Netgear ProSAFE VPN Firewall (FVS318G-200NAS)

The above (new) Netgear router is now available online in the USA, e.g. via Amazon. Did anybody try it?

Hi bronze - I haven't tried that model in particular, but if you do your research I think you'll find the feedback to be middling... not entirely bad, but not that great either. Now their switches, on the other hand, seem to review much better, and my personal experience would support that assertion. I guess something about putting routing functionality on those boxes is a bit beyond Netgear's motivational pay grade for whatever reason... But in all fairness it's not just them, many entry-level "business" devices seem to sacrifice in similar areas, be it stability, features, throughput or some combination of all three.

If you need to keep things cheap and you're skilled enough or are willing to learn, Ubiquiti, MikroTik and/or pFsense might be a better route. Else you might want to look into the integrated security appliances for not a whole lot more money. Their routing is usually pretty darn stable, and the support is usually pretty good.

I have the FVS318Gv1 which is working well; but I also have the FVS318N and FVS318Gv2 (FVS318G-200NAS) which seem to have the same hardware and firmware and they both work for a minute or two after boot (on firmware 4.3.2-7). NETGEAR suggested I downgrade the firmware which is possible on the FVS318N, but does not seem possible on the FVS318Gv2; I'm hanging on to them on the gamble that they will have a firmware fix soon.