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sid1089
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New router - Tomato or stock?

Sat Oct 16, 2010 3:21 am

I just impulse bought a new Netgear WNR3500L! I was just touring the local BestBuy and saw it for $80, so I decided to get it. My old D-Link DIR-615 was getting old. It was a crappy router to begin with anyway. I could have got the Asus RT-N16 for $100, or the WNDR3700 for $150. but I thought it won't make much of a difference.

So I'm running the stock firmware right now. Seems awesome so far - compared to my D-Link at least. I am actually getting good speeds over wifi. Now one of the blueshirts was saying that this router was built to run 3rd party firmware like DD and Tomato.

Now my question is - Is it worth it to go 3rd party? I am not looking into any fancy functions. I just want the router to be "fire and forget" type that I never have to worry about. I don't care for the NAS function or any of the "extras" for that matter. I just wanted to know if any of you guys were using 3rd party firmwares.
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Corrado
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Re: New router - Tomato or stock?

Sat Oct 16, 2010 8:44 am

I have this same router. I got it last week at BestBuy as well. MUCH better than my 'high end' WRT400N from Linksys that had trouble providing me more than 12mbit over wifi on ANY device. I played with DD-WRT, the DD-WRT "Kong" mod, Tomato, etc. I ended up flashing back to the stock firmware. I was going to use the NAS functions, but it just wasn't fast enough. Ended up buying a separate WD MyBook Live, and leaving the USB port unused. The community for the router is GREAT, however.

Tomato worked OK
DD-WRT was meh, like DD-WRT is wont to be.
Stock firmware did everything I wanted it to do, and supports NTFS file systems on the USB port should I ever want to do that.
 
Spyder22446688
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Re: New router - Tomato or stock?

Sat Oct 16, 2010 12:22 pm

I've been using Tomato for years, and have been using Tomato on the Netgear WNR3500L for about two months (I just recently upgraded routers). I definitely recommend using Tomato. I would almost insist on it, even though I'm a guy with basis needs who needs a router that "just works." I simply never have problems and, if needed, there are a ton of customization options. After all my years stuck using terrible stock firmwares, I just don't trust them any longer. The only big problem is the upgrade process... it's not necessarily a walk in the park.
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Flying Fox
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Re: New router - Tomato or stock?

Sat Oct 16, 2010 4:15 pm

Why don't try the stock first and change if you find it unsatisfactory? ;)
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