Just another reason why I hate Netgear products. Had a wireless G card that worked perfectly fine with XP and when Vista came put it had no driver support even though it was product that wasn't discontinued.
Netgear Firmware Requires Online Registration
11–20 of 197 posts
Re: Netgear Firmware Requires Online Registration
#12(ITT: Plenty of comments from folks who clearly didn't bother to RTFA.)
This appears to be for one specific product, a "smart cloud switch" [0] (which comes with a "1-Year Insight Subscription").
I don't see anything to indicate that the product registration requirement applies to any of their other products.
Re: Netgear Firmware Requires Online Registration
#13Reminds me of years ago, when Microsoft started forcing players to be online when playing on xbox...which was minutes before I decided I would never need an xbox :)
didn't they backpeddle on that? https://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-pulls-a-180-reverses-xbo...
Re: Netgear Firmware Requires Online Registration
#14> You can login and access all features through the local browser UI 3 times without registering the switch through your netgear.com account. How generous, for a device that people buy (not rent) from them, and pay actual money for (not receive for free). And apparently Netgear didn't even feel the need to bother including any contrived excuse as to why this is being introduced. What a time to be alive.
All low end proprietary network gear is going managed by cloud. Ubiquiti on the soho side and now consumer. Open source is the only equipment you can trust to not adopt this model as it’s much more profitable than shipping a box once every five years.
Netgear isn't (wasn't?) really low-end though. At least not priced as such. One would think they'd be making enough without having to resort to such tactics.
You're right Ubiquiti did it though and I believe their devices are priced even higher. (Edit: note the post next to mine says you can opt out of this.)
I agree replacing the stock firmware with an open-source aftermarket one like OpenWRT is the way to go but there's still the moral dilemma of supporting such practices with your wallet.
I was also thinking if this could be an attempt to thwart the second-hand market for their devices? Is the binding to the online account permanent, or maybe it requires unbinding the previous account first?
Re: Netgear Firmware Requires Online Registration
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
All low end proprietary network gear is going managed by cloud. Ubiquiti on the soho side and now consumer. Open source is the only equipment you can trust to not adopt this model as it’s much more profitable than shipping a box once every five years.
It's optional with Ubiquiti.
... but the telemetry isn't, IIRC.
Re: Netgear Firmware Requires Online Registration
#16Re: Netgear Firmware Requires Online Registration
#17It appears the registration is only required for "cloud" features managed through Netgear's subscription service. Here's what's possible without the cloud service:
https://kb.netgear.com/000061174/What-features-of-my-NETGEAR...
And here are the features of the cloud service:
Re: Netgear Firmware Requires Online Registration
#18Wow jeeze. This is such a different & bad look from the netgear I know. This is hard to see.
Netgear has been one of the main companies to go to if you care about using your hardware. They have had a spirited MyOpenRouter community[1] for their systems, with great firmwares & flexibile package-add-ons developed with assistance from their solid-gold readily-reproduceable GPL releases[2].
I just had a somewhat overlong thread about Broadcom chipset routers having headed towards being impervious & useless, resistant to any experimentation, & bereft of open source firmwares[3], & a general trend in wifi of routers getting less & less general purpose & user-centric hardware, under increasingly consumeristic teiring[3]. While hardware alternatives vanish. This news doesn't mean Netgear is going to go totally darkside & cut off the amazing innovation they've let grow under them, but it sure is frightening that it could be part of that wider scary course into darkness & ignorance that wifi seems to be heading down.
Own the means of production. Own the means of communication. Do not stop short, do not accept less.
[1] https://www.myopenrouter.com/forum
[2] https://kb.netgear.com/2649/NETGEAR-Open-Source-Code-for-Pro...
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24521265
Edit: hopefully much ado about nothing; seems this change only applies to their cloud ️ services
> It appears the registration is only required for "cloud" features managed through Netgear's subscription service.
Re: Netgear Firmware Requires Online Registration
#19It appears the registration is only required for "cloud" features managed through Netgear's subscription service. Here's what's possible without the cloud service: https://kb.netgear.com/000061174/What-features-of-my-NETGEAR... And here are the features of the cloud service: https://kb.netgear.com/000044342/What-can-I-do-with-Insight
In this case, it doesn't seem that bad. Limited to remote monitoring and management features but I wouldn't want that anyway.
Re: Netgear Firmware Requires Online Registration
#20It appears the registration is only required for "cloud" features managed through Netgear's subscription service. Here's what's possible without the cloud service: https://kb.netgear.com/000061174/What-features-of-my-NETGEAR... And here are the features of the cloud service: https://kb.netgear.com/000044342/What-can-I-do-with-Insight
It's not true. If you want to use all the features on my POE Netgear switch, you have to online register and use a code to unlock full access to local mode.
There's no cloud features involved. You have to register online just to use all the features of the switch locally.