Edit*: There are some trust downsides to using this router, it has a modified version of openWRT and some proprietary elements to make the hardware work. Keep reading to learn more. Decide if you are willing to trust them.
What do you mean? It comes with OpenWrt pre-installed.
Would the RT3200 and WRX36 require you to find the hardware locally and install openWRT?
In that case GL.Net would still be a faster/easier solution no?
PS can you link to the RT3200 and WRX36 I'm interested.
Ahh okay, so it's only a matter of trust? Is their version open source, wonder if anyone has reviewed it.
Do you not think they may need to adjust openWRT to match their hardware and software offering?
What brand is linked to these models please? RT3200 and WRX36
VPN doesn't provide any additional "privacy", unless you live in Iraq, China, Russia, or some other "democracy unfriendly" country, where you can use it to bypass the government's internet restrictions.
For all the others, it's a (pretty much) pointless feature.
I'm not too bothered with using the VPN I understand it's use cases and limitations, it only has niche use cases. Eg: Gl.inets travel routers are VPN focussed for use with public wifi. Also GL.inet is in Hong Kong, so VPN is important to them.
According to this podcast their changes are open source but their UI changes are not.
They are pretending to offer you OpenWrt but they are not. What they offer is a product loosely based on OpenWrt but ultimately built from a vendor SDK with lots of changes and binary blobs OpenWrt has no access to.
Long story short, they are violating the OpenWrt copyright. It's a registered trademark.
Okay, thanks for the insight, do you know, would vanilla/pure openwrt work on their hardware?
Edit*: according to the podcast GL.iNet allows users to flash openWRT without their firmware
And no, Gl.iNet does not make it particularly difficult to flash vanilla OpenWrt onto their hardware, but as @frollic points out it's impossible to flash OpenWrt onto a device that is only supported by their own vendor firmware (as is the case with the GL-AX1800).
GL.iNet AX1800 and AXT1800 is getting ported to Vanilla OpenWRT by the community here but it takes time.
I am still working on this bud I have a few things to get working such as sensors, a buildable image that is consistent without soft bricking a router, fan control for the axt1800 else everything such as wireless, Lan etc is working and recently we got the CPU to run correctly to increase the power performance in crypto.
I am new to all this porting and @robimarko@kirdes and some others have been kind enough to help out when I have been stuck.
So really it's not a question easiest/fastest way of getting openwrt on to the router just yet.
When I said easiest/fastest I meant in the sense that you can simply order it and start using it, no searching for the right router or installation needed.