Hello,
I'm tapping the technical expertise of the community. I've searched through a number of threads and many of them are very situational, and in fact even the genesis of this thread has a situation that has triggered the question.
In a very basic sense, if buying a 400 USD router, one would expect to use it as it was designed full featured. I'm having some doubts about this premise and it was based on one of the threads I had read. It went something like, well you have a router already sitting in front of the Orbi, so no need to have a second one doing essentially the same job. In fact, using Orbi as a router when another router is already in place brings with it some significant effort configuring both routers to work correctly. Add to that the continuing bungles of firmware, and one can easily question what in fact is the proper and optimal way to set things up.
To go back to the situational point, I look at my own usage of the Orbi, what configuation changes do I implement that make it unique above and beyond what I already have in the ISP router? And it boils down to one thing, configuring DNS servers. Others may have more esoteric needs, but I've only utilized DNS changes. The changes have a number of considerations that touch both performance and privacy. On the latter, it's difficult to know who to trust anymore when it comes to use of internet and I'll leave that for another discussion, but I thought it might be helpful to provide some context of why I made the change.
As I already have a router in place due to my ISP, it certainly seems plausible to revert the Orbi to run as an Access Point only. I still get the benefits of the superior WiFi and wirelss backhaul. Double NAT on IPv4 is also eliminated. But I lose the DNS configurability.
Are there any other reasons or considerations around the use of AP vs router mode I've overlooked in my analysis? I realize in the end it's my choice and just looking to make sure all the relevant facts are consided in the decision.
Thank you.
