I have many nerdy friends who have been Linux users for ages. But most of them don’t know such a thing as Openwrt exists or have never bothered to give it a try. It’s a very fun piece of software to play with and can be extremely useful for routing traffic. Wondering why it isn’t more popular/widely used.
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I do know about it, but I don’t even have internet at home.
Though I do use DD-WRT on my WRT160NL which I use at school. For me it acts as firewall + setup-free VPN + DNS Ad blocker (NextDNS). I also have separate passwordless guest network on it if someone wants to use my router. Separate subnet, unbridged with net isolation and AP isolation enabled. And also QoS set to “Bulk” while my network is set to “Maximum”. And also forced DNS redirection enabled, so that everyone who doesn’t use DoT or DoH uses NextDNS.It cannot run modern versions of OpenWRT.
You really want to either update to a supported release or stop using it entirely. It is very insecure to run network equipment with known security issues
It is still much more secure than to stop using it and let your other devices go naked.
Yes. It saved me from crappy firmware on my expensive router. It’s a must if you care about security of your home network and devices.
@[email protected]
I use openwrt, it’s my main router running on proxmox, working perfectly.I used dd-wrt for a few years, but I realized I didn’t need it as my new router have the functionality I want. I also realized my router had much better throughput with the stock firmware.
I’ve been using OpenWRT as a hobbyist for over 15 years, and as a professional for over 6 years. Extremely underrated OS.
A vanilla install beats any stock router firmware by leaps and bounds. From there you can add pretty much any functionality you desire.
I currently use a Turris Omnia router made by CZ.NIC, who also maintains their own OpenWRT based distro called Turris OS.
I used it before, but ultimately it comes down to compatibility. Broadcomm is dominating the router space and 3rd party firmwares are a nono for that. So I just got an Asus that is supposed to be supported for a very long time.
I am aware of openwrt and used to use when I used router hardware. I have moved to pfsense. I install it on either a 1 liter mini PC or some other older enterprise piece of hardware.
I bought a router with OpenWRT support but the official firmware works well enough and I can’t really be bothered to switch it out for OpenWRT right now lol
it’s good to know that I can in the future though, that wasn’t an option with my last router
Fine on limited hardware like a router but if you’re going to use a full box for your router (or a VM), you’d probably want OPNsense for the ease of management and the fact that it’s targetted for hardware like that.
No, for home I’ve only ever used pfsense or opnsense.
I used OpenWRT for years, but I switched to the FreeBSD-based OPNSense router/firewall OS.
I used it in the past, and it is great.
Nowadays, I bought a mid price router from a well known brand, and seriously: The router works, has all features I need (even WireGuard OOTB) and for now I see no reason to replace the provided firmware with OpenWRT. YOLO!
I remember getting a LinkSyS WRT54G for free and then installing OpenRT and then jumping to Tomato and dd-wrt on and off and finally setting on dd-wrt
Yup. Running it on my home router, right now. It is awesome. A tiny, stripped down OS that you can install minimal packages on. Like a VPN client, or ad-blockers. If your router is compatible, I cannot suggest it enough.
Also, my router’s manufacturer had the gall to ask (force) me to sign up and get an ID with them in order to get to the back-end of my own router. Jesus Christ, privacy red flag much?
I could not install OpenWRT fast enough.
I’ve used it and dd-wrt back in the day on cheap crashy routers. Also Tomato.
Haven’t tried it in a long time, but have an EAP225 v2 and v3 I’ve been considering slapping openwrt on.
