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Forum Discussion
Solved
Slow internet speeds
I was told by Best Buy that for the price this was a good router for gaming on. It also is advertised as that on Netgear's website as well as in reviews on websites. I'm starting to believe I was lie...
JohnDoe1111 wrote:
My only concern is now I have outdated firmware and am afraid I'm vulnerable to attacks.
It is reasonable to want to keep up with security improvements, me too, but it might be worth putting this into perspective.
Many "security fixes" are for things that are uncovered in research labs and that rarely appear "in the wild".
If it is a balance between having a router that works and one that protects me from rare security loopholes, I know which I'd opt for.
Unfortunately, Netgear rarely says what a security fix does. There is a good reason for being silent on this, revealing this information would tell hackers the holes that remain open.
I'm not into third party firmware – never had the need to go down that road – but you may find that someone has come up with a better alternative to whatever Netgear has cooked up.
By the way, if you spend any time looking at forums that support other makes of router you will find depressingly similar messages. After all, they all use the same small range of network chips. The main difference is that Netgear has a more active community than most, with many more unpaid volunteers trying to provide genuine help for fellow users.
JohnDoe1111 wrote:
My only concern is now I have outdated firmware and am afraid I'm vulnerable to attacks.
It is reasonable to want to keep up with security improvements, me too, but it might be worth putting this into perspective.
Many "security fixes" are for things that are uncovered in research labs and that rarely appear "in the wild".
If it is a balance between having a router that works and one that protects me from rare security loopholes, I know which I'd opt for.
Unfortunately, Netgear rarely says what a security fix does. There is a good reason for being silent on this, revealing this information would tell hackers the holes that remain open.
I'm not into third party firmware – never had the need to go down that road – but you may find that someone has come up with a better alternative to whatever Netgear has cooked up.
By the way, if you spend any time looking at forums that support other makes of router you will find depressingly similar messages. After all, they all use the same small range of network chips. The main difference is that Netgear has a more active community than most, with many more unpaid volunteers trying to provide genuine help for fellow users.
Michael I really appreciate the help on this. However, at the time I'm done with Netgear. The main purpose I bought this router was for large bandwidth downloads (games, some work and I also do small audio projects and often times have to download plugins here and there for my DAWs) and gaming. I have been overly frustrated for the past month due to this issue as well as some personal stuff going on that just peaked my anxiety and anger yesterday. I talked with Best Buy and they told me to bring it in. I switched it out for an ASUS R3100 and from the beginning of setting it up it was way simpler, and looks to have more security features built into it. My problem with both parties involved in this (Netgear AND Best Buy) is that this is branded as a gaming router. It simply isn't. Even looking on the forums you begin to see that it is simply a better solution to wifi extension. That I don't need. I have a small-ish house so wifi isn't an issue. I have a couple streaming boxes and smart tv's and have never had problems with signal degradation or picture quality until the router itself starting doing this. Then everything started buffering and I knew something was wrong. I chalk it up to the firmware plain and simple. For me the updates seemed to fix the issue from last year until this month when I updated to the newest firmware again and instantly started having issues. My problem with Best Buy is that even after I told the sales associate what happened and what I actually NEEDED he tried selling me another Netgear product (the x6s) which has even worse reviews. At that point I kinda figured since the majority of their stock was netgear, I told him (who happened to be the guy that sold me the first one, he didn't realize but I'm good at remembering faces and voices) the issue at hand and instead of reccomending me the ASUS router like his partner tried doing, that they must get a kickback from Netgear. I don't know if this is true or not but all the signs lead to this. Did my research and could not be happier. Set up was simple, everything in the gui is explained for the beginners and it's clearly labeled. It took me 5 months on the netgear just to figure out how to set up a QOS which didn't even work to begin with. I appreciate your help and the forums but I can't support bad business practice on Netgear's side. The fact I have to shuffle around the forums for weeks to try and find a solution is ridiculous and the fact that I have to pay a fee to get actual help when all I needed was a simple question answered is not acceptable. Updating the firmware with broken code and not listening to it's customer base is a no go for me. I have stopped using companies I did business with for years before, and I will do it till I die. I won't feed the gready but I will clothe the needy. I will chalk this up as possibly being a router for advanced users (as I don't know EVERYTHING about networking) but I am not an embecile when it comes to setting up a home network.
Thanks for your quick reply and I really appreciate your time.