I've had very good experience with Gl-iNet products. They have good hardware, very good openWRT support (the official firmware is based on openWRT) and are beefy enough to be used as home routers even if they are marketed as travel routers.
Hidden Networks in TP-Link Routers
201–210 of 230 posts
Re: Hidden Networks in TP-Link Routers
#202I've had very good experience with Gl-iNet products. They have good hardware, very good openWRT support (the official firmware is based on openWRT) and are beefy enough to be used as home routers even if they are marketed as travel routers.
Do all GL-iNet products support mainline OpenWRT? or is there exceptions?
Re: Hidden Networks in TP-Link Routers
#203I had a related problem with their PowerLine TPA-4220 devices yesterday. It turns out there's a DHCP server on it that you can't turn off! It's supposed to be smart and know when there's another DHCP server on the network, but it appears that this sometimes doesn't work. So I found that my laptop sometimes ends up configured on the wrong subnet, which of course kills the internet connection. The thing is, the web int…
I've been suffering this for years with a TL-WPA8630P v2.0 and so far the only solution from TP Link [1] is a firmware update that disables DHCP only until you reboot it (or the power goes out). It's ridiculous.
[1] https://community.tp-link.com/en/home/forum/topic/265692
Re: Hidden Networks in TP-Link Routers
#204This type of whackery is (the primary reason) why I try to buy computing devices on which I can flash a clean OS (OpenWrt/DD-WRT for routers)[1]. It sucks because it limits my choices down to a few, but at the same time I feel like I don't throw out money at abandonware. [1] don't even get me started on TP-Link releasing routers with the same name but v2/v3/2020/2021 update where it's hard to even know if I'm buying…
If you can afford it, go one better. I started out buying expensive home Wi-Fi routers, and I now have a box of expensive home routers I've decommissioned because they have vulnerabilities and stopped receiving updates. Probably well over ~£1000-2000 spent on them over the past ~decade. Next I switched to separate Router/Switch/AP and started with a Ubiquiti EdgeSwitch 8 POE, EdgeRouter Lite 3 and an AP-AC-Pro. Later…
Have you tried Turris routers?
Re: Hidden Networks in TP-Link Routers
#205Worse still almost all new routers and mesh systems, don't have the admin interface on the device, you have to sign up and manage it through a cloud account controlled by the manufacture. If anyone can recommend a good wifi mesh system that supports wifi 6 and doesn't require signing up for a manufacture cloud account, please let me know.
Ubiquiti access points support meshing and you can run the controller yourself. I have AP Lite 6.
They also used to be able to be set up standalone without controller (have one AP lite as well) but they removed that from their "apps" a while back (already set up APs keep working in standalone mode). This has caused me to make new AP deployments around the house using TP-Link Omada APs w/ OpenWRT firmware instead. Ubiquity is no longer worth the premium if they keep messing with the software side of things (although their hardware keeps working well).
Re: Hidden Networks in TP-Link Routers
#206This type of whackery is (the primary reason) why I try to buy computing devices on which I can flash a clean OS (OpenWrt/DD-WRT for routers)[1]. It sucks because it limits my choices down to a few, but at the same time I feel like I don't throw out money at abandonware. [1] don't even get me started on TP-Link releasing routers with the same name but v2/v3/2020/2021 update where it's hard to even know if I'm buying…
OpenWRT was a reason I finally started considering TPlink routers, otherwise they are on my never buy list for this article and other reasons.
Re: Hidden Networks in TP-Link Routers
#207Not trying to defend TP-Link or anything, but I recently bought a pair of mesh router from them and they work very well. BTW, this hidden network probably uses another protocol (for the OneMesh). It is the 802.11s ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11s ), that uses its own encryption method based on Simultaneous Authentication of Equals (SAE) (yeah, that is the same as WPA3, however it came before it). It shows…
Thanks for the info. That makes sense given the "11s" configuration I found for those SSIDs. The router is not in their mesh line AFAIK, though most of their home products now support OneMesh, so that line is a bit blurry. To clarify, I like TP-Link products too. Their PowerLAN products so far have been the most reliable for me and the router's been solid too. It's just really disappointing that an almost (for me) pe…
Just to correct myself, "11i" is actually what I saw in the configuration and it's the "Beacon Type". WiFi Analyzer shows them as 11n (2.4Hz) and 11ac (5GHz).
https://jahed.dev/2021/12/20/editing-tp-link-router-backups/
Re: Hidden Networks in TP-Link Routers
#208I have a box full of old consumer wireless routers. I am not sure why most of these devices are so flaky. These days I separate the packet routing from the wifi part and that has made things a little more sane.
Re: Hidden Networks in TP-Link Routers
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you can afford it, go one better. I started out buying expensive home Wi-Fi routers, and I now have a box of expensive home routers I've decommissioned because they have vulnerabilities and stopped receiving updates. Probably well over ~£1000-2000 spent on them over the past ~decade. Next I switched to separate Router/Switch/AP and started with a Ubiquiti EdgeSwitch 8 POE, EdgeRouter Lite 3 and an AP-AC-Pro. Later…
Have you tried Turris routers?
I have not. I considered one when I was replacing the EdgeRouter but I'm a firm believer in separation of concerns, I didn't want my router to be handling my WiFi or doing the switching.
It would have been my top choice had I wanted to stick to an "all in one".
Re: Hidden Networks in TP-Link Routers
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Right of repair" being focused on hardware is a neat little trick to enforce the illusion that changing software is beyond your rights as a consumer. Yes, you can fix the antenna when it breaks, and focus on how hard the fight was to get the right to fix the hardware you own... which you don't own as long as the company uses software to control what the hardware can and cannot do. But you sure physically own those m…
> "Right of repair" being focused on hardware is a neat little trick to enforce the illusion that changing software is beyond your rights as a consumer. Is it a trick, or just limited imagination? My impression is that "right of repair" came from mechanically-minded people seeking to maintain their traditional ability to repair physical devices in the face of corporate hostility (e.g. farmers vs. John Deere). > Yes,…
The tractor right to repair issues include software. You might even say that software is the prime issue preventing repair of the newer from equipment. Parts with drm, unsupported software, etc.