Affordable router under $50 available on eBay.
Affordable router under $50 available on eBay.
Hey all, I found out that my Netgear R6400 has no way for the user to control the firewall. This is a huge issue for me as I want to use the firewall to control website access on a per-computer basis to improve my focus. I also want to allow distraction access for my roommates (eg I'm working while the guy in the next room is on Facebook). The R6400's interface only allows me to set this sort of filtering if I manually whitelist the network IP addresses of my roommates. However, if one of the IPs changes for any reason (eg mobile phone leaves the house and comes back), then other devices get blocked and the filter is useless. I have tried DD-WRT, both the default build and kongac's custom build. Both cause the router to lock up and kernel panic after a few hours of use. Restoring this router back to stock was even harder, as Netgear's stock images do not have the correct hex values in a few spots (whether or not this is sabotage by Netgear seems to be up in the air). I had to search for days to find one guy who had a modified image on his personal server in Denmark. Oh, and copying files to my USB hard drive causes the thing to crash on both stock firmware and both DD-WRT builds, even though it's an officially advertised feature. Anyways, ranting aside, I want to get a new router. What are some recommendations for routers under $50 that have firewall access? USB 3 and Wireless AC are preferred but aren't a deal breaker. I am willing to take a look at second hand sites like eBay and Craigslist. (...Seriously, who ships a router in 2019 that doesn't have firewall config? My garbage Belkin router that I had ten years ago had better config options than this.)
My router settings are network-wide and need me to join Netgear’s cloud service. I need options to restrict access only to specific devices, not switch platforms. For my roommates, this is exactly what I need—they should be able to use their devices while I’m blocked, so I can stay productive. I prefer handling this at the network level because I use several devices and don’t want to set everything up manually.
You're clearly confused about the goal. It sounds like you're trying to limit access without fully blocking it, but you're not sure what the exact aim is.