Rating: 
Summary: Easy, Reliable ... Great!
Review: I bought this router serveral months ago for my cable service with MediaOne. I plugged it in, told it which computer had the ethernet card that was registered with MediaOne, and it worked instantly. It took less than half an hour, and its ability to use the enternet address off another computer meant I didn't need to call MediaOne. Just yesterday, I moved into a new apartment where I have Verizon DSL. This time, all I needed to do was tell the router the username and password, and again it worked instantly. It is great for DSL, because it keeps the connection open and I don't have to redial it every time I restart the computer.Updating the software for the router is just as easy as plugging in the cables. You go to Netgear's site, click on "RT314", and download it. The router runs an FTP server, so you can send upgrades directly to it over the network, without any additional cables or software. It then reboots automatically. It also runs a web server, so you can configure all the router's settings just by clicking on web pages, as easily as using Amazon. Because this router is so great, ISPs have been lowering their costs to give you home networking without needing a router. But there are still plenty of great reasons to buy this. Without the router, you will still need a hub, so the price difference is only $80. (If you want to use 100 MBPs on your home network, the price difference is even less.) Over the course of one year, the router will pay for itself by saving you "home networking" charges from your ISP. It also gives you a firewall to keep hackers off your system, and hardware firewalls are faster and more reliable than software ones. Its only downside is that setting up file servers requires one additional step: telling the router that you are serving something. So if you are sharing files online, or playing a network game, you will have to read the documentation for your software, and find out which port to tell the router about. However, this is a limitiation of any firewall, not just this router; it is what makes its security features possible.
Rating:
Summary: Great, simple router for the home
Review: I like computers and use them all the time but I'm not networking savy. I was very fearful of leaving me home PC directly connected to our cable modem (AT&T @home) without a firewall. I also needed to connect my work laptop to the Internet and share files with the home PC. The Netgear was perfect for us. It took about 15 minutes to set up only because @home in our area uses "static IP address". If this applies to you, don't worry, AT&T gave you this info on your original order. Also, Netgear instructions show you how to retrieve it from your PC if you can't find the paperwork. It sets up via Internet Explorer and the router prompts you to enter the information. For DHCP users, its even easier as this is the default for the router. It took longer to reboot my PC after changing its settings than setting up the router. It was a great buy. After 1 month, we're very happy with it.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Value, Easy Setup
Review: Even as a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer, routers can be a real trick to set up. God only knows how an average home user would make out. The Netgear RT314 was a very pleasant surprise, though. I expected to spend at least an hour figuring it out and configuring it, but even with my PacBell DSL connection using DHCP, setup was a breeze. I highly recommend this product.
Rating:
Summary: Netgear, the one to buy!!
Review: I bought my Netgear router from Amazon about 4 months ago in March. I have two computers and they are both always on. The router has performed flawlessly during this time. What else can I say...I love it!!
Rating: 
Summary: Good for some, the rest of us...
Review: The Netgear RT314 router works if all you want is to share an internet connection. If you wish to access the so called file/printer sharing and networking options then look for something else. The company dosen't even provide instructions for how to use the network if you can even figure out how to set it up. The best of all Netgear dosen't provide technical support for network related questions. Let's review company name: NETgear support provided: anything but NETworking. If you want to try and squeeze any information out of Netgear's horrible support people you might as well buy a book while your at ... because the average wait time is over an hour.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty simple, pretty powerful, pretty inexpensive
Review: A bit surprised at minimal, but complete, contents of the box, I plugged it in and called my ISP, to give them the new MAC address. 1 minute later, I was browsing the web, again. Most users probably won't care about advanced configuration of the device, but for those that do, I'll relate my experience. First of all, the terminal-mode interface is sometimes confusing and ambiguous. I wanted to setup some additional filters, so I read a slightly confusing pdf, on the CD. I didn't get it right, at first, and had to borrow a bunch of serial cables 'till one worked, just to login to it and remove the filters I applied. When I finally figured out how to apply them correctly, and configured a machine for it to dump the syslog messages to, I found out that the filters don't always seem to fire!! Sometimes I'd get a log message that a filter would fire, and sometimes I wouldn't!! Also, sometimes (admittedly, in both cases for stuff the NAT shouldn't forward, anyhow), the packets would get dropped, and sometimes it would send NACKs! Other than that, it works fine.
Rating:
Summary: Impressed from the start...
Review: I was leaning to the linksys brand but I saw all these great reviews, not to mention there was a rebate out on this item, and I decided to give netgear a try. I hooked everything up, powered it on and rebooted the computer. I followed the install instructions and I was up and running w/ my roadrunner service instantly. I use VPN for work and it worked flawlessly. I hooked up my two other computers while using vpn on the third and still everything worked fine. We'll see in the long term how it all pans out but everyone knows how it is when you install a new whatever for your computer.... It can end up w/ alot of frustration. I'm happy to see Netgear made a product this easy to use. Total install time... 15min, maybe a little less.
Rating:
Summary: Works fine. Documentation could be better
Review: Initial setup was a blast. It worked out of the box after I entered my ISP data. Documentation is weak. For instance, some configurations menus are not described or described very briefly (e.g., menus 11.1 and 11.5). When I began to play with "advanced" feaures, I had a problem with configuring filters. When I (mis)configured the filter set so that the last rule in the set said "look at the next rule", and there was no next rule, the router just dropped all the incoming packets. Of course, this behavior is not documented. I needed to reload factory defaults before I understood what is the root of the problem. Reloading factory defaults is well documented and relatively easy (you do it via FTP). I also found that log entries are timestamped incorrectly. Appearantly, router assumes that when it boots, it's midnight January 1, 2000. I did not find how to change the real-time clock to correct value. Performance on the DSL line is very good. I get 67-68 KB/sec on my 680Kbit/sec DSL line - the same numbers I got with direct connection. On the LAN I got just about 3MB/sec when transferring data between my main computer with NetGear FA311 PCI card, and a laptop with NetGear FA350 Cardbus card. I don't know who is the bottlneck though - the router or one of the cards.
Rating:
Summary: Setting up is easier than learning to drive!
Review: I had read all the reviews on this product, and most of them had a positive review, I decided to purchase the product, and yes! it was that easy to set up, and it's working great... no problems to date... this product delivers.. 110% satisfied customer... Before purchasing this product, I had heard that setting up a network was going to be a hassle. but with this product, It was no problem, everything is automatic, you just plug it in and the router configures it self. even when I have friends come over the bring their laptop plug in into the router and have instant net access, no need to configure, the router does everthing automatic. Now, that's automatic!
Rating:
Summary: Perfect SOHO Router
Review: I was surprised not only with its ease of installation, but its features. The ability to manipulate or create your own filters, or forward your ports is great. Got up and running in no time and even set it up to allow port 80 (web access) to one of my machines. Great product.
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