Linksys WRT 1900/3200/32X Series has an ugly switch bug in v22 that wont get fixed before OpenWRT 23.XX gets released.
thanks to Linksys and NXP sales deals, the WRT WiFi BLOB was left incomplete, buggy, unmaintained, abandoned closed source. From OpenWRT user perspective, the clear all time winner of the shi**y wifi award.
Linksys WRT Wifi driver development would required closed source firmware BLOB updates that only the vendor can provide, but has stopped to do so around 2017. It is a FullMac driver, so the closed source driver controls all of the WiFi. The only opensource adaptable part is, the driver loader can be adapted to newer kernels.
No WPA3, and several Wifi parameters theoretically available via Luci/Uci should not be customized, to keep its WiFi stable. There are some constraints to be aware if wrong country settings are used or if the 3rd radio gets enabled, otherwise overall WiFi TX power will be reduced. And some WiFi clients (e.g. ESP32 based) are instable in general.
On top, Linksys WRT under OpenWRT had bad luck twice in a row: In addition to these vendor-caused Wifi driver issues, 21.02.x Wifi had additional stability issues for many users compared to v19. And now 22.03.x has reduced performance due to the switch bug.
Full performance on a recent kernel requires moving to 22snapshot or waiting for v23 and hoping for the best.
but lets not highjack this thread for Linksys, as this thread is meant to focus on D Link 853 a3.
First is to Download the DIR-853 source code form DLink (the first version) and in it Dlink left a 32bit binary called "imgcrypt" . you can use it to encrypt any firmware using the command this way
The second one is to use "after compiling" this wonderful tool created by S-2. Unfortunately it never made it to openwrt (ou can follow the discussion on github) but it does work
EDIT: You can update the normal openwrt image from tftp and it should just work. Just make sure you are using the "Factory" image downloaded from openwrt
DIR-825-B1 changes
the ath79 version never had the factory image so now it has
not sure why it was removed in ar71xx ether tho
you can use image this from the netgear firmware or recovery interface
the expanded rootfs is just that. It now add the unused flash to the usable flash
the old ar71xx had a FAT image that used the same flash just in a different way
you can just sysupgrade to this version same as normal
if you nee to use the factory file
I found the easiest way is to install the old Netscape web browser (AOL) on windows 10
as the boot loader like lots of dlinks is very picky on what it works with