Hi ,
im newbie in that world and I try to see if my new setup is good. I bought a new linksys wrt1900 acs flashed with express vpn in first cause it is easier to start, also i still wonder if i should flash again to open-WRT to add maybe some speed and stability? So here my speedtest, I made a lot of tests, maybe you could tell me some of your ideas and advices on that, if everything seems to be ok.
Thanks
Well, for Linksys routers, ExpressVPN is based on OpenWrt anyway, so I don't expect big difference as far as speed in concerned, and that's just my personal guesstimate.
But what version of OpenWrt, that's the question. Are they up to date?
Knowing what is in your firmware and having control over it is a strong enough reason to go with OpenWrt for me.
And what about difficulties, many say that dd-wrt or tomato would be easier for beginners?
I am relatively a beginner myself, and I have both OpenWrt and AdvancedTomato (flashed them recently), so I can give an opinion.
First of all, if you have no specific requirements, OpenWrt will work out of the box. You would only need to do the configuration you would need to do with any other firmware, such as Wi-Fi SSID, security etc.
Then come the packages, which could scare you a bit if you are a beginner, but they shouldn't. When I first flashed OpenWrt, I found out that I need to install some packages to be able to connect a USB disk ad another one to support DLNA media streaming, but then this takes only few hours to get around, and you are in business. Not only you will know what's there, but also you will get some skills along the way. Also the ease of installing package makes it very flexible. If you want a certain function, you can search for a package that does it, or even develop it yourself if and when you have the skills.
Two more points to give OpenWrt justice: It's continuously updated, which means any newly discovered vulnerability will be fixed, and most importantly the community here are very supportive and helpful. So you will not be left alone!
if you have ExpressVPN already working, you could give it couple of more days so you have more experience of it, and then you could flash OpenWrt on a weekend or so when you could spare few hours to get things sorted out. It would be good if you have a spare router as a contingency so that you have internet access when you are flashing and setting up OpenWrt.
thank you,
tomatoe seems to be really good but with my routeur, not sure if its work, not the advanced for sure but another yes i think (linksys wrt1900 acs)
Which Tomato, that's the question.
The thing is that there are different "branches" of tomato, some of them haven't been updated for long time.
Out of 3 different branches I checked, Tomato by Shibby http://tomato.groov.pl/ is the most recently updated, and that was last updated in May 2017. Then there is AdvancedTomato https://advancedtomato.com/ which is modern JavaScript-based inteerface for Tomato by Shibby. The interface looks good. It has built-in VPN, DDNS, USB, DLNA and nice bandwidth monitoring support, month other features, but then again that's based on code last-updated almost 2 years ago, so could be target to newly discovered vulnerabilities, plus of course you cannot add packages as conveniently as you can do in OpenWrt.
I have OpenWrt on TP-Link Archer C7 and AdvancedTomato on Asus RT-AC66U, but if AdvancedTomato isn't updated soon, I think I will flash it with OpenWrt.
Dd-wrt is supposed to be easier too but not sure about updates?
Well, look at the update history for the other releases, and their kernel versions.
If the kernel is more than a year old, you can be pretty sure it has well-known security vulnerabilities.
If the wireless subsystems are more than about a year old, you can be pretty sure they are vulnerable to at least KRACK.
If the versions of key software packages are more than about a year old, they probably have one or more well-known security vulnerabilities.
