Share Your NETGEAR Armor Experience

[Christian_R]

Hello NETGEAR Armor Community! 

Thank you to all who have activated your NETGEAR Armor trial and to those who have subscribed to our cyber security service. Since the launch of the service we have received valuable feedback on a variety of platforms. 

I am reaching out to you today to hear more about your experience with NETGEAR Armor. Please reply to this post and share your experience with NETGEAR Armor. Feel free to provide any additional feedback on the cyber security service in terms of what you currently enjoy and some possible areas of improvement. 

For those who would like to learn more about NETGEAR Armor please check out the links below: 

NETGEAR Armor Landing Page

Products That Support NETGEAR Armor

Your thoughts on NETGEAR Armor is greatly appreciated and we look forward to your participation in this discussion! 

All the best,

Christian 

[plemans]

@Christian_R 

I like the basic concept of Armor.

I dislike the auto-rollout to the older device. It seems like I find a lot of people on here who have issues with an older device running armor. From decreased speeds, instability, or even just the loss of features their router used to support. 

I know its to much work to support 2 forks on firmware with one having armor and one including the prior features and just getting security updates.  so I'm not sure what a good compromise is to keep devices getting security updates but not getting armor.  

It'd also be nice to see a tiered system to Armor. Many router manufacturers have a basic security suite included for free and you pay for premium features. That'd be nice to see with Armor instead of the base level being a paid subscription. 

again, I agree with the concept of Armor but struggle when I see the impact that it has on older devices. And I understand that the forums are where we see the issues. We don't see all the devices that it works great on. 

[BigRune]

Experience 1: Bad: This morning i woke up with no WAN. Logged in to my RBR50 using IOS app and found out that Armor trial expired. Rebooted the router and reclaimed my internet connection.
Experience 2: Bad: A month ago I enabled Armour and immidiately my upload/download speeds decreased with 15% and ping increased with 33%. When armor expired I am today back to 300/300 and a 12ms ping.
Experience 3: Bad: With armor expired i have no security features in Orbi app. Just a tile that states ”Security expired” and pressing it leads to store. Should be basic security access available at least.

[Spoongooner]

the last 5 Orbi 3 packs I bought at costco..,

the netgear Armor just fails to activate.. never had an issue until about mid January

???????   work fine on the other 30 plus 3 packs i bought

Jeff

[Welsh_Steve]

My experience with Bitdefender is entirely negative.  During the trial period I don't believe it gave me anything useful.  At the end of the trial period I have not renewed it but it is now blocking websites I could access during the trial period. 

I have no ability to access the security controls.  When I try to do so I am redirected to the Bitdefender renewal website. This is just outrageous and probably illegal under European law.  I would describe it as electronic blackmail.  

I have had to revert back to using my Broadband router Wi-Fi to be be able to access my work emails and many other websites.  Even the BBC weather site is blocked. The Orbi is currently not fit for purpose and I will return it and expect a full refund if this isn't resolved very quickly. 

Had I known about this before purchasing the Orbi I would not have made the purchase.  I would strongly recommend people to not buy an Orbi while Netgear operate in this unscrupulous way. 

[BigRune]

Totally agree. The greedy implementation of Armour in the Orbi app leaves Orbi users not opting in with a Tile that says "Security expired" and cripples the entire Security section. 

This is ridicoulous and as a product manager I would be ashamed providing this to my customers. Opting in on add-on services should enhance user experience and provide extra functionality.

[Christian_R]

@Spoongooner - I would recommend checking out the KB article below on how to activate Armor on your Orbi router and let me know during what step(s) of the process you're having issue(s) with. 

https://kb.netgear.com/000060582/How-do-I-activate-NETGEAR-Armor-on-my-Orbi-router

Christian 

[Christian_R]

@Welsh_Steve - If you're Orbi router continues to block sites that you need access to, please send me a message with your contact info and serial number. 

Thanks,

Christian 

[Christian_R]

@BigRune - Thanks for your feedback. During the time you had the Armor Trial activated, were you able to get in contact with our Support Team letting them know of the issues you experienced?

Thanks,

Christian

[BigRune]

No, I did not contact support. I assumed that the degraded performance was a consequence of using Armor. I actually decided to opt out of the service immidiately but could not find a easy way to do it.

[TGraybill]

I am so frustrated.  Out of the blue, Netgear Armor by Bitdefender is blocking the New York Times web site (nytimes.com), right during the corona virus outbreak. I want protection but not from basic news sources and this is a standard web site. 

Yes, I have submitted the web site as a dependable one, but now it blocks me every 1 second when I try to read an article and I don't know how to stop it. I saw an instruction to go to Security and turn it off. I'm on a iMac on OS 10.14.6 (Mojave). We have an Orbi mesh network. 

What should I do? Please advise.

Cannot find my model in the list - we have a NETGEAR Orbi Tri-band Whole Home Mesh WiFi System with 3Gbps Speed (RBK50) – Router & Extender replacement covers up to 5,000 sq. ft., 2-pack includes 1 router & 1 satellite

[rinthos]

So I've had Netgear Armor on 2 different models.  Previoulsy the RS400, and most recently on an R8000P (thanks for adding this)!.

Overall, the ease of setup was pretty good.  One thing i noticed is that for iOS devices (iPhones and iPads), even though Armor states to install the app, and even after logging in from the App, the armor.netgear.com site does not recognize the installation has completed.

Only if enabling remote-wipe and installing the configuration profile does this work, however this is not always viable as some of us have a config profile already due to a work connection.  Perhaps just having the app installed on an IOS device should be enough to remove the frequent "recommendation" of installing the app.

Additionally, it would be create to having some degree of control over the scheduling of the weekly scans.  Considering they always miss my mobile devices (laptops and phones)... 🙂

Next bit of feedback would be for the actual vulnerability scan results. Having a note that high vulnerabilities were found:   "Discovered product affected by a known public CVE" - No detail about what CVE was found is provided...kind of hard for me to address it on my Linux workstation without knowing what it is.. 🙂 

Finally some feedback when logging into armor.netgear.com.  . Every single time I am prompted to grant permission to bitdefender..surely that can be cached/remembered? 

Having the ability to force-whitelist blocked sites would be great.  Partially for internal DNS sites (not that all are legit, but having the ability to override would be nice).

Generally speaking both the RS400 and R8000P seem to perform just fine in terms of performance.  The vuln scans don't seem to break anything and the client installs and updates all work fine on each OS as expected.

I appreciate Netgear's focus on adding this feature, and I anticipate continuing to use it moving forward. Would be great if Netgear would be a bit more transparent regarding plans for WiFi 6 device support for Netgear armor, but it's good to see that at least it got added to the R8000P, keep it up. A decent amount of work to do in terms of showing more of the links to Armor in the Firmware etc, but I think you guys are heading in the right direction. Keep it going!

Thanks!

[Christian_R]

Hi @rinthos,

Thank you for your detailed feedback! We are constantly working on improving the service along with expanding our list of devices that support Armor. Your valued feedback is appreciated! 

Best,

Christian 

[Cayenne08]

I just activated Armor started installing the apps on the many mobile devices.  I'd have to say the lack of controls and schedules is a huge drawback.  Also according to the NETGEAR/ARMOR landing page there should be a whole slew of features including parental controls through the armor app but I am barely seeing any features within the app.  Before a mod responds with a response saying use Disney circle please read your advertising at the below link:

https://www.bitdefender.com/site/view/netgear.html

I feel if we could use the Bitdefender total security app instead it would be the game changer we need.  The current apps available are just lacking in features and the product that's being advertised isn't being provided

[holarsen]

I ran the trail erly on, but when it expired I couldnt subscribe. I have sice had to reset my Orbi to factory default and I can now access the security settings again, but I can neither reactivate trail nor subscribe to NETGEAR Armor - I dont really want the app on any devices except the Router itself - as a way to ensure double security as I have a different AV on my PCs

[HarryGh]

Netgear Armor notifying that it blocked phishing attack from a file on Amazon Fire TV

I have been using Netgear Armor for about 5 months. Since last week, it started alerting me on stopping a phishing attack because of a file on Amazon FireTV (C3.SDKCLICKURL.COM).  All apps on FireTV are from Amazon and no developer options are on. I have owned the Amazon Fire TV for a couple of years without a problem.

In abundance of precaution, I factory reset the device. The alerts are continuing (about 20.day)

I searched for the URL (C3.SDKCLICKURL.COM). It is related to Easyswool.

Questions:

1. Does a streaming service service (showtime etc) use Easyswool ?

2. Who do I tell to whitelist this service/URL? I don't want to allow it my level without complete knowledge.

Model: R6700|Nighthawk AC1750 Smart WiFi Router

[HarryGh]

I have been using Netgear Armor for about 5 months. Since last week, it started alerting me on stopping a phishing attack because of a file on Amazon FireTV (C3.SDKCLICKURL.COM).  All apps on FireTV are from Amazon and no developer options are on. I have owned the Amazon Fire TV for a couple of years without a problem.

In abundance of precaution, I factory reset the device. The alerts are continuing (about 20.day)

I searched for the URL (C3.SDKCLICKURL.COM). It is related to Easyswool.

Questions:

1. Does a streaming service service (showtime etc) use Easyswool ?

2. Who do I tell to whitelist this service/URL? I don't want to allow it my level without complete knowledge.

[bsharper53]

I ordered the Orbi Mesh WiFi system in December for a house we were constructing. We moved in 10 days ago (April 12) and I immediately set it up. The product worked great. I really was happy. But then I received an offer from you for a trial of your Armor program to protect against viruses. I clicked on the offer to get more info and was shocked to discover I was automatically subscribed for the free 1 month trial. I tried to cancel the service, but the trial was still active. I could not “de-activate” the service.
Unfortunately, when I accidentally activated the service, Armor BLOCKED several crucial websites, including those required the next morning for work, most notably access to an online board meeting of a $1 billion company in which my wife was responsible to participate (she is the VP of Investor Relations). I spent all afternoon trying to de-activate the service, but the Netgear reps couldn’t help me (I had already tried their “solution"). Also, one of your reps disconnected me on my service call.

I would return the product, but since I didn't install it within a month (I was waiting to get into our new house) Amazon won't refund my money.

I can’t use a product that doesn’t work as I had expected. It worked great until the “trial activation” for a product you and Bit Defender offered.

[Christian_R]

Hello bsharper53, 

Thank you for your feedback! We have an article available which provides steps on how to unblock URLs in NETGEAR Armor (below). May you let us know if you were able to successfully disable Armor using the Orbi app over the weekend? 

https://kb.netgear.com/000061715/How-do-I-unblock-URLS-in-NETGEAR-Armor

Thanks,

Christian 

[bsharper53]

Chris-I don't believe you understood my issue. I don't want to know how to unblock a website. I want to know how to remove Armor from my Orbi Wifi System completely (especially since I was enrolled in a deceptive way). Your "customer service representatives" did not know how to remove Armor. Your directions for unblocking are too complex when one is perusing corporate websites for work. I used to like and trust Netgear, but after this experience, I don't think I will ever do so again.

[Christian_R]

Hi bsharper53, 

I'd like to assist with support following up on your case. Please send me a private message with your email address and case number(s). 

Thanks,

Christian 

[bsharper53]

Christian - How do I contact you via private message as you requested?

[plemans]

@bsharper53 simply click on Christian's name. That'll take to the profile and there's an option to "send user a private message" 

[donnyburklow]

So far after a month it seems to be working but my trial ended and went to renew and it's almost impossible to figure out how. It takes you to the store but I have no idea if this is the one. I have read other posts and looks like many are having the same issues. We need a landing page when we click on "Renew Subscription" that explains it's for Neatgear Armor. 

[Christian_R]

Hi donnyburklow,

You may refer to the link below for our NETGEAR Armor landing page. You may also use the Nighthawk or Orbi app to subscribe to NETGEAR Armor.

https://www.netgear.com/landings/armor/#cybersecurity

Christian 

[mikelangesr]

The Nighthawk app signed me up for Armor when I opened it. I don't want Armor but can't see how to remove or opt out of the trial? Please help