every router is bad

[emosun]

recently I pulled a few wireless routers out of my pc parts box and took to reddit to ask if i should use them to replace my current one. Reddit seemed to agree that both routers were too old and claimed they were ancient technology and needed modern firmware. and you know..... I can't help but notice this trend with almost every single networking recommendation I have ever seen ever.

"every router is bad , every router is outdated , every router needs brand new firmware that just came out within the past 10 minutes or it's no good"

I was once told that my router was dying and i had to replace it and that it was ancient and HAD to be replace and it didn't have enough ram or cpu was slow or the capacitors are leaking yada yada yada. I was told that almost 3 years ago , and it still works fine. No problems , works fine. 

So I'm starting to think either A: every router is bad. Or B: networking people are full of crap

 

and until my router stops working I'm more and more inclined to not trust networking people.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

All I know is that most routers ISPs provide are generally crap in one way or another. Even ones from big names like Cisco tend to be crap. In fact, those were the exact words of the Technical Support Technician I talked to from Shaw. That being said, the Hitron one I'm using right now seemed to have lasted almost 3 years of 24/7 operation until it too caught the ghost.

[Windows7ge]

The issue you're describing here is that technology advances so quickly and most of the people you're finding want to be with the latest most up to date tech. A router purchased last year will be considered outdated within the next 2 or 3. It's not that every router is bad it's that older tech is frequently abandoned for newer models even if the unit is only 2~3 years old. This is a widely adopted ideology and practice (which I hate). I believe if what you have works fine feeding your network. If you're not experiencing any problems and the security of it is up to date then run it as long as you like.

 

When a unit is bottle-necking a network. Has security exploits that have been known for a long time, and is frequent to cutting out and requiring resetting. Then it's time to replace it.

[code_glitch]

Most embedded routing hardware is indeed pretty 'crap', compared to whats out there and what more network people are used to. Keep in mind for them, gigabit speeds have been around since the turn of the millenium, so anything boasting gigabit speed is pretty uninspiring.

 

Embedded hardware is usually full of OEM quirks, pretty slow and have significant ROM and RAM limitations. Are the specs *good enough* for pushing gigabit over copper and most common internet speeds over wifi? Absolutely.

 

Consumer routers have a very very huge propblem when it comes to firmware however. Everything is dumbed down and simplified to the point of breaking specifications and causing significant performance problems. Consequently, a lot of options and control is removed from these routers, and trying to use anything that isnt 'default' can often result in significant bugs. And thats before you consider security. If you're running a home-brand router for more than 2 years, theres almost definite odds youre vulnerable. And in pretty bad ways too. Theres no shortage of news on these security problems, but manufacturers are still very reluctant to fix their devices - let alone actually support them with software.

 

Now if you go and install OpenWRT/LEDE/dd-wrt/tomato/whatever you can get a reasonable router considering the cost. Problem is that these projects are often very WIP and in a constant state of flux, with fixes and issues being resolved all the time - so yes, unless you have yesterdays build, it is probably 'crap' in that its at best a hairs breadth away from not working correctly (for a lot of hardware).

[Arika]

18 minutes ago, emosun said:

networking people are full of crap

this one. because they think the only ones that are good are enterprise solutions that cost thousands of dollars

 

i've used the same router for the last 7 years with no issue. never updated firmware. had to factory reset it once when i moved house because it wasn't picking up the signal. It's still only using wireless N, but my internet isn't that fast so there is no point to AC

[emosun]

Just now, Arika S said:

this one.

 

i've used the same router for the last 7 years with no issue. never updated firmware. had to factory reset it once when i moved house because it wasn't picking up the signal. It's still only using wireless N, but my internet isn't that fast so there is no point to AC

mine is 15 supposedly

[code_glitch]

1 hour ago, Arika S said:

i've used the same router for the last 7 years with no issue. never updated firmware.

This is next level scary. Please never do this.

 

1 hour ago, emosun said:

mine is 15 supposedly

Would you trust using windows 2000 or XP for your daily needs not having updated in 7-15 years? Probably not. And thats a platform with lots of interest from security researches and a lot of exposure. Router <x> from <y> from 15 years ago is not at all under the same scrutiny.

[emosun]

4 minutes ago, code_glitch said:

This is next level scary. Please never do this.

if you want scary drive a 1000$ car thats as old as you are. an outdated router isn't scary

[SupaKomputa]

Can you tell us what router you have?

All wifi router below G wifi class should be replaced by now.

Router are cheap, you can get an N one for like $20.

[emosun]

2 minutes ago, code_glitch said:

Would you trust using windows 2000 or XP for your daily needs not having updated in 7-15 years?

sure. i like xp. I'll miss the window snapping thing but thats about it

[code_glitch]

Just now, emosun said:

if you want scary drive a 1000$ car thats as old as you are. an outdated router isn't scary 

Bad example. I've driven a lot of things that were deathtraps and cost a lot less. Still ride some pretty outlandish vehicles daily because money. Up to you what you value your privacy/security at. If youre convinced that you know better than 'networking people' and they are wrong because you disagree with people who take their field seriously then thats your choice.

[emosun]

1 hour ago, SupaKomputa said:

All wifi router below G wifi class should be replaced by now.

it is G so it's fine
it's like a flashback to 3 years ago again lol

 

1 hour ago, code_glitch said:

If youre convinced that you know better than 'networking people'

the people who said the capacitors are leaking in my router when the capacitors on my c64 aren't even leaking? 
I'm genuinely thinking that yeah i might know better

[code_glitch]

Just now, emosun said:

the people who said the capacitors are leaking in my router when the capacitors on my c64 aren't even leaking? 

There are capacitors and there are capacitors. There was a time a while back a lot of motherboards died from swollen caps that leaked because of cost cutting. Capacitors from 1980 and capacitors now are very different things. And cheap chinesium caps and nippon-chemicon caps are also very different beasts.

 

I've had lots of hardware suffer from this that has needed capacitor surgery to get working again. Just because you haven't experienced it doesnt mean its not a problem at large. Their advice is sound, old G hardware from the last decade which most likely hasnt seen a firmware update in almost as long is objectively crap hardware. It can still work to some standard (up to you whether thats good enough), but objectively, for most people inthe space it is crap.

[ZacoAttaco]

57 minutes ago, Arika S said:

this one. because they think the only ones that are good are enterprise solutions that cost thousands of dollars

 

i've used the same router for the last 7 years with no issue. never updated firmware. had to factory reset it once when i moved house because it wasn't picking up the signal. It's still only using wireless N, but my internet isn't that fast so there is no point to AC

From my albeit limited networking work experience, professional Network Engineers don't really know much about consumer hardware, their knowledge seems to be mostly very high-end and expensive network switches and routers, if it's not a CISCO or HP Aruba hardware they won't know much about it.

 

Also, everyone's use case and configuration with their routers are different, some Netgear routers for example, don't like to be turned into an access point, something to do with a lack of bridge? Kept trying to get it to work for a couple of years actually. But yeah, enterprise networking is very different than just consumer routing and networking technologies.

[mynameisjuan]

15 hours ago, ZacoAttaco said:

From my albeit limited networking work experience, professional Network Engineers don't really know much about consumer hardware

I still know a bit about consumer hardware. Do you think we run $60,000 ASR's at home? We still have to chose our personal equipment. I run a $80 Mikrotik consumer router. 

 

To be honest, no one knows about consumer hardware when it comes to certain tech. You are not buying every brand weekly testing what is good at what, limitations, security problems. You google and compare experiences whether you are best buy sales or a network engineer. So when people saying they know consumer hardware from experience I tend to laugh. 

 

Most consumer routers (not modem/router combos) are pretty bullet proof except for security. The problems people have are either user error or the last mile connection, not the router. People just dont understand limitations or why their router is working the way they think it is. Yeah bugs definitely exist but most the time the routers are over taxed for the little memory they have and with 100 features running at once and trying to manage 40 devices will cause freezing and rebooting. 

 

Enterprise and consumer gear really is not that different, hell, most of our Cisco 3850's experience weird and worse problems than most consumer products. We have even moved some of our ME 1200 switches to Mikrotiks and all the problems stopped for those sites. I am talking going from enterprise $1500 switches to $100 consumer switches. 

[ZacoAttaco]

2 hours ago, mynameisjuan said:

I still know a bit about consumer hardware. Do you think we run $60,000 ASR's at home? We still have to chose our personal equipment. I run a $80 Mikrotik consumer router. 

 

To be honest, no one knows about consumer hardware when it comes to certain tech. You are not buying every brand weekly testing what is good at what, limitations, security problems. You google and compare experiences whether you are best buy sales or a network engineer. So when people saying they know consumer hardware from experience I tend to laugh. 

 

Most consumer routers (not modem/router combos) are pretty bullet proof except for security. The problems people have are either user error or the last mile connection, not the router. People just dont understand limitations or why their router is working the way they think it is. Yeah bugs definitely exist but most the time the routers are over taxed for the little memory they have and with 100 features running at once and trying to manage 40 devices will cause freezing and rebooting. 

 

Enterprise and consumer gear really is not that different, hell, most of our Cisco 3850's experience weird and worse problems than most consumer products. We have even moved some of our ME 1200 switches to Mikrotiks and all the problems stopped for those sites. I am talking going from enterprise $1500 switches to $100 consumer switches. 

It’s clearly was a generalisation, I Wars only dealing with a few engineers and they didn’t seem to know much about consumer routers or access points. So obviously not all network engineers are the same and I apologise if I offended you.

 

It’s funny when you point it out that way, I guess what I was trying to say is that most don’t have the same level of knowledge for the consumer hardware that they do for enterprise. But considering it’s their job to know and understand enterprise networking gear it doesn’t come as much of a surprise actually.

 

I find Netgear products to be solid enough but even then there are some notable differences between the more expensive models and the cheaper models too.

[Donut417]

19 hours ago, emosun said:

networking people are full of crap

Id agree with this. The fact is, if the router does what you need then ok. Also, in some situations many routers can get new life when you install 3rd party firmware on them. This generally makes them run better and gives them a longer life span. I had a old Dlink Dir 835 wireless N router that would drop wireless a lot, and it was running the latest firmware. Installed DDWRT on it and it was fine, used it for at least another year. Only reason I replaced it was because of the security issues with WPA 2, and I wasn't sure when DDWRT team was going to update the firmware with the fix, well at least a half ass patch. 

 

Generally if it aint broke dont fix applies here.

[Alex Atkin UK]

Third-party firmware generally makes them run slower but more stable.  Its certainly not a fix-all and why I moved away from consumer routers to a plain low-end PC.  I was just sick of having to worry about if enabling x feature would overload the router.

 

Granted I'm doing firewalling and VPNs that most people would never do, but I never knew just how useful those things would be until I no longer had to worry about overloading my router.

[LukeSavenije]

On 11/12/2018 at 4:36 AM, emosun said:

So I'm starting to think either A: every router is bad. Or B: networking people are full of crap

to start, I'm not a networking guy. But I think anything G or lower is a little slow for todays standards. not that they MUST be replaced, It's kinda the same with a pc, if you like the performence it gives, it's fine.

 

so i'm going for C

[Alex Atkin UK]

G is positively ancient (15 years is a looong time in technology), back from when people had 24Mbit max broadband but typically under 8Mbit.  In my experience WiFi didn't get particularly reliable until 802.11n.

 

N is slow by todays standards, the successor to AC (AX) is coming very soon and this is exciting, it brings much faster speeds to 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz.

 

That said, referring to a router by its WiFi technology is not all that useful.  Some G devices will barely handle 8Mbit broadband, others will be newer and designed for 24Mbit.   Heck, even some AC devices are really weak with only 100Mbit ethernet ports.