato and openwrt both have pre-built packages that support your router, so it wouldn't be that difficult to do if you are even just a little bit tech savvy. And if something goes wrong, or you no longer want the new firmware, there are ways to get the 1st party firmware back.

However, you don't really need a VPN for every device on your home network for security/privacy reasons. (On a travel router there is a decent argument to be made.) Contrary to what VPN ads say, advertisers will most likely still be able to track your activity if you are using a VPN, and if someone is able to hack into your computer or home network, a VPN will not be of much help.

You can probably flash openwrt and get it set up without much issue if you do some research. Openwrt is also more secure and will give you more options than the default router firmware (which could be a blessing or a curse.) However, if all you want is the VPN, it's not really necessary.