Rating: 
Summary: Super! Go for it, and make sure you are PERSISTENT!
Review: As many people have mentioned, this product took a bit of tweaking but once configured properly, works flawlessy. It took me (a totally network illiterate guy) 5 minutes to set this up, and about 2 hours to figure out how it worked and configure it (with a quick call to their very helpful customer support). However, for the first couple of days I still had some problems, random disconnects and such. Then I upgraded the firmware to version 1.36. Now it works 100% flawlessly and has increased my productive with my home network (connecting 3 computers). My DSL line is connected without interruption and only disconnects when I'm not using it. The On-Demand Connect option is so much better than the login that I previously used for my ISP, and the fast switching keeps my network nice and smooth. In addition, built-in firewall is a big plus. I am happy with it and so is the rest of my family!
Rating: 
Summary: My computer illiterate mother name is Bill Gates
Review: I bought this product based on the review that it was so simple my computer illiterate mother installed it in 20 minutes. Who is this person's mother Bill Gates? I had no success. I called the customer service of Linksys and after 15 minutes on hold I got a service rep who told me I had an old version even though I bought it new here at Amazon. There was a number of steps involved includung the Zipping of a file. If I didn't have a Zip Drive I would have been out of luck. I asked the rep if he could stick with me through the download and the installation ( I have a Cable modem so it took about 3 minutes for the download) but I was told he had spent all the allotted time he was allowed with a customer 15 minutes but that I could call back and get a different rep who wastes 5 minutes asking the same basic questions the last rep asked. Three calls, all with 15 minute hold for the next rep messages, and I gave up and had to contact my top IT person who got it for me. If I was depending on Linksys I still wouldn't have access to the Internet.
Rating:
Summary: News from the Newbie
Review: If you're scanning through these reviews to see how reliable this product is as well as how easy it is to install and configure, well than I hope my experience will add value to your search. When I purchased a DSL router through Amazon, I read many of the same reviews you have. Some of them mentioned how easy this product was to install. Indeed it was.The router comes with excellent directions. In fact, there are a few one page setup guides that pretty much tell you everything you need to know. There's really not much to configure. What's really neat is the fact that you configure the DSL router through your browser. The router has an internal web page. There are only about 5 tabs of which I entered information into two of them. Once I did, I had four computers surfing the net simultaneously. When I configured this router, I realized that everything the DSL supplier configured on my PC was no longer needed. All of the setup is determined by the DSL router web page and your PC's TCP/IP settings. There is one issue with my DSL connection. There are times when the connection goes down and I have to re-establish it. I simply go into the main page of the configuration and select the "apply" button. Then I move to the status page, select the disconnect button, and then select connect. This re-establishes the connection 99% of the time. I've found that for the other 1%, I'd have to turn off the DSL router and DSL modem, turn on units, and then repeat the aformentioned steps. It's all very worth it to me, based on the previous nightmares that have occurred with DSL vendor solutions. The product is worth its weight in gold!
Rating: 
Summary: Unreliable device, unresponsive support
Review: First the good news. I bought this router and installed it in my primary home. It ran like a charm off the bat and I felt extremely proud of my purchase. Now for the bad news. Based on my positive experience I went ahead and bought another router for my secondary home. It didn't work at all. All the right link lights were on but the browser could not begin to see the router. I reset the router multiple times, triple checked my computer's software settings, tried replacing every component other than the router (net card, cable, even computer). After hours of trying I gave up and decided maybe I didn't need Internet sharing in my secondary home. But wait, there's more. After 2 months, the router in my primary home stopped working. Cold. I tried everything but it was as dead as the other one. Same symptoms. So I tried Linksys product support. They took my name, didn't get back to me til a day later (great for those customers with mission-critical networks). Since I wasn't home I would have had to keep playing telephone tag with them, so I decided my time was better spent elsewhere. Based on my experience and other postings here, they have a very real QA and customer support problem. As another example, the setup wizard they ship on a floppy often fails to find your net card (happened to me on 2 computers.) They know about it; their recommended solution (as per their web site) is for you to not use the wizard and set up by hand. How about posting an updated wizard on their web site? I now use a Farallon FriendlyNet 3004 router and I am extremely happy with it. If it keeps it up I'll buy a second one just like it.
Rating:
Summary: Great product, can save you money.
Review: Though my review below is specifically for the single port system, the only reason, I did not go to the 4-port system is that we have 5 computers that needed to be on it. If you only need 4 this is the way to go, then you have a $20 hub eliminated. According to the computer guy that sold it to me the only difference between the 1 and 4 port systems, is just that. I bought the DSL Router on the suggestion of the local computer company that sold me my computers. I know nothing about networks. I was told by the local cable internet provider that I could only support 3 computers simultaneously on my cable line at one time. If I wanted 5 computers hooked up simultaneously and I did, I needed to pay for 2 separate cable lines plus 3 additional IP addresses. This is because they said they could only support 3 computers per line. This would be about $95 per month. The local computer company guys told me I could use this DSL router to create my own IP addresses. All I needed was a hub that would support all 5 computers and a network card in each computer. I would need the hub and the network cards anyway for the cable connection, so this only cost me about $100 more to reduce my cable cost from $95/month to $40/month. This is a $55/month saving. On top of that I have a hard firewall and it is 100% legit. This I checked out. As my family is hard core gamers (Everquest mostly) and my daughter and I surf the net, it is not unusual for us to have all 5 computers on at once. We have not noticed any degradation in our connection. Three of the computers are on Everquest most of the time. As for hooking it up, I found the instructions to be a bit sparse, but complete (in retrospect) for what I was trying to do. I routed my cable connector directly to the DSL box and then the DSL box to the hub and the hub to the individual computers. Routing to the individual computers was the hard part. This was only because of the location of the computers and the fact I live in a center-split house. When it was time to enable it, I did need help. However, I called the local computer company that sold it to me, for assistance. I can't speak for Linksys support. But, the things I had to change were pretty easy. If you try and change the input port location on the hub and corresponding switch orientation on the DSL router you should be able to get it right, by process of elimination. There are only 2 of each. This is really all I had to do to resolve the problem I had. For usage, since we have had it up and running for about 1-1/2 months now, we ocassionally crash it. I wish I could say why, but I think it is due to a loose connection. In this case we turn off all the computers and reboot the DSL box, by turning off power to it. It has fixed it every time. The reset does not seem to fix this problem. If I was more knowledgible, I could tell you why. I can't speak for the firewall, as I have no clue how it works. All in all, this was a very good investment.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent, but requires some knowledge.
Review: The Linksys BEFSR41 continues to stand out as a leader among low cost Cable/DSL routers. I've had this product since a week or so after their release and I've never had any major problems with the hardware. The firmware (software) however has had some hiccups in the past. Linksys has been on top of their updates and usually offers new firmware on their FTP site as soon as it's finished. In order to keep up with all the updates, I suggest new buyers visit Tim Higgin's excellent website on home networking, specifically the Linksys help page at http://www.practicallynetworked.com/support/linksys_router_help.htm for information on firmware upgrades and setup issues. Also be aware that some cable companies key the cablemodem to the MAC address of the network card that was installed in the PC when the service was originally installed. If you're adding the BEFSR41 after installation and your provider DOES require the MAC address as the key, you'll have to call your cable company and have them perform the change in their database. This procedure is usually very simple and only takes about an hour to propagate through their network back to your cablemodem. The MAC address is easily found on the router's Administrative web page. (It contains a web server for admin functions.) All in all the product is a solid buy and with continued updates from Linksys, should provide for an excellent home networking addition with a long product lifecycle.
Rating:
Summary: Works for Macs, too.
Review: Just installed this for my little home network of Macs using AT&T@home. I knew it should work, because we have a 1 port on a Mac network where I work. Works great, now that I managed to get it configured. You will have to jigger around with the TCP/IP settings, and since they don't support Mac OS, there are no directions, but maybe this will help. In Internet Explorer, I had to turn off all proxies in order to access the setup page, for starters. After some experimentation and several restarts, I discovered that you should set up TCP/IP to use the DHCP server, click options, make TCP/IP active, uncheck "load only if needed", do not enter anything for the DHCP client ID (you already entered this under domain name in the router setup). You will also have to enter search domains for Outlook Express to work, I found out the hard way. They say that is on your paperwork, but I couldn't find it there - I had it from a previous service call. You may have to call @home for that. There is a great post here by Jon Pax of San Diego that helped me a lot, even though it addresses Windows. It helps setup for the @home service. It is great - just as fast and maybe faster than the Dayna hub I was using before, but now I have a firewall, and could drop my second and third addresses for $5.00 each a month. The only reason I dropped one star is their lack of support for us Mac folks.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic
Review: This thing is great. I bought one for my parents a few months ago and it's been working without a hitch since (RoadRunner - Cable modem). It only takes about 5 minutes to setup. I bought myself one about a month ago once Linksys released a firmware that supported IPsec. I needed this to be able to tunnel into our corporate network (Nortel). Everything works great. I have a 2 computer network and because of the firewall feature I can share directories between them without worrying about some clown on the internet rifling through my stuff. For the price, this is a great product.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Product for Home Office Users
Review: This product works as advertised. It took me less than an hour to set up the router, cable modem and the two PC's. Configuring the router is easy as long as you have the latest firmware drivers. My children and I are now sharing the same broadband connection with no noticeable effect on each other's PC. I use two 10/100 NIC cards so my LAN runs at 100Mhz (using a CAT-5 cable). Keep in mind that this product is not for novice users. If you do not have any knowledge of networking at all, this can become painful to set up. I suggest to have someone who understands how networks work to configure everything for you.
Rating:
Summary: Great product for the price!!
Review: I think this is a product that every DSL/Cable internet user should have, if only for the NAT security that it provides. For the price, you also get 24 hour technical support. Most techies probably won't need it though as it's web interface is pretty straightforward to use. It's nice to note this router can also act as a switch, which is much better than a hub. My two complaints, it would have been nice if it came with some CAT5 cables, and it loses all configuration information when you unplug the power.
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