Current most freedom respecting hardware?

Hardware Questions and Recommendations
1

I need new Wifi routers. I do not like proprietary software / hardware.
I did not find a thread for the current most freedom respecting hardware.
On the Hardware Table I could not select by binary blobs yes/no and free hardware designs.
I found thinkpenguin but do not know if this is the best choice today.
Performance and price are not issues for me. I just need a typical Wifi router for my house at home with WAN for the cable modem, a few LAN Ports (100 Mbps is enough), and good Wifi range. My old WRT54GL did the job nicely. Important is a very long lifetime / support by OpenWrt, robustness, security and low power consumption. If needed I can build / solder / hack it, but I would prefer to buy it ready to go.
Ideally I want my money go to an ethical hardware supplier that supports the free software / hardware movement.

The number of available routers is overwhelming for me because I am no router expert, that is why I ask for help here. Thank you.

2

:confused:

100Mbps

1 Like
3

By far the most open design is the x86_64 PC but this is not including wifi. One of the many mini PC's with 4-6 Intel NICs is the way to go for the router itself in terms of lasting a long time, handling high speeds, being flexible, etc... But this leaves what to use for a separate WiFi access point. Unfortunately the wifi part is far less open, and this is in part due to FCC requirements and in part due to chipset mfg wanting to keep things secret. Firmware blobs are the norm. At least isolating the proprietariness into a separate AP gets you maximum flexibility to replace and adjust the AP portion while keeping the router portion very open.

3 Likes