I have tried to upgrade a few customer’s older Linksys routers recently only to find firmware is no longer available on the site. You know, just trying to be nice and avoid hassles later when trying to provide remote support over the phone. WRT54G2v1, the most recent example, is now a 104MB download executable that needs to be installed on the host PC. No freak’n way do I trust Linksys/Cisco/Netgear enough to install a massive program on my laptop only to upgrade a router. Google can often find firmware but nearly impossible to know if it is the latest version and forget matching release notes. WTF are these guys thinking? Ok, so I know that they are thinking. Why not just flat out say “screw you—that router is too old—we want new money from you buy something current”. Do customers really want to buy a new router from a company that just went out of their way to remove firmware from their support web site? It begs the question of how long is the company going to support the new router? These guys are dense.
<rant off> PC Blaze Broadband From: Af [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ken Hohhof via Af Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2014 7:53 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] wireless router video The information in the video may be fine, but I have a bad taste in my mouth right now regarding DLink. Most of the customer routers I found on my network with port 1900 open to the Internet turned out to be DLink. That’s just stupid, having UPnP not only enabled by default but enabled toward the WAN side. But then I find most of the DLink routers aren’t getting firmware updates anymore, the only fix is to disable UPnP. http://support.dlink.ca/FAQView.aspx?f=sY5vcvfAuAV6bXgi%2F8WoVw%3D%3D And then customers who can upgrade their FW find all their settings are lost. Way to go, DLink. Maybe Belkin will buy them too, and they can brand everything Blinksys. From: Jaime Solorza via Af <mailto:[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2014 6:18 PM To: Animal Farm <mailto:[email protected]> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] wireless router video Instaiing the router in corner is sometimes better. Think corner reflections help Jaime Solorza On Dec 29, 2014 7:08 PM, "Sean Heskett via Af" <[email protected]> wrote: This one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOdOBVKenzQ On Monday, December 29, 2014, Chuck McCown via Af <[email protected]> wrote: Looking for the link to the belkin or dlink video telling folks to get the router up off the floor.
