21–30 of 135 posts
> You probably know Belkin for its various lines of accessories, peripherals, and assorted consumer electronics; Linksys, surely the most recognizable router brand, is a subsidiary. Apparently Cisco sold Linksys to Belkin in 2013. That's news to me.
Neat. Belkin was pretty crap about 7 years or so ago but they raised their game I find in the last couple years. They are pretty solid with decent prices now. I think there is a pretty good market for smart home accessories, various wifi enabled devices like powerstrips, lights, cameras, locks, alarm systems, etc. With Belkin's Walmart distribution network and their low costs, I think it may be something they could t…
* an outlet multipler/usb charging thing - died
* lighting cables of various lengths - all died
maybe I have bad luck, but it seems to me like they are still making garbage.
The only good Belkin product I have ever seen is their 12 outlet power strip. As a network engineer everything they make with an Ethernet/wifi interface is complete shit. But this is not really news, D-Link, Netgear, many of their competitors are also junk.
I don't know if they bought someone who knew what they were doing with power strips or what, but .... i'm still using them.
It is a little disconcerting that Foxconn (subject to deep Chinese government overreach) will now own Linksys
I stopped buying linksys products a long time ago. Moved on to Netgear and Asus. But, doesn't Foxconn already manufacture a bunch of American products?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Foxconn is Taiwanese like Asus, Acer, Gigabyte, MSI, MediaTek, D-Link, and HTC. Both Asus and D-Link are major router makers as well. Also fun fact, nearly all routers use the same chips from Boardcom. The majority of differences between routers is just firmware and packaging, the guts are all the same.
> The majority of differences between routers is just firmware and packaging, the guts are all the same. The firmware is the part you really have to worry about, though. But the proper solution is to simply never run the vendor's firmware on a consumer grade router, because none of them are any good at assembling and securing a Linux distribution.
Much easier than flashing cell phone and the open source version normally has more features also.
> You probably know Belkin for its various lines of accessories, peripherals, and assorted consumer electronics; Linksys, surely the most recognizable router brand, is a subsidiary. Apparently Cisco sold Linksys to Belkin in 2013. That's news to me.
Cisco had money burning a hole in their pocket and bought a some consumer stuff and then had no idea what to do with it ... so they sold most of it off, or simply discontinued it (like flip video).
Once upon a time, they made NICs.
It is a little disconcerting that Foxconn (subject to deep Chinese government overreach) will now own Linksys
Foxconn is Taiwanese like Asus, Acer, Gigabyte, MSI, MediaTek, D-Link, and HTC. Both Asus and D-Link are major router makers as well. Also fun fact, nearly all routers use the same chips from Boardcom. The majority of differences between routers is just firmware and packaging, the guts are all the same.
The only good Belkin product I have ever seen is their 12 outlet power strip. As a network engineer everything they make with an Ethernet/wifi interface is complete shit. But this is not really news, D-Link, Netgear, many of their competitors are also junk.
Every Belkin product I owned was garbage... but just like you I ran across a couple power strips that are surprisingly good. I don't know if they bought someone who knew what they were doing with power strips or what, but .... i'm still using them.
https://www.amazon.com/Belkin-12-Outlet-Protector-Protection...
My theory is that they are good because electrical safety is something that is actually regulated. UL and CE certification to sell as a consumer device. Whereas there is no penalty or regulation for shitty routers with shit firmware.
Neat. Belkin was pretty crap about 7 years or so ago but they raised their game I find in the last couple years. They are pretty solid with decent prices now. I think there is a pretty good market for smart home accessories, various wifi enabled devices like powerstrips, lights, cameras, locks, alarm systems, etc. With Belkin's Walmart distribution network and their low costs, I think it may be something they could t…
last belkin items I had were: * an outlet multipler/usb charging thing - died * lighting cables of various lengths - all died maybe I have bad luck, but it seems to me like they are still making garbage.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Foxconn is Taiwanese like Asus, Acer, Gigabyte, MSI, MediaTek, D-Link, and HTC. Both Asus and D-Link are major router makers as well. Also fun fact, nearly all routers use the same chips from Boardcom. The majority of differences between routers is just firmware and packaging, the guts are all the same.
> The majority of differences between routers is just firmware and packaging, the guts are all the same. The firmware is the part you really have to worry about, though. But the proper solution is to simply never run the vendor's firmware on a consumer grade router, because none of them are any good at assembling and securing a Linux distribution.
> > The majority of differences between routers is just firmware and packaging, the guts are all the same.
>
> The firmware is the part you really have to worry about, though
[1] https://blogs.cisco.com/wireless/not-all-802-11ac-aps-are-cr... [2] https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/servers-unified-compu... [3] https://www.design-reuse.com/articles/20671/security-embedde...