Building a Strong, Fortified Home Network | Security

With pleasure. ISP issued routers are just for grandmas.

I always end up buying mine used but they are workhorses. (Starting from blank, with CLI ability is really where the gold is but I can't expect that of the average consumer.) Is there a brand you like most? I've had two Ubiquitis and one MikroTik. Sometimes I keep an eye out on eBay for Junipers that don't need licensing/aren't ancient/don't cost a fortune.

I mean when it comes to brands, it always amounts to choosing the lesser evil I guess. It really depends on your needs, and what you're securing.

While I love Ubiquiti menagment system, and Netgear hardware, I mostly look in routers to support dd-wrt, OpenWrt, Pfsense, and so on. Anything I can tinker with, and make my life miserable for days at the time. And the bonus side being you don't depend on manufacturer to push out frimware updates.

You are awesome. I used to turn every old Belkin into a dd-wrt AP and place them all around. Pfsense is actually a beast; it can do a lot. I think they now sell their own hardware too.

Yeah, I've been with a Ubiquiti router and an eBay Layer3+ switch I got for a deal for a while.

The licensing game is mind-boggling. So evil. But that's how they make their money....

I can say the same about you. I mean if you have the knowledge necessary to run any of the above, it's always better (imo) than to rely on any major corporation.

I still have fits of rage over Palo Alto and their business model. Where they undercut the competition for roughly 20%, but the big suprise is when you realise licencing is going to cost you more than enteprise grade hardware.

And with MSPs, now they make you buy the SD-WAN hardware while you're paying them and paying the licensing and paying the carrier. Some people have no problem conning others, others help others from having to get conned.

It's like buying high-end surveillance system, when you have Raspbian and open-source alternatives for free. I'm always going with DYI.

You're a survivalist. I love it.

Aren't we all? Just becuase I have money to waste, doesn't mean I'm going to do that.

I wish I could look around and say the money gets wasted but I see the money come and disappear to bills. And I look at how much I've made ... then I see how much I'm actually getting paid and again ... it's gone before I even had it. Money eludes me. And that's on top of being ultra-resourceful. Hopefully someday the story will be different.

I mean we can't take it to our graves. But, you're right doesn't matter how resourcefull you are with current world situation. Unless you're in millionare/billionare rank, you will struggle.