[SOLVED] Please help me choose a ac Router.

[ravin_29]

I am not too sure if this kind of shopping related question is on-topic here. I am interested to eventually buy a new ac router. In my country only certain models are available on amazon online.

I have shortlisted dlink dir 825 G1 and tp link archer C6. dir 825 has been phased out in north america but in my region it’s developed and supported with latest firmware as of Jan-2020 and comes with 3 years warranty. Archer C6 is EU version hw revision 2.0 and also available online.

Based on your experience do you have any recommendations among the two? Is anyone better than other when it comes to range, reliability and security? Both are almost equally priced on regional amazon online. Thanks.

 

[bill001g]

Depends on the exact models there are multiple of each. There are some that use exactly the same chipset.

Pretty much the main difference is going to be software features. Only you can put a value on the features. Read the online manuals and decide which you like better. Performance wise they will be very similar

 

[ravin_29]

Thanks for your reply. I think most of the software features are more or less same. C6 seems to offer scheduled reboot which seems not available in 825. However any specific input from better security / less vulnerability point of view if any?

 

[bill001g]

Depends what you mean security. The wifi itself is considered very secure. The encryption standards have been around for many years now. The only exposure tends to be WPS which you need to disable in the wifi section.

Almost every other feature is pretty much disabled unless you turn them on. All device may have feature that put you at risk. You should avoid using anything that allows access from the internet unless you really need it. The default for almost every router is to block any traffic coming in from the internet unless your device requested it.

 

[ravin_29]

Thanks. Ok may be I should have been more explicit. By security I mean mainly no backdoors/weaknesses/vulnerabilities that may be compromised by attackers over the Internet at wan end of the router. Certainly I keep all ports closed, strong WPA2 password, WPS disabled, no ping, no remote access, spi firewall etc.

 

[bill001g]

You never really know there are backdoors until someone finds them.

By default almost all routers prevent any access to the router from the wan side and with no port forwarding your internal machines are safe.