I'm speaking from purely personal experience so you may have a better one
I own the R7000 and while it has great hardware and very good range, it's horrible on the firmware side. So much that it made me throw in the towel and go back to my older ASUS AC66U where everything works as expected. Also Netgear's firmware is designed for the clueless so there are not many options present like in ASUS or TP-Link routers
TP-Link is a major Chinese networking giant who recently (read: in the past 4 or 5 years) entered the global market so that's why you haven't heard much of it. I own 2 TP-Link routers, including the C7, and I must say that they offer a good balance between features and price. Never had issues with their firmware so far, but again, if you need knobs or VPN, SSH, telnet, etc, you can't beat ASUS' firmware
Also, do as suggested by stevech. Read the reviews on SNB
As a disappointed Netgear customer, I don't think I'll go with them in the coming years unless Netgear get its sh*t together and makes a decent firmware and stops dumbing it down, but as I said, this is a personal experience so you may have better luck
I have two R7k's. I am currently running this Firmware. It has the ASUS look and feel, a whole lot more options than NG's stock FW, and, it's stable..
http://www.linksysinfo.org/index.php?threads/asuswrt-merlin-on-netgear-r7000.71108/
Thanks, but I'm uneasy of loading third party fw not designed for the specific router. I've broken 2 routers in the past by loading 3rd party fw. Not saying I won't do it, just uneasy. Still thinking what to do with the R7000 here. I don't need APs as I live in an apartment and a single router covers it all...
I may just sell it to someone...
It was a first time for me, loading third party firmware. The instructions are very clear, and, had absolutely no issues with the upgrade. I am still running the FW and, it is very solid.
It was a first time for me, loading third party firmware. The instructions are very clear, and, had absolutely no issues with the upgrade. I am still running the FW and, it is very solid.
OK, so I took your suggestion and loaded up this FW. So far, so good. Seems to run very smooth and of course, everything works as expected, which I can't say from Netgear's stock.
When I had R7000 I never used stock f/w. dd-wrt Kong's was my choice. I think by now stock f/w is settled and
they are talking about adding dynamic QoS. Old saying, "Poor crafstman always complain about their tool" whatever
I had I could manage it. Some are harder to tame, some are easier. That is only difference. Nothing is pure perfect in
this world. Even system on board space ship. Even god makes mistakes, LOL! If we only want every thing PnP, then
where will be the fun?
+1demand an IPv4 address. Else you are on the bleeding edge, using consumer products.
No, no. My ISP also gives me an IPv4 but they've gone dual stack now and give IPv6 too.
So what happens if you disable IPv6 in the stock Netgear firmware? That should be fine, IPv4 should work just fine on it's own. Just because they're offering dual-stack doesn't mean that you have to use it *smile*.
As far as that goes, I've found that Shibby's tomato ARM v129 on the R7000 does correct ICMPv6 packet filtering. Works well for me on the R7000, including IPv6. RMerlin/R7000 does not work with IPv6 for me, though, if that matters.
My ISP is Comcast, by the way.
IPv4 works without IPv6. But I wanted to make my internal network dual stack, and that's where the problem started. Been fighting with it for some days then gave up and installed the Merlin mod for the R7000. So far so good
I still use IPV4, and, a pretty vanilla router config, but what I do like like about this FW, is that there are more configuration options to set. Some basic stuff like WIFI antenna radio settings, and an NTP service! I wish NG would get on the ball with their FW. Their router web presentation is ugly, and way too basic, for the price point of this device. (R7K).
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