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Forum Discussion
Orbi VPN Client
I think this is a needed feature in Orbi line up is the ability to do VPN CLIENT. Given that Rep have sold us out to ISP. A VPN client on router is prefer. Orbi already have a VPN server why not put a client in as well.
19 Replies
Netgear has a dedicated community forum called Idea Exchange where you can submit ideas or features you want to see, Netgear Engineering looks at it an more thumbs up and people advocate and state their use case more likely it may make it to some future firmware release at some point. example below is link for The Ethernet Backhaul Request:
OrbiMan wrote:I think this is a needed feature in Orbi line up is the ability to do VPN CLIENT. Given that Rep have sold us out to ISP. A VPN client on router is prefer. Orbi already have a VPN server why not put a client in as well.
vpn client is usually not needed as single user devices can run their own vpn clients , the issue is if you have a vpn client on the router all the traffic flows through the vpn and then you would want the ability to choose which do and which dont
if you want that type of configuration put the orbi in ap mode and run it behind an asus rt series router with merlin firmware on it
With all due respect installing a VPN router like WRDT Asus for Orbi to connect to just adds network delay and complexity. I bought Orbi to build a wireless mesh for my condo in Mexico to solve weak coverage. I like the ease of setup and it has greatly improved performance.
I understand support may receive more support calls but come on you have a good product why not make it a great one by adding a VPN client.
OrbiMan wrote:I think this is a needed feature in Orbi line up is the ability to do VPN CLIENT. Given that Rep have sold us out to ISP. A VPN client on router is prefer. Orbi already have a VPN server why not put a client in as well.
This is a great idea.
Some users may not want a blanket VPN connection for all devices in the network, but given the current political climate, it'll be nice to have this feature.
While it would be nice for Netgear to support a VPN client, it may not be a panacea. Most consumer grade routers are not up to the task of processing large amounts of VPN traffic. Encrypting traffic is computationally intensive and can cause a significant drop in speeds. Modern PCs, OTOH, can handle encryption with little impact. Just something to keep in mind as we try to cope with loss of privacy.
You bring up some good points. The days of the old 2500 routers with little memory and weak processor are gone. Today's consumer routers have improved drastically my issue is with DSL services as the bottleneck today where I live.
The BETTER feature for router based VPN would be to allow SELECTIVE use of the VPN by those devices/clients that want VPN while allowing those that do not to bypass the VPN as they feel they do not want/need it. This gateway/VPN Split Tunnel would be a GREAT feature that I feel certain many users would like to have available. If Netgear would/could enable usage of router based OPENVPN services like HMA, ExpressVPN or others it would be a great selling point....
This is a GREAT idea - I was just coming here to suggest it myself.
The BIG advantage that putting it in the router is that one connection/login covers the entire household. I have not only PCs (Win and Linux) but also a couple Amazon Alexa's and about a dozen smart home devices. I would really like to see these behind a VPN connection, not just for the information privacy but also the invasion aspect.
C'mon Netgear engineers! If there's a high end router that deserves to have VPN capabilities its the Orbi product.
The one truth about -all- single-board SoCs (found in every piece of consumer network gear in the past 15 years at least) is that they are partiularly poorly-suited for VPN. The absolute best throughput you can expect from them is around 10mbps, at which point they will be processing-saturated and very likely also impact other services on the router. With average Internet pipe speeds on the rise, as soon as you offer VPN service, you start getting the following complaints from users:
- It's too slow
- When I'm using VPN heavily, my family complains that Netflix sucks
- Why can't I connect my VPN to random fly-by-night VPN provider X?
It's a support nightmare and a bad idea in general. VPN belongs on the client (for general use cases) or on a dedicated VPN applicance (for whole-house VPN).
Rodney
I'm not sure I follow the part about SoC's having slow thruput, so not a good choice for VPN. If all the traffic is already going thru the router, what's the diff it it also goes thru a VPN pipe? Alexa may generate some small amount of traffic, but my smart switch traffic has be be tiny! A couple times a day they get sent and "on" or "off" message, that can't even make a blip on the traffic meter.
I can understand the support problems, which are only going to get worse, when everybody starts jumping on the VPN bandwagon, but I think it would be fair for Netgear to have a certification process for the VPN providers. Chose one of the approved providers and the customer is all set. This way the router set up could include the VPN vender's configuration data.
The part of your answer that really intreged me tho was the mention of a "VPN appliance" - what's that?
Larry
I just ordered the orbi 2 days ago, thinking it must have a VPN client option at that price range.... Should of done a little more re search.
Anyways I made an account just to let the Netgear devs know that this is a much wanted feature. I really hope someday they release a firmware the enables VPN clients directly through the router. I heard really great things about the Orbi, but not having a VPN client feature is just a let down.
I just received my SRR60/SRS60 combo. I chose it because it claimed to do VPN. Obviously I didn't do enough research because OpenVPN rejects the certificates as being too weak. I thought there must be a workaround by now, but alas I can't find anything. Can anyone point me to the fix, otherwise this is going back to Amazon along with an appropriate review.
P.S. Why cannot I not put SRS60 into the Model field on this form?
As with other posters, I was fooled by the claim that Orbi offered full VPN support. It does not, and to blame this on a weak processor at this price point is annoying. While I can install a client on some of my devices, I am limited to 6 clients, which is insufficient for my needs, and will in any case leave some devices exposed as they cannot support VPN clients. I am disappointed that Netgear falls short.
Please vote for adding OpenVPN client support to Orbi in the official idea exchance forum.
how can I check this feature on other VPN? like I am using FastestVPN so how can I check this feature in it.
Thanks for your solution.
