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"I wish Verizon offered FIOS in my neighborhood. Or at least would tell me when I can expect it here! I'm so damned eager to dump ..."name of your cable company here

I too am sick of the Cable Scam....they promise much, deliver much less. It's FRAUD! Marketing says up to 8MB or 14MB or 16MB (when downstream is not limiting factor to streaming media and they know this)

Get a router/firewall that supports the DD-WRT software and see first hand what is REALLY being provided to you by cable. The SPEED TESTs are useless BS marketing FUD.

With the DD-WRT software you can monitor your status / bandwidth in real time 24 X 7 and when that video stutters or you have to wait for buffering before you can watch a video or whatever streaming media via the Internet...you will see that your Cable bandwidth is being throttled back to less than 100Kbs upstream, likely, very likely as low as 30Kbps or 40Kbps. (This is my friends experience and he is paying for TWC's highest tier of service that they promise will work with streaming content...hint it does NOT work, avoid them if you are smart!)

You mention that you have DSL in your area. You would probably be better off with DSL service giving you 1500Kbps downstream and 384Kbps upstream than any Cable service that promises up to xxMB. They will NOT GUARANTEE you a MINIMUM BANDWIDTH, which would guarantee that you can stream content because they want you to purchase more expensive TV, Video and Movie service through them. Its all BS.

Do yourself a favor, until you get Greenlight ($100 for 100Mbps / 100Mbps) (the best Fiber option, currently only available in Wilson N.C.) or Verizon FIOS Fiber ($119 for 50Mbps / 5Mbps) , dump your cable and switch to DSL. Time to send the Cable companies a message about customer service and quality bandwidth guarantees!

Are there any other Fiber (over the last mile to your home) providers in the USA today besides FIOS or Greenlight?

Average joe is not going to be installing a custom OS firmware on his "intanet box"

Then Average Joe is going to pay way too much for too little access for the Internet.

My friend has been trying to work with his Cable company to get streaming content and they are refusing to open up the upstream bandwidth so that the content will stream successfully. He even decided to pay the extra protection more bandwidth fee to increase his tier of service to their highest available tier.

The service he is paying over $50 per month for markets up to 16000Kbps downstream and 2000Kbps upstream!

I told him he was a fool. They first tried to blame his firewall/router and the DD-WRT software as the limiting factor to his bandwidth, but he was not as stupid as the Cable company hoped he would be.

Why do Cable companies think Average Joe will accept that the Speed Tests are gospel. They ARE NOT!

His Speed Test varies from 9000Kbps to 25000Kbps downstream and 930Kbps to 990Kbps downstream. Interesting how the Speed Test never goes above 1000Kbps to the promised 2000Kbps upstream! Can you say scam, I knew you could. That is JUST THE ignorant, only valid in that second, SPEED TEST via www.speakeasy.net. What a waste of time.

How is this NOT FRAUD?

Thanks to the Status / Bandwidth monitor via his DD-WRT software he sees the Speed go up with the speed test, however as soon as the speed test finishes he is once again throttled to less than 300Kbps downstream and 40Kbps upstream. Other than the speed test, his upstream bandwidth never exceeds 100Kbps.

We are guessing a sustained 200Kbps or 300Kbps upstream would give steady consistent streaming of video and IP content. But that is a guess as the Cable provider has never let him have over 100Kbps. Even though he is paying over $50 per month for the Highest tier of Internet Only service that the cable provider swears and markets as allowing the customer to watch IP TV, movies and videos. The three tiers below that for Internet Only service DO NOT state specifically that you can watch streaming content at all.

His only solution is probably DSL, his location, based on distance will give him 1.5Mbps down and 384Kbps upstream...so its half the price of Cable, for him, and it will allow him to stream content.

Having two DSL providers would cost just as much as he is now paying for 1 cable provider...redundancy, thanks to DD-WRT and VLANs he feels he would be better off and is looking forward to switching...

So if Average Joe fails to utilize the DD-WRT software, his provider can screw him over, make lame BS excuses, never admitting the real reason he is being restricted its because they want to via Bandwidth Shaping software.

So no DD-WRT software and Average Joe is like a mushroom, do not be stupid, do not be average; Only purchase /routers that support DD-WRT software!

Note to others, when you connect your PC directly to the cable modem, check your DNS server IP addresses, if you upgrade your service; these DNS servers change. However to get higher bandwidths, the Cable company MUST set up the software to allow you to have more bandwidth. They have flatly refused to do this for my friend.

Also if you check www.RipoffReports.com you will find multiple complaints that customers were paying for the higher tier of service from their provider but they were not getting it until they complained and the Cable company flipped the-bandwidth-switch to allow for it.

Here is a post from 2006 ("Port 4 on Separate VLAN with DHCP"), so they have been around for some time.

Actually, according to the dd-wrt wiki you can use WDS with the TKIP+AES setting and then just configure your clients to use AES.

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Repeating_Mode_Comparisons

Specifically:

WDS can support WEP, WPA, and WPA2 Personal (TKIP+AES) as of v24sp1 (and earlier?). [tested with wrt150n1.1 AP + wrt54g6 R] (TODO: test other hardware). R/RB [repeater/repeater bridge] support all encryption algorithms.

You may wish to check for some replacement firmware from DD-WRT before buying new hardware. I've used DD-WRT for years and love it!

http://dd-wrt.com/site/index

Check to see if you can use DD-WRT ( http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/index ) with your router. This way you don't need to buy entirely new hardware! :)

Its long, at least read about Greenlight in N.C. and learn!

I am 100% positive you could do this with hardware that will run the DD-WRT, here is a list of DD-WRT supported devices, they have a search link, but I find that it does not work very well if you do not know the name of the router / firewall that you are looking for. So use the list and find a supported device.

You would need two of them and two different providers. You could even get a third one and do some special VLAN stuff to put some ports on all three on the same virtual network., many options.

These devices are very light weight, therefore shipping is next to nothing. The Linksys WRT54Gs' were great routers for the DD-WRT software. Costing over $75 when they first came out, dropping to $69 for years and finally hitting $15 or $30 when the stores were unloading them to bring in the new Linksys routers (none of which will support the DD-WRT software, except one that runs Linux). NOTE: there are BETTER routers than the WRT54G to run this software. The WRT54G will ONLY run the Micro version of the software. Do yourself a favor and get one that will run the Mega version of the software! (They cost less than $100 per and well worth the price.)

Linksys (Cisco) begin removing DD-WRT compatible firewall/routers from store shelves, replacing them with devices that are NOT compatible with the DD-WRT software in 2007/2008.

Get two DSL lines ($13 - $19 each), add in a NAT and a couple of these routers, probably need to do some secure tunneling to avoid the DNS of the Cable / DSL Companies and voila you are good to go. Your DSL speed will vary based on distance, but even far away you can get 1.5MB down and 384Kbps up. If closer you can get 3Mb down and 768Kbps up. (That is faster than 98% of Americans with Cable Modems because of throttling of service by Cable providers.)

Could you run the second DSL upstream over the first one? Thus saving the cost of a second telephone line, you would lose the redundancy that two telephones would provide, but save around $13 per month on a second phone line...probably better just to get the two lines, you total cost of ownership (TCO) will still be less than $60 per month and you will have redundancy. If one service gets stupid and starts throttling, drop them and get a different one. Politicians help us if they all throttle!

Solves allot of problems related to Cable companies throttling back service if you can create a secure VPN that their Deep Packet Inspection and/or Bandwidth shaping (throttling) service might have a harder time restricting (throttling). Granted they would still throttle you back by your IP address or MAC address of Cable Modem. Again, they do that now anyway.

A friend of mine was pissed that he was throttled back to less than 100K down and 0K up 85 - 95% of the time. He went on and paid his cable company the $10 burst / protection racket money / "give me a little more of what I am already paying for money" extra fee. Keep in mind that they were promising up to 8MP and delivering less from day one. He said he got a letter in the mail that they would be rolling out a new service in his area, the day after they started using that service, his bandwidth was throttled to next to nothing. (0 Kbps upstream, consistently less than 20Kbps). (There were 1 GB, 2GB and 3 GB ~ 1 second spikes ONLY, unless he was downloading a Linux distro, then he got 3GB - 4GB sustained with a 1 sec 6GB spike) He is convinced that they throttle him back because he uses Skype VoIP service (uses P2P packets) in a vain attempt to get him to switch to the Cable companies VoIP service. At less than $100 per year, Skype blows away any telco/Cable company offering.

Guess what his speed was after the switch over....Yep less than 100K (down) and 40K upstream 95% of the time. When he is throttled back to 0Kbps like I am, t

I agree with you on finding them in the stores.

I have two linksys wrt610n routers. 8M flash, 64M ram, two draft-N radios (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz), 5 10/100/1000 ports on a dedicated switch chip. That pretty much matches the specs of this WNR3500L. You can't find them anywhere anymore.

And, although they use broadcom radios (binary blob driver), if you're careful you can even get high uptimes. Note that the WNR3500L uses a BCM4718 too -- too bad, I'd rather not use a binary blob, thanks.

I have a WRT54GL (effectively a WRT54Gv4) with DD-WRT, and when I was using it, it would often freeze. Usually when I was running a P2P client.

I found this: http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Router_Slowdown I'll probably try that stuff next time I set it up. And Tomato. And OpenWRT. DD-WRT has lots of unexplained errors. I've heard good things about Tomato, and I value stability and functionality over freedom (they usually come packaged, I rarely have to choose).

Another possible reason for a router to freeze is overheating.

I think the best solution is to build our own. I think regular routers are just not powerful enough to route regular traffic adequately. I bought a regular router figuring it would be higher quality and simpler to use than my Debian-based home made router, but I was wrong. The only advantage to a regular router is that it takes less electricity, but it gets less done too. I suppose it takes up less space, and is easier to move too. And it looks prettier.

N routers pretty much kill b/g routers within range. You can't do that with an ordinary dd-wrt router.

I don't understand.. are you implying that you can't run dd-wrt on an N router?

If so, you'd be wrong.

If you're trying to say something else, could you elaborate, because I don't understand.

802.11n?

dd-wrt supported 802.11n list

20ish models there?

I'm Feeling Lucky: DD-WRT

And don't forget to set them for different channels.

Alternately, if you run dd-wrt, you can try setting up mutltiple virtual wireless networks and have them broadcast separate SSIDs so it looks like you've got two routers.

This list is still accurate, if you apply the comment on #4 up to #5 as well.

And run DD-WRT.

I was going to suggest the same thing. I switched my Linksys to the DD-WRT firmware (http://www.dd-wrt.com/) and now everything works much smoother.

Yes, it may be Linux inside, but it's Linux running on 64 MB of RAM, 64 MB of Flash, and with most of /usr/bin deleted to save space Expecting it to have Samba or NFS is actually quite a bit more ignorant than the grandparent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linksys_WRT54G_series http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Tutorials http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Samba_Filesystem http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Sshfs http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Nfs Synopsis: 64MB RAM and flash is luxury; you can get samba, nfs, and much more in (at least!) 1/4 that.

Yes, it may be Linux inside, but it's Linux running on 64 MB of RAM, 64 MB of Flash, and with most of /usr/bin deleted to save space Expecting it to have Samba or NFS is actually quite a bit more ignorant than the grandparent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linksys_WRT54G_series http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Tutorials http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Samba_Filesystem http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Sshfs http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Nfs Synopsis: 64MB RAM and flash is luxury; you can get samba, nfs, and much more in (at least!) 1/4 that.

Yes, it may be Linux inside, but it's Linux running on 64 MB of RAM, 64 MB of Flash, and with most of /usr/bin deleted to save space Expecting it to have Samba or NFS is actually quite a bit more ignorant than the grandparent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linksys_WRT54G_series http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Tutorials http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Samba_Filesystem http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Sshfs http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Nfs Synopsis: 64MB RAM and flash is luxury; you can get samba, nfs, and much more in (at least!) 1/4 that.

Yes, it may be Linux inside, but it's Linux running on 64 MB of RAM, 64 MB of Flash, and with most of /usr/bin deleted to save space Expecting it to have Samba or NFS is actually quite a bit more ignorant than the grandparent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linksys_WRT54G_series http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Tutorials http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Samba_Filesystem http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Sshfs http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Nfs Synopsis: 64MB RAM and flash is luxury; you can get samba, nfs, and much more in (at least!) 1/4 that.

You have to re-flash the firmware to install DD-WRT (or Tomato, Open-WRT, etc).

I don't even see your device listed here: http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Supported_Devices

It's mostly Broadcom or Atheros chipset WiFi routers that are supported.

DD-WRT is custom firmware that supports more than 200 different devices. This page will tell you if your device is supported. Someone who wants to use DD-WRT needs to get one of those devices then install this firmware. To answer your question no, someone can not find a list of actual routers that are affect by this. It is likely though that only geeks have it installed and that means that it is more likely that they will patch it.

Until wireless is more-open, cloud computing will not reign.
Everytime the wireless breaks, people will want a ground-based-app.
Cloud computing will have to come after routers that are more sophistocated.
Eg a router like dd-wrt where mere mortals don't instantly turn on WPA locks.
Lets have some factory open unrestricted bandwidth, or idle-open-bandwidth and help seed the cloud.



Add a speedlimit here, its a cloud.
http://www.wikispeedia.org/

DD-WRT is what you're looking for.

Bittorrent, webserver, whatever--it's Linux, put whatever you want on it. Runs on tons of routers, though the lowest end ones are usually a little weak to both keep up with routing and do downloading. Has a web config and torrent interface, I think.

Instead of the complicated "cache, wake computer, transfer, sleep computer" thing, just plug an external hard drive in to the router and share it with Samba or something.

Your username links all your posts together, which means that I can try to glean information from them and build a profile. It also allows me (at least in the case of a relatively unique sounding handle, like yours) to associate this account with accounts elsewhere, such as gaming, accounts, stuff on guitars, or a livejournal. From this, it is clear you are based in/around Denver, Colorado, you did games, but more in the past, do stuff with guitars, and have legal leanings to the point that you were a law clerk for the Colorado Court of Appeals. It helps that you usually sign your posts --G, so its presence or absence is one indicator of your ownership. Also remember that we just got through seeing an article here on slashdot that just because you do not post identifying information does not mean that you can not be identified.

You could get a router on which you can install DD-WRT (which has bandwidth tracking).
With the following link you can find all the hardware that is supported (a lot).
http://dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv3/dd-wrt/hardware.html

DD-WRT does not support IPv6 out of the box, so to say. See here. It's not a huge deal to get it working, but it's not for your grandma to do and would probably intimidate an embarrassing percentage of Slashdot regulars.

Excuse my last post... here is the thread dedicated to that script:
http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=263581#263581

I suggest anyone interested in this grab the script form the forums: http://dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=202542#202542

(It doesn't add in domain names for links if you have them enabled)

I'd like to see an open-wrt router firmware with.

8+ - Ethernet ports for multi wan (load balancing and fail over) 8+ - port USB so I can attach everything

Different size distribution so we can choose what to install and a nice auto-update to support all the devices.

Good idea and I agree with you!

For those who are not aware, you can get this very cheaply with DD-WRT + multiple router / firewalls or a router/firewall + network hubs.

Just combine a typical 4 port firewall/router that supports and will run DD-WRT, use VLANS and either a second router or a Gigabyte hub...thus port 2 + VLAN1 could be one 8 port gigabyte hub; port 3 + VLAN2 + second 8 port gigabyte hub; assign port 4 + 3rd 8 port gigabyte hub + VLANs. Since VLANs normally start at zero VLAN0, assign that port to a computer and or segregated network for monitoring of the hub and put all your WiFi traffic on this port to the Internet service provider. Thus you segregate your local area network from the WiFi part, thus you can have your port free and open, even charge if you want and make some money, although most just leave it open. And no you do NOT advertise this fact to your ISP.

VLAN0 - All Wifi + Internet (throttled by you as you see fit, so that your usage always gets priority over any other user that does not live in your household) + Quality of Service (QoS) + separate LAN address and PC to monitor everything, pushing this traffic off the LAN and if setup correctly can monitor for Trojan horses installed thanks to buggy browsers, applications and operating systems from proprietary vendors.

VLAN1 - 8 port gigabyte hub - Internet (with priority given to this LAN segment over VLAN0, QoS so that your VoIP gets priority over anything else...thus your phone calls are always clear without interruption

VLAN2 - second 8 port gigabyte hub - Internet (also priority over VLAN0

VLAN3 - third 8 port gigabyte hub - Internet (priority over VLAN0

With that setup you would have 25 ports through that one 4 port hub....doubt you would need that many. The best thing is that you can offer FREE WiFi and prevent users of this FREE WiFi from seeing the rest of your Local Area Network by segmenting the VLANS.

By segregating your Local Area Network, you can offer FREE WiFi without concerns from crackers, phishers and scammers. By definition, hackers will DO NO HARM.

Encourage everyone to open up their WiFi and stop the FUD by those that ONLY want to offer us less than what we already pay for....

The telcos have accepted billions of our tax dollars to build out fiber to our homes, but give us excuses instead. Many other countries have had 100Mbps / 100Mbps since 2000. Japan is starting to implement 1 Gbps / 1Gbps for less than $55 per month NOW. How much are you paying for less than 2 Mbps? Even FIOS will NOT give us more than 45 Mbps and its 2009, is that really a solution?

While the typical router and firewall routers do not have more than 4 ports, you can use VLANs to separate out those four ports. Considering that the lowest priced DD-WRT router is around $35 - $65; you could just extend from 4 to more by chaining + VLAN with additional Router / Firewalls instead of network hubs.

IMPORTANT NOTE about LINKSYS routers: The new ones coming on the shelves since December 2008 DO NOT allow you to use the DD-WRT software. Make sure you ONLY purchase a DD-WRT supported router!

Here is the page showing which routers support DD-WRT; I recommend those reading this that you get one that will support t

Thanks to Linux, one day I will have a DVD Recorder/Player on steroids and watch almost all my TV and movies via the Internet, that is the future and the ISPs know it.

All I want from my ISP is reliable available bandwidth (equivalent to what they have in other parts of the world... say 100MB / 100MB or 1Gbps / 1Gpbs for around $50 per month) with Net Neutrality, no throttling, censoring or forging of RST packets to stop my communications. Give me bandwidth or give me some other ISP.

In fact when it hiccups, I check the bandwidth logs via my DD-WRT software enabled router / firewall and I see that my ISP has throttled me back more severely than normal. In many cases lower than 200Kbps.

My ISP throttles every communication, every time, all day, 24/7...it is getting so old. Prior to them throttling, my Quality of Service (QoS) settings ALWAYS prevented my Skype VoIP software from being interrupted. Since they have started throttling, my Skype calls get interrupted a few times each month...about the same rate as my cell phones use to drop calls back in the day. For the last three - four years I have been cell phone and monthly fee to cellular companies FREE.

So even if Skype drops, which it never did in the past, pre throttle days, I will NOT switch from them. Rather I will look for a more reliable ISP and churn.

...Moving the "x" to close a window from the left corner to the right corner drove me absolutely insane at first because I kept closing my windows when I only wanted to minimize them. After a (very) little while, however, I got used to it....

I remember many users complaining about having to learn the new GUI with Windows 95. Thanks for the memory.

What drives me insane, is having my PC slow down due to all the ad aware, cookies, flash junk cookie like tracking stuff constantly getting installed and reinstalled on my PC whether I like it or not. Use to happen to me all the time with IE and Windows, back in the day.

At least Firefox will let me decide which web sites are always or never allowed to use cookies via the Exceptions windows. Sure its a bit of of a hassle to have to make an exception for every single cookie the first time you encounter a website. However keeping my browsing faster, while making it a bit more difficult for companies to track my internet usage is worth it for me.

It is amazing how many sites want to set 20+ cookies, something most people never see as they do not set up their security to the highest setting which requires manually approving everything, the first time only. One popular email site (nope, not Google) not only set over 20 cookies, but attempted to change one of my settings from Allow for session to permanent or Enable. Made me wonder how many other sites try to take advantage by resetting a cookie that you have already set as Allow for Session.

Using the Exceptions window and setting most cookies as only Allow for Session or Disable / Deny in addition to having Firefox clean up as it exits works extremely well for me. Each time I start it up there are less than 6 cookies open and tracking me, since I Enable very sparingly. So far I am a year plus and running with no browser sluggishness or slow downs as I use to experience with IE. If I get bogged down I quickly check my routers DD-WRT software, nice having the capability of a $600 Router for less than $60 and find that it is my ISP artificially throttling packets and slowing down my surfing. For me this happens 100% of the time that I am on the internet, You know it is your ISP when this happens early in the AM, (2 am â" 5 am) when very few people are even awake, much less online. Another clue is when you get throttled during normal business hours when few neighbors are even home. I use to get a steady 2 â" 3 Mbps, until just before or after dinner time when people got home from work, lately I am lucky to get 300Kbps. Thanks to my DD-WRT software I can monitor bandwidth usage and more. Occasionally I see higher peaks, however it never lasts very long any more, even when downloading new linux distros...and that is without using a bit torrent package. Yes, I feel cheated and taken advantage of by my ISP.

Does your router / firewall work with DD-WRT? Here is a list of supported routers and firewall/routers. With DD-WRT you can set Quality of Service settings for different types of TCP/IP, UDP and other packets...very well worth the time to learn how to configure it.

Hopefully I will be able to get one of the many FREE players that specifically use the H.264 superior in quality CODEC as my default player instead of Flash or Media Player. By avoiding those players I can avoid the behind the scenes tracking stuff that they put on peoples PCs without them being aware of it. It is not just the silent tracking that I object too, its the slowing down of my surfing that they cause that I do NOT

...Moving the "x" to close a window from the left corner to the right corner drove me absolutely insane at first because I kept closing my windows when I only wanted to minimize them. After a (very) little while, however, I got used to it....

I remember many users complaining about having to learn the new GUI with Windows 95. Thanks for the memory.

What drives me insane, is having my PC slow down due to all the ad aware, cookies, flash junk cookie like tracking stuff constantly getting installed and reinstalled on my PC whether I like it or not. Use to happen to me all the time with IE and Windows, back in the day.

At least Firefox will let me decide which web sites are always or never allowed to use cookies via the Exceptions windows. Sure its a bit of of a hassle to have to make an exception for every single cookie the first time you encounter a website. However keeping my browsing faster, while making it a bit more difficult for companies to track my internet usage is worth it for me.

It is amazing how many sites want to set 20+ cookies, something most people never see as they do not set up their security to the highest setting which requires manually approving everything, the first time only. One popular email site (nope, not Google) not only set over 20 cookies, but attempted to change one of my settings from Allow for session to permanent or Enable. Made me wonder how many other sites try to take advantage by resetting a cookie that you have already set as Allow for Session.

Using the Exceptions window and setting most cookies as only Allow for Session or Disable / Deny in addition to having Firefox clean up as it exits works extremely well for me. Each time I start it up there are less than 6 cookies open and tracking me, since I Enable very sparingly. So far I am a year plus and running with no browser sluggishness or slow downs as I use to experience with IE. If I get bogged down I quickly check my routers DD-WRT software, nice having the capability of a $600 Router for less than $60 and find that it is my ISP artificially throttling packets and slowing down my surfing. For me this happens 100% of the time that I am on the internet, You know it is your ISP when this happens early in the AM, (2 am â" 5 am) when very few people are even awake, much less online. Another clue is when you get throttled during normal business hours when few neighbors are even home. I use to get a steady 2 â" 3 Mbps, until just before or after dinner time when people got home from work, lately I am lucky to get 300Kbps. Thanks to my DD-WRT software I can monitor bandwidth usage and more. Occasionally I see higher peaks, however it never lasts very long any more, even when downloading new linux distros...and that is without using a bit torrent package. Yes, I feel cheated and taken advantage of by my ISP.

Does your router / firewall work with DD-WRT? Here is a list of supported routers and firewall/routers. With DD-WRT you can set Quality of Service settings for different types of TCP/IP, UDP and other packets...very well worth the time to learn how to configure it.

Hopefully I will be able to get one of the many FREE players that specifically use the H.264 superior in quality CODEC as my default player instead of Flash or Media Player. By avoiding those players I can avoid the behind the scenes tracking stuff that they put on peoples PCs without them being aware of it. It is not just the silent tracking that I object too, its the slowing down of my surfing that they cause that I do NOT

...Moving the "x" to close a window from the left corner to the right corner drove me absolutely insane at first because I kept closing my windows when I only wanted to minimize them. After a (very) little while, however, I got used to it....

I remember many users complaining about having to learn the new GUI with Windows 95. Thanks for the memory.

What drives me insane, is having my PC slow down due to all the ad aware, cookies, flash junk cookie like tracking stuff constantly getting installed and reinstalled on my PC whether I like it or not. Use to happen to me all the time with IE and Windows, back in the day.

At least Firefox will let me decide which web sites are always or never allowed to use cookies via the Exceptions windows. Sure its a bit of of a hassle to have to make an exception for every single cookie the first time you encounter a website. However keeping my browsing faster, while making it a bit more difficult for companies to track my internet usage is worth it for me.

It is amazing how many sites want to set 20+ cookies, something most people never see as they do not set up their security to the highest setting which requires manually approving everything, the first time only. One popular email site (nope, not Google) not only set over 20 cookies, but attempted to change one of my settings from Allow for session to permanent or Enable. Made me wonder how many other sites try to take advantage by resetting a cookie that you have already set as Allow for Session.

Using the Exceptions window and setting most cookies as only Allow for Session or Disable / Deny in addition to having Firefox clean up as it exits works extremely well for me. Each time I start it up there are less than 6 cookies open and tracking me, since I Enable very sparingly. So far I am a year plus and running with no browser sluggishness or slow downs as I use to experience with IE. If I get bogged down I quickly check my routers DD-WRT software, nice having the capability of a $600 Router for less than $60 and find that it is my ISP artificially throttling packets and slowing down my surfing. For me this happens 100% of the time that I am on the internet, You know it is your ISP when this happens early in the AM, (2 am â" 5 am) when very few people are even awake, much less online. Another clue is when you get throttled during normal business hours when few neighbors are even home. I use to get a steady 2 â" 3 Mbps, until just before or after dinner time when people got home from work, lately I am lucky to get 300Kbps. Thanks to my DD-WRT software I can monitor bandwidth usage and more. Occasionally I see higher peaks, however it never lasts very long any more, even when downloading new linux distros...and that is without using a bit torrent package. Yes, I feel cheated and taken advantage of by my ISP.

Does your router / firewall work with DD-WRT? Here is a list of supported routers and firewall/routers. With DD-WRT you can set Quality of Service settings for different types of TCP/IP, UDP and other packets...very well worth the time to learn how to configure it.

Hopefully I will be able to get one of the many FREE players that specifically use the H.264 superior in quality CODEC as my default player instead of Flash or Media Player. By avoiding those players I can avoid the behind the scenes tracking stuff that they put on peoples PCs without them being aware of it. It is not just the silent tracking that I object too, its the slowing down of my surfing that they cause that I do NOT

Netstumbler is a great little program. I'm not sure how the author of the article could control how other people set up their routers (yes he could ask but would people actually cooperate?), so at least he could pick the channel with the least competition. A technically inclined person could also install this and increase the transmission power over the default. Swamp your neighbor's wifi signal! Impress your friends!

I have not actually installed or used this, since my wife would kill me if I accidentally bricked our router.

If you have Linksys WRT54G wireless router and have flushed it with DD-WRT Firmware, you might be able to increase Xmit power of your wireless transmission to effectively suppress any interference. Now, the idea is to not go overboard and piss the neighbors off by making it so strong that it suppresses reception of their own signal in THEIR own apartment.

Linksys and D-Link apparently have plans, yet nothing in the user documentation.

OpenWRT and DD-WRT are third-party firmware for a rather large variety of consumer-level routers and both of them support IPv6.

I hoped that Linksys, et.al., would intro consumer routers at CES2009 with IPv6/IPv4 dual stacks.

As I wrote elsewhere, you can get IPv6 on Linksys (et al.) routers at present as well, but you have to use custom firmware, meaning OpenWRT or DD-WRT.

Unfortunately this means that it can be quite difficult to configure. OpenWRT is not really suitable for non-technical users anyway, so for their userbase it won't be much of a problem. For DD-WRT, IPv6 was supported quite well in v23, but has been having problems for some years in v24 out of the box. If you want IPv6 in recent DD-WRT versions (v24 or higher), you need some manual configuration as well as a custom build, but then it's possible.

This arguably doesn't really qualify as a consumer solution, though.

I hoped that Linksys, et.al., would intro consumer routers at CES2009 with IPv6/IPv4 dual stacks.

As I wrote elsewhere, you can get IPv6 on Linksys (et al.) routers at present as well, but you have to use custom firmware, meaning OpenWRT or DD-WRT.

Unfortunately this means that it can be quite difficult to configure. OpenWRT is not really suitable for non-technical users anyway, so for their userbase it won't be much of a problem. For DD-WRT, IPv6 was supported quite well in v23, but has been having problems for some years in v24 out of the box. If you want IPv6 in recent DD-WRT versions (v24 or higher), you need some manual configuration as well as a custom build, but then it's possible.

This arguably doesn't really qualify as a consumer solution, though.

FYI, my Linksys, flashed with DD-WRT (an older version, from a few years ago, can't remember) is what provides my IPv6 connectivity at my house.

The keyword here is "from a few years ago". IPv6 has been broken in recent DD-WRT versions for years. The software tools are incomplete, some of them (such as radvd) may not run properly at all in the release builds, and there is no configuration interface. There is a tutorial, but it's largely outdated.

Some users users have been sticking with 23 SP2 for precisely this purpose. It's possible to run IPv6 with more recent DD-WRT versions, but in order to get it to run, you need a custom build (see also here) and/or some medium to major manual configuration juggling.

FYI, my Linksys, flashed with DD-WRT (an older version, from a few years ago, can't remember) is what provides my IPv6 connectivity at my house.

The keyword here is "from a few years ago". IPv6 has been broken in recent DD-WRT versions for years. The software tools are incomplete, some of them (such as radvd) may not run properly at all in the release builds, and there is no configuration interface. There is a tutorial, but it's largely outdated.

Some users users have been sticking with 23 SP2 for precisely this purpose. It's possible to run IPv6 with more recent DD-WRT versions, but in order to get it to run, you need a custom build (see also here) and/or some medium to major manual configuration juggling.

FYI, my Linksys, flashed with DD-WRT (an older version, from a few years ago, can't remember) is what provides my IPv6 connectivity at my house.

The keyword here is "from a few years ago". IPv6 has been broken in recent DD-WRT versions for years. The software tools are incomplete, some of them (such as radvd) may not run properly at all in the release builds, and there is no configuration interface. There is a tutorial, but it's largely outdated.

Some users users have been sticking with 23 SP2 for precisely this purpose. It's possible to run IPv6 with more recent DD-WRT versions, but in order to get it to run, you need a custom build (see also here) and/or some medium to major manual configuration juggling.

FYI, my Linksys, flashed with DD-WRT (an older version, from a few years ago, can't remember) is what provides my IPv6 connectivity at my house.

The keyword here is "from a few years ago". IPv6 has been broken in recent DD-WRT versions for years. The software tools are incomplete, some of them (such as radvd) may not run properly at all in the release builds, and there is no configuration interface. There is a tutorial, but it's largely outdated.

Some users users have been sticking with 23 SP2 for precisely this purpose. It's possible to run IPv6 with more recent DD-WRT versions, but in order to get it to run, you need a custom build (see also here) and/or some medium to major manual configuration juggling.

That will work fine for a server, as long as you have reasonable expectations for the result. I used to have a server with extremely similar specs here running Linux as a file server, and it's only recently I retired it. I was hard pressed to get much over 200Mbps out of it over the PCI gigabit card I put in there. That's at the low side of real gigabit results, but completely acceptable for most purposes.

I've had nothing but trouble using a regular server OS as a wireless router though. Wasted lots of time trying to get stuff like VPNs and torrents working and similarly tweaking the firewall rules. Nowadays I just buy cheap routers that run DD-WRT instead. For example, the same Linksys router I have that used to have weird problems all the time like you describe (needed regular resets just to work normally) is rock solid running the DD-WRT firmware instead--uptime in months instead of days.

They didn't take it out. Some things needed fixing. I am using this version http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=199019 which works well for me and wasn't too much trouble to setup

FYI, for those running routers that can run DD-WRT:

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/IPv6#6to4_Setup

> Then put tomato on it or DD-WRT (they're Linux distros).

Be careful with the licences, though. Tomato's GUI is not free software:

    Tomato GUI
    Copyright (C) 2006-2008 Jonathan Zarate
    www.polarcloud.com/tomato/

    For use with Tomato Firmware only.
    No part of this file may be used without
    permission.

and DD-WRT requires activation licenses for commercial use:

http://www.dd-wrt.com/shop/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=728&osCsid=ns9upt2t79usrn36f3eihdlem6

I'm a big fan of the linksys WRT160Nv1 with dd-wrt. Just flash with the mini_generic firmware first (to fit inside the stock firmware upload size limit), then you can use dd-wrt itself to install a standard one if you want; I prefer vpn_generic personally, but mini_generic is pretty good on its own.

The WRT160N a single radio 2.4GHz 802.11n router, and it's almost as cheap as the WRT54GL. There is also the WRT310N which is almost identical to the WRT160N, but it has a Gbit switch inbuilt instead of a 100Mb switch - I've not tried this yet as the hardware isn't available in the UK, but I'll be probably switching to that as my standard when it does.

If you want dual-band dual radio support (i.e. 2.4Ghz + 5Ghz), there's the WRT600Nv1 - it is mostly supported under dd-wrt. The v1.1 is a work in progress, but there is support using the TNG firmware. Definitely read up the forum post before going this route though.

I'm waiting on the WRT610N support for that.

BitTorrent is usually the culprit for random router slugginess. Here's the instructions for solving it in DD-WRT by increasing the max connections.

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Installation

Some of the WRT300N and WRT600N models are usable.

Linksys isn't so bad if you replace the firmware. Try dd-wrt if you want quick and easy, or OpenWRT if you want to customize. I guarantee you'll like 'em. (Get a WRT-54GL to try it on; they're cheap nowadays.)