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Linksys WRV54G Wireless-G VPN Router

Linksys WRV54G Wireless-G VPN Router

List Price:
Your Price: $149.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: This WIreless Router SEEMS Impressive but is a JOKE
Review: G-Only DOES NOT WORK, PERIOD.

MIXED MODE, ONLY works by making the connection to your wireless PC at 11MBps, even though your PC is set to Auto. ONLY If you force your PC in G Mode, will the mixed mode pickup the G band. Why is this important? Because if you are going from one wireless network to another, who wants to force G on their laptop to work at home, and then constantly reconfigure the wirelses card in your laptop to hand the B bands at the airport every single time you leave your home!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: On second thought, this is horrible.
Review: OK - I bought the router three days ago. Started with the basics liked a wired connection and then plain vanillia 802.11b.
No problems so far.

Then, got a little more daring and turned on the mixed mode (b and g) and then also tried g only. Horrible. I have three different wireless cards at my disposal - one lucent, one linksys and one netgear. In g mode or mixed mode, this router would repeatedly latch on for about 3 seconds then drop the connection. And yes, I only had one wireless card installed at a time. I tried rebooting the router, restoring to factory defaults and making sure I had the latest firmware.

My old router continues working like a charm with all these cards.

I originally thought the product was great. But when I turned up the heat it turned out to be junk. It just doesn't work. I returned it for a refund.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good product with some small flaws
Review: Actually one of the most complete SOHO wireless-routers on the market. It delivers excellent wireless performance and the configuration is very simple. The used firmware is 2.21.

But there are a few downsides as well, namely:

- the VPN endpoint does not like remote endpoints with variable IP-addresses. You can use FQDNs, but he built-in DNS-Client does not really recognize a change of the remote IP-address, even if you choose "any" for the remote endpoint the problem persists.
- the included DynDNS-Client does not work
- Wireless performance is extremely poor in a mixed environment (11/54Mbps)

Besides these flaws a really great product.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great product, easy setup, great signal strength!
Review: After reading other reviews about the Linksys Wireless-G VPN Broadband Router I was hesitant about purchasing this product, but I had such a trouble free experience with my previous Linksys wireless-B router (BEFW11S4) and thought I'd give it a shot.

This router is about as simple to set up and use as ever. Within 15 minutes of opening the box I had the router set up, custom settings applied, WEP set up, and was surfing the internet at 54 Mpbs wirelessly through multiple laptops and a wired desktop computer. The signal strength is even better than I had with my old Linksys!

Don't let the negative comments sway you. This product is very simple to set up - they've even included definitions of each field as you go along.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: The positive reviews are a little misleading.....
Review: I have had this product and already reviewed it. What gets me is the people who say "don't listen to those negative reviews..." but they never set up the VPN side of this router. If all you want is a router/firewall that is wireless and allows you to browse the Net then Linksys has other models that are much cheaper and do pretty much the exact same job.

My negative comments are on the VPN side of things, which is why I purchased this product to begin with and it is why it is priced higher than a regular Linksys router. Yes... you do get more logging information than the cheaper ones... but most home networks do not care a bit about logs to begin with. You could have purchased a Linksys WRT54G much cheaper and had the exact same functionality(minus the enhanced logging features). The positive reviewers' "deceptive advertising" really "burns me up".

And so far... in searching newsgroups and all over the net, only one person has claimed to have gotten the VPN working. He posted it on here and made the remark "where have all the network engineers gone?" Well... Mr. Network Engineer... how about posting exactly how you configured the router and the client and send it off to Linksys support... because they do not seem to know how to either. I have read where people have gotten it to work with another VPN router but not with a VPN client and I have had clients working with both Netgear and other Linksys VPN routers just fine.

Let me say I have nothing against Linksys... I am now using a lower end VPN router from them and I gave it a great review (see www.epinions.com). It worked best out of three VPN routers I tried for using a VPN client with and I am happy with it. So my comments cannot be construed as being some sort of a Linksys basher... it is just this particular product did not do what it was advertised to do even when I went to Linksys for support.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Mixed results, but overall a decent product
Review: I use the Linksys WRV54G in conjunction with the Linksys WPC54G notebook adapter as well as on a traditional RJ45 wired "ethernet" lan. As a router, the WRV54G seems to serve its purpose quite well. This is my second Linksys router, and I expected after my first experience with the Linksys BEFSR41 to have some initial difficulty in setting up the router, but I knew that as soon as I had all the initial setup "bugs" fixed it would work flawlessly. I was not disappointed on either account.

Linksys is an excellent company, and from what I have heard their other routers with embedded Linux work just fine. I have had trouble with this one however, primarily with obtaining a stable wireless connection. I have never had much luck with wifi networks in the first place, probably because my place of residence is heavily laden with devices that can cause interference with 802.11b and 802.11g networks.

I have yet to try establishing a VPN connection with the router, and from reading the other reviews I have decided not to try. I purchased the router primarily for its built-in firewall, because, although I run one of the best consumer-level software firewalls available (Zone Labs' ZoneAlarm) on every computer on my lan, I am very paranoid when it comes to network security. The router's firewall seems to work fairly well, as every test I have thrown at it it has passed.

My advice, if you are willing to spend the money on this router, invest instead in a cheap low-end computer and any Linksys 802.11g access point. Install in the computer 2 NICs and install Smoothwall Express (www.smoothwall.org). Your results should be much better, and Smoothwall is free.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: VPN functionality doesn't quite work...
Review: I bought this item from Amazon even though the reviews I read were less than stellar. I just assumed most of the problems were user configuration errors. After all.... it is easy to mess up a VPN configuration, especially if you are using Windows IPSEC policies because the UI for setting that up can be a little misleading.

However after setting it up in my home lab I discovered that... it just didn't work as a VPN device. I connect with a VPN client called SSH Sentinel (it is a little dated but works on every other VPN I have used). I could get a connection fine but it refused to route traffic inside the LAN at all. Even setting up the route recommended by Linksys it still would not work.

So I decided not to give up yet and searched out Google groups for people who have solved this issue and I found... no one. Everyone complained at the constant problems with each firmware release and the inability to VPN into the router properly. I was surprised because quite frankly all the other linksys hardware I have work great. I rarely have any problems with their print server, kvm switches and other routers... why in the world would Linksys drop the ball on this product.

Well it seems this particular router is different than any of Linksys's other routers because it is running an embedded version of Linux. It would seem that Linksys and this Linux vendor are having some big difficulties getting this thing to work and perhaps it got pushed out the door too soon.

Well I went out and bought a cheaper BEFVP41 VPN router from Linksys (it is not wireless but I had a spare WAP-G) and I was able to get a VPN connection the first time.

So.. if you buy this router to VPN into your home network you will have some serious problems. I also had some flaky wireless problems with it but I must admit... after reading all the problems with this model I put the thing back in the box and bought something else that works...

I hope this isn't the end of Linksys putting out good products and being responsive to their clients...

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Only barely does what you would expect
Review: I have a high opinion of Linksys products, but this is a huge dissapointment. I installed this on a customers site, and we have had only a few weeks of no trouble since November 2003. If you are looking for a good 802.11g wireless router, go with the WRT54G. Seriously, save yourself a lot of headaches and get the WRT54G. You have been warned. If you don't beleive me, look at all the firmware updates Linksys have had to put out since they launched this product. 2.10 was a disaster for the wireless side of things.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Pretty good - but a little flakey!
Review: I bought one of these a few months ago, and promptly returned it. There were just too many bugs. Plus I have to admit I was probably a little impatient as far as working with it to get it work. I'm one of those people that expects things to work perfectly right out of the box.

Anyway, with the latest firmware release, the product seems to work well on both wireless G and RJ45 connections. I get fast and solid 54 mb connections with no problems.

I did encounter trouble setting up the wireless at first. I was using the software that came with my wireless card to configure and connect. And that just would not let me connect with WPA security. So then I switched and used the stripped down interface that Windows provides, and that resolved the problem. WPA connections work just fine now.

The user interface in the router is very nice. Most everything can be configured, which is nice for advanced users like me. I do not like that the unit has to reboot after most any change you make. I've never had another router that has to reboot so much after changes.

The only other glaring omission is that the user interface does not seem to have a logoff button. Makes me worry about other people being able to get in as administrator.

All in all a nice unit. Maybe after the next firmware release it will get 5 stars.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Stunningly Craptactular
Review: Unable to establish VPN connection with perfectly good IPSEC-compatible remote firewall. Have had to RMA TWO of these units. Linksys Phone support is clueless regarding VPNs or even the product configuration interface. Requires software syslog viewer to view router log. Linksys-provided syslog viewer crashes constantly making it impossible to view the router log. Settings not saved when router is turned off. Unable to use external DNS servers when using DHCP functionality, must use router for DNS (see electronics fan review). A real piece of crap from a company that normally makes reliable rock-solid products. Update as of 04.04.04: this review is with the most recent firmware (2.21 - 02/23/04) A Linksys rep informed me today that they are aware of issues with this unit and expect further firmware revisions to address them.


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