Making WRT continue to work under the FCC’s guidelines required a three-way collaboration between Marvell, Linksys, and OpenWRT authors, as Ars Technica details. It’s not clear what other manufacturers will do. Until now, projects like DD-WRT or OpenWRT were ways of getting the performance and features of a much more expensive router baked into much cheaper products. While this would practically fill the niche for open-source compatible devices, it’ll come at the cost of part of what made these devices popular. If sales of WRT devices spike as a result, other companies will almost certainly invest in creating support of their own. Linksys will lock down all devices that aren’t specifically marketed as supporting open-source firmware. That said, we’re definitely seeing open-source firmware support being used as a marketing strategy. This writeup from 2005 examines why third-party firmware became popular for the WRT54G if you feel like taking a walk down memory lane.
#Linksys router firmware update code
That router was the first product supported by third-party firmware after Linksys was forced to release the source code for the device under the terms of the General Public License (GPL). WRT is a naming convention that dates back more than a decade to 2005’s WRT54G. “They’re named WRT… it’s almost our responsibility to the open source community,” Linksys router product manager Vince La Duca told Ars. Starting on June 2, new routers will store their RF data in a different location from the rest of the data on the router. Linksys won’t be retaining firmware compatibility on all its products, but the existing WRT line will remain compatible. The problem is, this is considerably more difficult than just banning open source firmware altogether, which is why some companies have gone the lockdown route. The June 2 date is from the FCC, which has mandated that router manufacturers prevent third-party firmware loading, in order to ensure that devices cannot be configured to operate in bands that interfere with Doppler weather radar stations.Īccording to the FCC’s regulations and statements, open source firmware isn’t banned - it just has to be prevented from adjusting frequencies into ranges that conflict with other hardware. But one company, Linksys, has explicitly stepped forward to guarantee some its devices will remain open source compatible. You can't really go wrong with either, but if you want to stay on top of the latest features, stick with OpenWrt.We’ve previously covered how some router companies are planning to kill their support for open-source firmware updates after June 2. OpenWrt is the best choice for most people with modern routers and with the time to sink into learning what exactly they can do with it.
#Linksys router firmware update update
It's proven to be a solid choice for custom router firmware, but it lacks in some features, customization, and update availability. When it comes down to it, OpenWrt is the way to go. If you want to learn a bit and then have the options to tweak how the VPN works, go with OpenWrt. If you need a VPN and don't want to fuss with much, go with DD-WRT.
That said, they're very similar and even for DD-WRT you might need to already know a bit about the process before doing it yourself.
DD-WRT gets the win here because it's slightly easier than the setup process on OpenWrt. On the VPN side of things, it's a little more heated but ultimately just as even. They're not as simple as some stock firmware, but with a little tinkering and researching you can get them set up to start feeding your devices with strong connections. Both DD-WRT and OpenWrt offer fairly easy setup for QoS if you're interested in directing bandwidth to your most important devices like the XPG Xenia 14 over others. Source: Netgear (Image credit: Source: Netgear)Ī lot of the features between the two routers like QoS and VPN support are very similar.