Opinions on D-Link?

D

dextr3k

Gawd
Joined
Aug 3, 2004
Messages
550
Hi guys,

I am currently shopping for a new router and figured I'd just take the chance to upgrade to 11ac.

Previously I had a D-Link DIR-619, it has served me perfectly, and it is actually being put into retirement at my in-laws. So I am sure it will serve them well too. I have no complaints about this router. So when looking at a new router, I was looking at the extremely attractive D-Link DIR850L. It is only $70, looks great, and is 11ac. The Asus RT66U is nearly double this price, so I am not really attracted to that....

My situation is that I have no 11ac devices, a few 5ghz N devices, and mostly G devices. So I figured this would be future proof, but I was hoping someone has used it before to see if there are any issues with it? I looked up a few reviews and there does not seem to be much on this router.
 
I'd skip first gen 11ac and at least till gen2 hardware is available, if you need a good solid router grab a TP-Link TL-WDR3600 and put OpenWRT with LuCI on it.
//Danne
 
You asked for opinions, here are mine.
Avoid AC, not mature yet and no need with "mostly G" hardware. I would not spend my money on a dlink router. I have gotten good service out on my current asus router. Maybe upgrade the "G" devices if possible.
 
thats what I am here for. Opinions!

Like I said, I have had good service from my previous d-link so I hold no bias against it. But good point. I might have to skip the first gen AC
 
D-link is the ugly girl in the corner with the bad reputation that gave all your friends STDs. I'll leave you to form your own opinion.
 
D-Link does make a few decent routers (hardware-wise) and I'd rate 'em just as good/bad as Netgear, Edimax, TP-Link etc with stock firmware.
//Danne
 
Blackjack988 said:
D-Link? I'll just leave this here:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2054680/dlink-to-padlock-router-backdoor-by-halloween.html
Click to expand...

Wow that is extremly scary. What protocol does it use though? If you do a port scan and all ports are blocked, then how else can they get in?

Dlink is fine for most people or small businesses who don't want to spend lot of money on network gear. I'd say most of the time it will work ok. But if you want something more robust and with more options, power and reliability then nothing beats building your own router, whether it's using pfsense or another distro. And knowing that they put backdoors like this makes me happy I use pfsense. That is some scary stuff right there that people can backdoor in to change settings. Hackers or the government could easily port forward stuff to machines on your network and basically access your network. :eek:
 
Red Squirrel said:
Wow that is extremly scary. What protocol does it use though? If you do a port scan and all ports are blocked, then how else can they get in?

Dlink is fine for most people or small businesses who don't want to spend lot of money on network gear. I'd say most of the time it will work ok. But if you want something more robust and with more options, power and reliability then nothing beats building your own router, whether it's using pfsense or another distro. And knowing that they put backdoors like this makes me happy I use pfsense. That is some scary stuff right there that people can backdoor in to change settings. Hackers or the government could easily port forward stuff to machines on your network and basically access your network. :eek:
Click to expand...

It's a backdoor into the admin console. All you need to do is change your browser's user agent to a specific string and navigate to the management interface (port 80). No special tools needed and it gives you full access to the admin interface. Its not externally exploitable by default, but if you enabled remote admin then you could be in trouble.
 
I have a D-Link 626L, the one that looks like a 40oz. beer can. It's nothing fancy, just a 2.4Ghz N300+ router. It's been very reliable for me and has all the features most people would need in a home router.. I tried many expensive routers over several months before concluding that 5Ghz simply sucks balls in my house, so I decided to stop wasting my time and money on them and just got a decent 2.4g Ghz router instead. This one actually has the best wireless range and signal strength of the other more expensive routers I tried, including several Linksys/Cisco, Buffalos, and Netgears.

My only minor annoyance is that after a couple weeks of uptime, the web config interface becomes inaccessible (the router itself continues to work just fine), and I have to reboot the router in order to get into the interface again to make any changes, but it's so rare that I ever need to mess with any settings that it's pretty much a non-issue.

If this one dies though, I'll probably go with a Mikrotik RB951.
 
Blackjack988 said:
It's a backdoor into the admin console. All you need to do is change your browser's user agent to a specific string and navigate to the management interface (port 80). No special tools needed and it gives you full access to the admin interface. Its not externally exploitable by default, but if you enabled remote admin then you could be in trouble.
Click to expand...

Oh so it's internal only? That's not TOO bad then, of course this would still be bad for a business that uses a dlink or something like a public library or what not. They probably should not be using consumer hardware in first place but that's another story.

Also bad if you have unsecured wireless then someone could get in that way too and enable the external admin interface too.

This just all comes to show, we really can't trust closed source stuff these days, companies seem to really like putting backdoors and other crap.
 
Yeah, the chances of a backdoor affecting individual home users is small. However, having a back door is just plain bad. I will probably pick up a 2.4ghz and wait for the new specs to be ratified before picking up a 2nd gen 11ac.

I figured I could get the router up and just wait for the rest of my hardware to catch up.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top