Full network ad blocking for me. A lot of people use it for VPN features, you can run wireguard on some higher end routers with very good speeds.
There's some other interesting things you can do with mesh networking, try to eek out the highest possible performance. Schedule access to internet via MAC address like maybe you only want your kids to have internet during the day or something.
I got this one last month as an upgrade from my Archer C7
https://www.amazon.com/Dynalink-DL-WRX36-8-Stream-Wireless-3-6Gbps/dp/B096K9SVCT
There's an install guide in the OpenWRT wiki, worked smoothly for me. I just pre-downloaded all the installation files and saved copies of the forum post and wiki page for reference. Set up the router at my desk and got OpenWRT installed in about 30 minutes without ever connecting it to the internet, then set it up in the final location, plugged everything in and good to go. I picked the same wifi name and password so everything just reconnected without having to go reconfigure.
It's not the most top of the line router but the price is decent. I'm getting 300-400mbps on AX wifi now and better range.
Very easy to get professional-tier reliability/features/configuration out of cheap consumer routers. If you've used a truly cheap garbage router, you should know what I mean. Nothing but the basics for consumers, they crash every five days, and it never gets better because they rarely get updates for the wifi drivers and never get updates for the kernel. But a cheap router with OpenWrt is perfectly usable, and the configuration isn't "unnecessary" - stuff like SQM is great.
Reliable DNS-level adblock is a big one.
For some fricking reason Android has a habit of ignoring your DNS preferences and insisting on using Google DNS. None of the consumer-grade shit has a firewall that lets me redirect all port 53 traffic to my server.
Another thing I like is wifi band steering. Maybe not useful to most but I have a rather large house and I need multiple APs for full coverage.
Multi-WAN can also be very useful if you live in some bumfrick rural town with unreliable but cheap service.
i like the ootb zero config networking features (.lan domain for openwrt)
I'm a broke university student and even my parents expensive ass router doesn't do this (it comes with a shitty app though).
i do, but i am disappointed that i didnt buy a good router, since my seedbox fills up its active connections table and edges it at 80-90% all the time. it causes some programs/games that require a stable connection to shit the bed and time out every so often
I live in an apartment built in 2019, and the modem is effectively integrated to my electrical cabinet. I get gigabit fiber WAN as ethernet directly. I don't need a modem at all.
and a switch, and an access point. Having it all in one small-ish device is a big convenience for most people.
>and a switch,
Buy a swich >and an access point.
Buy a wifi card >Having it all in one small-ish device is a big convenience for most people.
Convenience wasn't ever the goal of this OP. We're here for full control.
But if you want something small and efficient you can use a laptop to do this too.
>Buy a swich
Full of proprietary blobs. >Buy a wifi card
WiFi cards are full of proprietary blobs. There isn't a SINGLE ONE that's open and capable of 802.11ac (WiFi 5) or higher. Not one.
Intel WiFi cards, which are the most common, are NOT CAPABLE of acting as access points in 5GHz. This is a firmware limitation, and since you can't use your own firmware you're not allowed to take control of the hardware.
It's not possible to have a modern computer or even a network device without proprietary firmware.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Absolutely true. But I just don't really care about proprietariness anymore, as long as it doesn't inconvenience me in some major way. Lack of 5GHz is bit shitty but I don't need it anyway, so it's okay.
I hopped from AMD to Nvidia a year ago too, because they're just better and I got tired of pretending they're not.
3 months ago
Anonymous
A sensible reply in IQfy? Your kind is not welcome here. Only shilling and flame war are allowed.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Yeah... major imageboards have been utter dogshit filled with nothing but gaslighting and psyops since 2016.
I'm still stuck here trying to relive the good old days of 2010+-2. Everyone else got a life and left.
banana pi released a 30 buck modern openwrt wifi 6 router
https://www.tomshardware.com/networking/routers/banana-pi-launches-dollar30-openwrt-wi-fi-6-router-with-wpa3-protection-optional-poe
been using openwrt about 13 years now
>you're running code that others can see in your router, right?
hell nope
I've got bad news for you about 95% of the code in your router.
>Hell nah I only use NSA(TM) certified backdoor that I can't see
>Easter egg: DSL router patch merely hides backdoor instead of closing it
Researcher finds secret “knock” opens admin for some Linksys, Netgear routers.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/04/easter-egg-dsl-router-patch-merely-hides-backdoor-instead-of-closing-it/
Are there other benefits than freetardism and (unnecessary) configurability?
sqm is a major reason i use openwrt
Full network ad blocking for me. A lot of people use it for VPN features, you can run wireguard on some higher end routers with very good speeds.
There's some other interesting things you can do with mesh networking, try to eek out the highest possible performance. Schedule access to internet via MAC address like maybe you only want your kids to have internet during the day or something.
What routers would you recommend for a noob for something like this?
I got this one last month as an upgrade from my Archer C7
https://www.amazon.com/Dynalink-DL-WRX36-8-Stream-Wireless-3-6Gbps/dp/B096K9SVCT
There's an install guide in the OpenWRT wiki, worked smoothly for me. I just pre-downloaded all the installation files and saved copies of the forum post and wiki page for reference. Set up the router at my desk and got OpenWRT installed in about 30 minutes without ever connecting it to the internet, then set it up in the final location, plugged everything in and good to go. I picked the same wifi name and password so everything just reconnected without having to go reconfigure.
It's not the most top of the line router but the price is decent. I'm getting 300-400mbps on AX wifi now and better range.
Very easy to get professional-tier reliability/features/configuration out of cheap consumer routers. If you've used a truly cheap garbage router, you should know what I mean. Nothing but the basics for consumers, they crash every five days, and it never gets better because they rarely get updates for the wifi drivers and never get updates for the kernel. But a cheap router with OpenWrt is perfectly usable, and the configuration isn't "unnecessary" - stuff like SQM is great.
Reliable DNS-level adblock is a big one.
For some fricking reason Android has a habit of ignoring your DNS preferences and insisting on using Google DNS. None of the consumer-grade shit has a firewall that lets me redirect all port 53 traffic to my server.
Another thing I like is wifi band steering. Maybe not useful to most but I have a rather large house and I need multiple APs for full coverage.
Multi-WAN can also be very useful if you live in some bumfrick rural town with unreliable but cheap service.
actual security updates for the lifetime of the hardware, instead of shitty manufacturer software getting botnetted
i like the ootb zero config networking features (.lan domain for openwrt)
I'm a broke university student and even my parents expensive ass router doesn't do this (it comes with a shitty app though).
Does Stallman uses it?
OpenWRT here
Just got a new router, went with the Dynalink, it's pretty good I guess. More storage so I can use more adblock hosts lists.
https://github.com/tavinus/opkg-upgrade
I set that up to email me every week with upgrade packages so I don't forget to go in and do it.
Nice way to set yourself to be hax0red.
ummm how so
microdick
i cant get UDP trackers to work however
i do, but i am disappointed that i didnt buy a good router, since my seedbox fills up its active connections table and edges it at 80-90% all the time. it causes some programs/games that require a stable connection to shit the bed and time out every so often
The Flint 2 is looking pretty good. I had Flint 1 but returned it because it couldn't run stock OpenWRT. Flint 2 can though
i just use a second hand thin client as my openwrt router
came with 4GiB of ram so i can have as many open connections as i want
>chink celeron micropc with opnsense
>old openwrt router repurposed as a dumb wifi access point
Peak performance.
My ISP don't support custom routers
doesn't support my asus from 2015
my old netgear had openwrt, and it made exactly no difference
I run Gentoo on my router.
My desktop *is* my router.
I wonder how that works.
A conventional router is just a shitty computer
and a switch, and an access point. Having it all in one small-ish device is a big convenience for most people.
Why don't you turn your computer into a modem?
I live in an apartment built in 2019, and the modem is effectively integrated to my electrical cabinet. I get gigabit fiber WAN as ethernet directly. I don't need a modem at all.
>and a switch,
Buy a swich
>and an access point.
Buy a wifi card
>Having it all in one small-ish device is a big convenience for most people.
Convenience wasn't ever the goal of this OP. We're here for full control.
But if you want something small and efficient you can use a laptop to do this too.
>Buy a swich
Full of proprietary blobs.
>Buy a wifi card
WiFi cards are full of proprietary blobs. There isn't a SINGLE ONE that's open and capable of 802.11ac (WiFi 5) or higher. Not one.
Intel WiFi cards, which are the most common, are NOT CAPABLE of acting as access points in 5GHz. This is a firmware limitation, and since you can't use your own firmware you're not allowed to take control of the hardware.
It's not possible to have a modern computer or even a network device without proprietary firmware.
Absolutely true. But I just don't really care about proprietariness anymore, as long as it doesn't inconvenience me in some major way. Lack of 5GHz is bit shitty but I don't need it anyway, so it's okay.
I hopped from AMD to Nvidia a year ago too, because they're just better and I got tired of pretending they're not.
A sensible reply in IQfy? Your kind is not welcome here. Only shilling and flame war are allowed.
Yeah... major imageboards have been utter dogshit filled with nothing but gaslighting and psyops since 2016.
I'm still stuck here trying to relive the good old days of 2010+-2. Everyone else got a life and left.
Turn your computer into a moden and run a BBS.
If you run open source software the hackers can read your code and therefore hack you
your router likely already runs 99% foss code, only difference being your code is years out of date
Nah my windows man helps me
He calls up sometimes and fixes problems I have
no
banana pi released a 30 buck modern openwrt wifi 6 router
https://www.tomshardware.com/networking/routers/banana-pi-launches-dollar30-openwrt-wi-fi-6-router-with-wpa3-protection-optional-poe
nah