4 ms·

The bigger problem with these is usually not the vendor of the router, but the vendor of the SoC the device is built on. SoC vendors will usually provide you wi

by ATsch 6y ago

The bigger problem with these is usually not the vendor of the router, but the vendor of the SoC the device is built on. SoC vendors will usually provide you with a linux kernel that has an incredible amount of frequently shoddy out of tree patches and tweaks which make it very hard to rebase to a new version even if you really wanted to.

arpa 6y ago
That is also true.
steeve 6y ago
Exactly this. This situation is the same with SBCs. A product having a mainline kernel is a huge plus.
ksec 6y ago
I remember IBM donated ( or released ) an OpenPOWER 14nm CPU design ( with 7nm design coming in a few years time ). I wonder how far are we from having CoreBoot, mostly opened hardware Router and Appliances.
iforgotpassword 6y ago
But then why should I prefer Netgear over some Chinese no-name device that costs a fraction and does exactly the same while also never getting updates? Where does that extra money go to? But like op said, nowadays I just check OpenWRT compatibility when it comes to buying a home router, a well supported device usually receives updates for a good decade. (Anecdotally I've had three Netgear devices in my life and all of them caused severe problems. Enough for me to have them on my personal blacklist for life.)
- throw0101a 6y ago
  You can go with Asus with has monthly/quarterly updates, as well as folks like Merlin (and others) who use the open source components to roll their own binaries. There's code in there besides the kernel that could have (security) bugs and backdoors.
  - greyhair 6y ago
    I was looking for the ASUS plug before I posted my own. My router history is Linksys -> Netear -> ASUS. Unless ASUS botches something badly, my next router will also be ASUS.
- randomhacker123 6y ago
  The extra money goes into marketing to tell you that they are the best vendor. The hardware design and manufacture is outsourced to different vendors, in this case to Foxconn. See here: http://en.techinfodepot.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Netgear_R7000 http://en.techinfodepot.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Netgear_R7000 The software engineering is probably also outsourced mostly.
eqvinox 6y ago
> The bigger problem with these is usually not the vendor of the router, but the vendor of the SoC the device is built on. That just means the device vendor isn't exerting the necessary pressure/valuation on the SoC manufacturer. Of course the SoC manufacturer is gonna try and get away with bare minimum of work for absolute maximum of profit, just like the device vendor. The pressure needs to start at the end of the chain (which is end users) :/
- ATsch 6y ago
  I totally agree. But the amount of pressure required is incredibly big. As in, Google has been trying it for years in the Android world and is only seeing success now with drastic measures that vendors hate, like forbidding use of any kernel patches outright.
  - eqvinox 6y ago
    Yeah... this might be something that needs legal action, like manufacturer liability for security issues within a specific timeframe... (could even be a "best before" date on electronics; at least this way you know what you get when you buy, the vendor can decide on their own how much support they want to offer, and the user can choose between the "good for 2 years" router and the "good for 5 years" one...)
randomhacker123 6y ago
The pressure from the device vendors to the SoC vendor to support the kernel version which was initially used for the SoC and fixing bugs and adding new feature is much bigger than the pressure to upgrade to new major kernel versions. The board manufactures normally do not want to upgrade. I very rarely see that device manufactures are doing a major kernel upgrade when a new SDK with support for a new major kernel is available from the SoC vendor. This only happens when they need new features from the new major kernel which can not easily be backported and a very big customer is requesting this and normally they also need a good internal software engineering department.

by ATsch 6y ago

arpa 6y ago

That is also true.

steeve 6y ago

Exactly this. This situation is the same with SBCs. A product having a mainline kernel is a huge plus.

ksec 6y ago

I remember IBM donated ( or released ) an OpenPOWER 14nm CPU design ( with 7nm design coming in a few years time ). I wonder how far are we from having CoreBoot, mostly opened hardware Router and Appliances.

iforgotpassword 6y ago

But then why should I prefer Netgear over some Chinese no-name device that costs a fraction and does exactly the same while also never getting updates? Where does that extra money go to? But like op said, nowadays I just check OpenWRT compatibility when it comes to buying a home router, a well supported device usually receives updates for a good decade. (Anecdotally I've had three Netgear devices in my life and all of them caused severe problems. Enough for me to have them on my personal blacklist for life.)

throw0101a 6y ago
You can go with Asus with has monthly/quarterly updates, as well as folks like Merlin (and others) who use the open source components to roll their own binaries. There's code in there besides the kernel that could have (security) bugs and backdoors.
- greyhair 6y ago
  I was looking for the ASUS plug before I posted my own. My router history is Linksys -> Netear -> ASUS. Unless ASUS botches something badly, my next router will also be ASUS.
randomhacker123 6y ago
The extra money goes into marketing to tell you that they are the best vendor. The hardware design and manufacture is outsourced to different vendors, in this case to Foxconn. See here: http://en.techinfodepot.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Netgear_R7000 http://en.techinfodepot.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Netgear_R7000 The software engineering is probably also outsourced mostly.

eqvinox 6y ago

> The bigger problem with these is usually not the vendor of the router, but the vendor of the SoC the device is built on. That just means the device vendor isn't exerting the necessary pressure/valuation on the SoC manufacturer. Of course the SoC manufacturer is gonna try and get away with bare minimum of work for absolute maximum of profit, just like the device vendor. The pressure needs to start at the end of the chain (which is end users) :/

ATsch 6y ago
I totally agree. But the amount of pressure required is incredibly big. As in, Google has been trying it for years in the Android world and is only seeing success now with drastic measures that vendors hate, like forbidding use of any kernel patches outright.
- eqvinox 6y ago
  Yeah... this might be something that needs legal action, like manufacturer liability for security issues within a specific timeframe... (could even be a "best before" date on electronics; at least this way you know what you get when you buy, the vendor can decide on their own how much support they want to offer, and the user can choose between the "good for 2 years" router and the "good for 5 years" one...)

randomhacker123 6y ago

The pressure from the device vendors to the SoC vendor to support the kernel version which was initially used for the SoC and fixing bugs and adding new feature is much bigger than the pressure to upgrade to new major kernel versions. The board manufactures normally do not want to upgrade. I very rarely see that device manufactures are doing a major kernel upgrade when a new SDK with support for a new major kernel is available from the SoC vendor. This only happens when they need new features from the new major kernel which can not easily be backported and a very big customer is requesting this and normally they also need a good internal software engineering department.