[RndTbl] Firewall/Router hall of fame?

[John Lange]

Yes there were others but the Linksys WRT54g started it all.

The new WRT is expensive because it boasts some fairly beefy specs and has
external ports (eSATA, USB3).

An $80 firewall may have Gig ports on it but there is no way it's
throughput will be anything close to Gig speeds. I'd be surprised if it
would even do 20M/bits. On the other hand, most people have slow internet
so this is a non-issue for most people. But with Shaw now offering 250Mb
connections it's something to keep in mind.

I have no idea what the throughput of the WRT1900AC is, but with a dual
core 1.2Ghz ARM processor, it should be decent.

I'm not going to buy one because my existing WRT54g is still working just
fine (and my internet is horrible so there is no point in upgrading) but I
think it's great that the WRT is coming back.

Regards,

John


On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 8:32 PM, Dan Keizer <dan at keizer.ca> wrote:

> The firmware made the machine --- there are other previous manufacturers
> (buffalo/etc) where the likes of openwrt and ddwrt were ported to as well
> and worked well.
> The list pricing on this AC model is 300$US .. yikes... that's not what
> the home hobby guy is looking for... I was able to pick up an AC dual-band
> gig router for about $80 this past year -- but -- it does not (yet) support
> openwrt firmware ... time will tell though :-)
>
> Dan.
>
>
> On 6 January 2014 11:53, John Lange <john at johnlange.ca> wrote:
>
>> Should the Linksys WRT router/firewall go into the hall of fame?
>>
>> Undeniably, a lot of stuff Linksys made was crap but the WRT was not one
>> of them. Even with it's default firmware it was a great firewall for home
>> and small businesses. From the start it handled state tracking, NAT and
>> packet reassembly properly making it one of the only devices around that
>> would handle things like VOIP (credit most likely goes to it's Linux roots).
>>
>> Even today many so-called high-end firewalls (e.g. Sonicwall) still can
>> not handle a fragmented UDP packets breaking SIP over UDP.
>>
>> According to this Wired article, the WRT is now back in a Gigabit version
>> and Linksys is now publicly embracing the alternative firmwares that helped
>> make it so popular.
>>
>> http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2014/01/linksys-wrt/
>>
>> I still run a WRT with the "Tomato" firmware at home and I think this
>> device will always have a place in my personal "hall of fame".
>>
>> Long live the WRT!
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> John
>>
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>
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-- 
John Lange
www.johnlange.ca
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