Netgear R7000 stock Firmwrae better or fewer WiFi Range

[Lukass2000]

Hi,

Have buyed a Netgear R7000 which replaced my wrt54g (with Tomato Firmware).

Now i have testet Netgear Stock Formware 1.0.7.2 and i find it is not so bad, or?

Have read anything about alternative Firmwares (DD-WRT, Tomato, XWRT) and that they have also many many more functions. I think i do not use any of this more functions.
But i have a question:
Have alternative Firmwares better Wifi Range as stock Firmware?
I use only 2.4 GHz in N Mode and i mean the WiFi Range is a little fewer as my old WRT54G (only G Mode).

Has there who experience or a tip for me?

THANKS

 

[thiggins]

In general alternative firmware won't improve range. In fact, they many times use older wireless drivers that may degrade performance.

 

[microchip]

I run Tomato Shibby on my R7000 and range and speed is the same for me as the stock Genie firmware.

 

[Lukass2000]

Works the original firmware fine and stable?

I'm not sure whether it has a beneficial to use alternative firmware with "universal" drivers?
I write to netgear and the say, only the original firmware is the best, but i think they can not say anything else

I use, at the moment,
-only 2,4GHz N-Mode
-the static DHCP funktion to control IP-Adresses in the router from all my devices in the LAN
-any access restriction rules for my children

But i like to have a stable router.
My old WRT54G runs over 400 days without fail, that was great
There is the question for me, make an alternative firmware sense or brings benefits?
Or is this only for professionals and hobbyists?

THANKS!

 

[microchip]

The original Genie firmware is, for me, too basic and doesn't offer the things I need like VLAN, Guest network with bandwidth limiting, Adblocking on router level and properly working IPv6. That's why I went with Tomato. Heck, it doesn't even allow you to change the DHCP lease time. How silly is that?

NETGEAR can say what they want, but their stock firmware is probably the most ugly and restrictive firmware out of all other vendor firmwares. As for the drivers, Tomato (and XWRT Vortex) uses whatever Broadcom provides them. They don't use "universal" drivers but the one from Broadcom. DD-WRT and OpenWRT use "universal drivers" as they don't rely on Broadcom's kernel.

As for stability, never had an issue with that on Tomato or XWRT. Both have been rock solid for me. I set it up and only change stuff when absolutely needed. For the rest, it keeps on working

Also, if you have a fast connection (read: above 250-300 Mbps) you need hardware acceleration and only XWRT and Tomato provide it at the moment.

 

[Lukass2000]

Adblocking on router sounds good.

Is there also a way, to block any youtube videos by kreating a list of keywords?
My son is 9 years, so he could see youtube but I would like to block certain videos.
Can i do this in tomato?
If yes, how can i do?

THANKS!

 

[microchip]

You can do it with Access Restriction and unchecking "block all internet access". Then you get to manually tell it what to block. It works with regex but I'm not sure if it accepts keywords... here's a nice guide (I didn't read it fully, tho) http://r3dux.org/2009/12/how-to-blo...sites-from-your-router-using-tomato-firmware/

 

[Lukass2000]

Have the problem with tomato, that the Wifi connection with my samsung Tab (Android 4.1..) not work.
I see the WiFi at the tablet and can also connect to the router.
But 1 - 2 Seconds later the Wifi is off.
On my LG G4 Smartphone all works correctly.

With Genie stock Firmware all works right.

 

[koolcoolkg]

I need to use my R7000 as a repeater.
I have stock firmware installed.

The client device is a WiFi hotspot device which will patch LTE signal to netgear router.It has a range of 10m

Now the official fw doesn't support Repeating.

The two devices are 3m apart vertically and between lies a slab 200mm deep.

Please tell me if R7000 can pull out the signal from client device.

Which is the best firmware for Repeating?

Or should I sell the R7000 and get a Ubiquiti Unfi AC?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[RogerSC]

I have configured my R7000 as a wireless repeater using XVortex asuswrt firmware. That's one thing to try:

http://www.linksysinfo.org/index.php?threads/asuswrt-merlin-on-netgear-r7000.71108/

 

[reddice]

Advanced Tomato is all I use. I tried the stock but the UI is so ugly and limited. I also tried DD-WRT but with the constant updates always breaking something that use to work fine I settled on Advanced Tomato.

 

[microchip]

Advanced Tomato is all I use. I tried the stock but the UI is so ugly and limited. I also tried DD-WRT but with the constant updates always breaking something that use to work fine I settled on Advanced Tomato.

Advanced Tomato is mostly a reskin of Tomato Shibby. So what you're using underneath is actually Tomato Shibby

 

[reddice]

Advanced Tomato is mostly a reskin of Tomato Shibby. So what you're using underneath is actually Tomato Shibby

I know I should have said Tomato Shibby which still looks better than that butt ugly stock GUI.
I hate ugly looking GUI's.

 

[microchip]

I know I should have said Tomato Shibby which still looks better than that butt ugly stock GUI.
I hate ugly looking GUI's.

Check this out! that's what I'm using as skin http://tomatothemebase.eu/?p=1430

 

[reddice]

Also forgot to say that Shibby Tomato gave me the same range as stock firmware. DD-WRT actually reduced my range which got better then worse after the annoying buggy updates every week or even every few days.

 

[microchip]

Same here. Same range as stock for me

 

[reddice]

Also don't know if Tomato uses beamforming but DD-WRT does but beamforming is a joke just a placebo effect which actually does nothing to improve range. With DD-WRT devices that did not use it had better range.