What are the major improvement on home based router from 2004 to 2011?

Happy Hopping

Happy Hopping

Supreme [H]ardness
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Jul 1, 2004
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A friend of mine bought at DLink DI-604 last year. Eventhough it's purchased at 2009, the firmware is dated back to 2004, ver. 3.51.

http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=DI-604&tab=3

by clicking the link, there is no update firmware to download, and even w/ the other Di-604 can REVE, its firmware is 2007, which is ver. 3.53

What sort of major improvement was made on home based firewall from 2004 to 2011? Is it worthwhile to get a new router from Cisco?
 
I am assuming as far as that model, any firmware updates made were most likely just fixes for "issues" found over time. Newer routers may have gigabit network connections, or more memory installed for higher speeds.

I know wireless has gotten better, not specifically what, but that it has.

Personally, I setup an old hp desktop in ym rack to run untangle and do all of it for me, Since installed I have not had any issues at all, always fast, and always online.

Cheers!
 
Processor speeds have gone from ~100-~166MHz, to averaging over ~300-~500+ MHz
Memory has gone from averaging around 8 megs..to 16, 32, 64, even 128 megs...so concurrent sessions has been greatly increased (can sustain more of a load from more sources)

Back then....many routers could muster around 6 or 8 or 12...maybe into the teens....some superfast models up towards 20 megs of throughput. Now...most of them average at least over 200 or 300 megs of throughput..many of them up above 600 megs.

Wireless...increased range, speed, higher levels of security supported. With my old G gear, even with Tomato or DD, I'd have a hard time streaming youtube videos with just one laptop. Snagged a Cisco e3000 a while ago...I can have 3x laptops pulling youtube videos at the same time without a hiccup.

UPnP features increased.
 
Besides raw CPU and throughput improvements, new routers can also handle many more simultaneous sessions. This is important if you run Bittorrent.
See here: http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanwan/router-charts/bar/77-max-simul-conn

Some of those old numbers (like the artificial 200 limit) are software induced, not hardware limits. You can take an old Linksys WRT54GL and bump it much higher than 64 sessions just by loading dd-wrt.
 
I'm more interested in firewall improvement. If the firewall firmware is dated 2004, what's the security improvement compare to 2011 firmware?
 
Firmware updates can sometime fix vulnerabilities in the prior versions of firmware...but those aren't too common. Some will address UPnP vulnerabilities. Otherwise though....home routers....the firewall is really just basic NAT....they have a very basic SPI...but there's really not much advancement in that.
 
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