Rating: 
Summary: Work great for the price - not for newbies
Review: This device works great and has been the best of it's kind I've used for the price range. I currently access about 6 of these devices using SofteRemoteLT on a daily basis and I am very pleased with the performance. The VPN is rock solid and great for running terminal services over. If you are looking to send files over your VPN, I only got about a 6Mbps throughput rate when I used Chariot and 3DES to test it in my lab (my Linksys BEFSX41 got about 16Mbps).
For a few of my clients I've even set up "static" tunnels using the FVS318 and Linksys BEFSX41's as "clients". The performance is fantastic and it is the configuration I recommend for people connecting to the office from home. Using DDNS on both the FVS318 and the BEFSX41 work great for dynamic connections.
As for people having connections drop or trouble routing traffic to internal networks, I suggest they read up on how to properly set their key lifetime and learn how to setup static routes. It is also important to realize that you have to have each network on a different subnet in order to route traffic successfully :/ As for those having trouble with port forwarding, I suggest you RTFM. Regardless of your troubles, there are plenty of resources on the web to help you set up rock solid VPN regardless of the make or model.
My only criticism is that the latest firmware v2.4 seems to be a little buggy when using PPPoE. If you connect to a DSL provider using PPPoE I would either downgrade to firmware v2.3 or look for another solution. If you have a DSL provider that doesn't use PPPoE, then enjoy!
HTH
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Update January 2005: The newer Cisco BEFSX41's are utter junk! Of the three Cisco co-branded BEFSX41's I've installed, none have worked well or at all. I no longer recommend using a BEFSX41 for anything other than target practice ;)
Rating:
Summary: Work great for the price - not for newbies
Review: This device works great and has been the best of it's kind I've used for the price range. I currently access about 6 of these devices using SofteRemoteLT on a daily basis and I am very pleased with the performance. The VPN is rock solid and great for running terminal services over. If you are looking to send files over your VPN, I only got about a 6Mbps throughput rate when I used Chariot and 3DES to test it in my lab (my Linksys BEFSX41 got about 16Mbps).For a few of my clients I've even set up "static" tunnels using the FVS318 and Linksys BEFSX41's as "clients". The performance is fantastic and it is the configuration I recommend for people connecting to the office from home. Using DDNS on both the FVS318 and the BEFSX41 work great for dynamic connections. As for people having connections drop or trouble routing traffic to internal networks, I suggest they read up on how to properly set their key lifetime and learn how to setup static routes. It is also important to realize that you have to have each network on a different subnet in order to route traffic successfully :/ As for those having trouble with port forwarding, I suggest you RTFM. Regardless of your troubles, there are plenty of resources on the web to help you set up rock solid VPN regardless of the make or model. My only criticism is that the latest firmware v2.4 seems to be a little buggy when using PPPoE. If you connect to a DSL provider using PPPoE I would either downgrade to firmware v2.3 or look for another solution. If you have a DSL provider that doesn't use PPPoE, then enjoy! HTH
Rating: 
Summary: VPN for cheap
Review: This FVS-318 is replacing two other models in the same box; it has VPN built in, an Internet gateway router and a 8 ports 10/100 switch, all for less than a 8 ports switch. The precedent VPN box cost about 5 times the price of this one. The new firmware release 1.1 corrected lot of bugs; the anoying drop of TCP sessions seem to has been fixed. I ordered an other box to try VPN.
Rating:
Summary: Netgear Equals Superb Service
Review: This holiday season I was a good santa and purchased numerous wireless networking products for my various family members. Sure it was partially a selfish act as I wanted to be able to easily connect when I went to visit, but for the most part it was just an act of giving. I purchased mainly G products and they varied from routers to USB adapters to PC Card adapters. I did also purchase a couple of B products for those in the family that already had some wireless networking products (yes, I know they are backwards compatible but I didn't want to take any chances).
Only two members of the family had installation problems (considering my family is very non-technical I was quite impressed) and those two people both had yet to upgrade to Windows XP SP2. The rest of the family members were up and running within minutes.
As for the couple of family members that did have problems, well they called me first (of course) and I told them to just run back through the installation procedure again. This solved the problem for Uncle Dennis but Grandma Joyce still couldn't get it to work properly. I reluctantly told her to call Netgear's technical support (hey the reviews on Amazon haven't been too pretty for their tech support). I however was quite pleased when an hour later I got an email from Grandma Joyce thanking me for the great gift. I called her back and she told me that after fiddling with the settings with the Netgear people she was up and running within 30 minutes.
Overall, I consider this the ultimate test of product quality and support and I would give Netgear two thumbs up.
I hope this review was helpful to you in putting your mind at ease regarding ease of setup and trust of technical support if needed.
Rating:
Summary: Unbelievable price for this feature set!!
Review: This is an awesome deal, as it costs less than buying just the Safenet VPN client software alone, and also give firewall protection to the client(s.) It can act as a VPN server, supports AES, and uses a hardware co-processor. We have been buying them like crazy for all of our clients with VPN needs. We were using Sonicwall, but they have really tight limits on the number of nodes you can have, etc (to get a comparable device from them, at a few hundred dollars, would limit you to 10 or so users, while Netgear allows 253.) Plus, Netgear gives free firmware updates forever - almost all the other VPN firewall vendors make you pay a huge "support" fee for them.
This little baby is a must buy if you're setting up a VPN or want to in the future!!
Rating:
Summary: GREAT product,, Wonderful with sonicwall
Review: This is by far the best firewall in this price range EVER. I was able to create a vpn connection to a sonicwall with this thing on the first attempt in less than 2 minute.. Amazing.. the options as well,, absolutely amazing... MANY of the features of the [$$$] firewalls that aren't usually seen. One bad thing, as will all netgear, only ONE IP addy can be used externally.
Rating: 
Summary: DONT BUY it is Shameful garbage, as all of Netgear
Review: This piece of technology has miserably died after endless problems with firmware, connectivity, security and so on. Netgear is low end trash manufacturer that only good for writing right words on the side of their boxes.
As result of my experience of communicating with their laughable "technical support" it would be nice if they will learn the meaning of those words!
It is Idia-China-no-speaka-in-Inglesh company.
Rating:
Summary: BUY SOMETHING ELSE!!!
Review: This router may appear to work fine, but I assure you it is a momentary occurrence. It will spontaneously reboot, interrupting your connection, eventually completely preventing any connection as it cycles through a reboot process continuously. Sometimes this will happen immediately, sometimes after a year or two of working perfectly. Netgear will send you a replacement router if the hardware doesn't work (which is what this problem is). However, they can send you one that has the same problem, since this issue has never been fixed by them. Before you consider, do a web search of this model and "spontaneous reboot" you'll see many have had this problem, and the final resolution seems to be purchasing a competitor's router. Save yourself the aggravation. Not to mention the aggravation of an inept and unreliable tech support staff based in India.
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