Cheap, decent router (Netgear DG834G 54 Mbps Wireless ADSL Firewall)

Member Name: JackED42

Product:	Netgear DG834G 54 Mbps Wireless ADSL Firewall
Date:	25/08/09 (22 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, easy to use, quick setup

Disadvantages: Slow speeds, have to reset internet connection in router sometimes

This wireless router is a decent router at a very cheap price. It has quite a lot of features for a basic wireless router, including a built-in switch, modem and firewall.

The router has 4 ports for wired connection and can support up to 253 devices on it. Each wired port advertises speeds of roughly 200Mbps, and wired devices have a top speed of 54Mbps. I have found copying files over the network is quite slow, but downloading files from the net and opening web pages is on par with the wired connection.

The physical set up of this router is very easy. The box contains the router, a power supply and an aerial. I cannot remember if it includes the Cat 5 cable (for connecting it to your PC if you are not using wireless) or a modem cable (that goes into your wall for the internet connection). All you need to do is plug the power into it, attach a modem cable to your phone line, and you router is up and running.

Sometimes you will need to enter settings given to you by your ISP; i.e. IP addresses, DNS servers etc. This is easily done by opening the router page, "192.168.0.1", and entering the default user name and password (these are all written on the bottom of the device). Once this is complete, you will be able to connect to the internet wirelessly or through a wired internet connection. I found this setup to be pretty easy and took no more than ten minutes.

Once this is done, you have to set up the wireless settings. Here, you can set a SSID (Name of the network), set up specific machines that have access to your network and security encryption. You have the choice of WEP (upto 128 bit), WPA Shared Key and WPA 802.1x. This is all clearly laid out and is easy to set up for a novice and advanced user alike.

The router has a built in firewall to stop malicious attacks of your network, and can be set up to e-mail you when an attack has been detected.

The router supports port forwarding that is needed to play the game. This is not as easy to do as on other routers but is possible by adding a custom service (a port number or selection of port numbers) and adding allowing it within the firewall rules. This should be better set out as it should be able to be done with one simple step.

Other more features of the router include, viewing attached devices, current status, set up a DMZ, set up VPN, set up a DHCP server and much more. The router supports firmware updates which increase functionality of it.

I have found that my router will quite often drop the internet connection and have to reset it manually in the router page. This does not take long, but is annoying.

Overall, with a cheap price of between 35-60 pounds, it is a good buy.

Summary: Half decent router, if you just want one for your home

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