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That has been particularly true with Linksys VPN routers.This router is the only Linksys VPN router I've found that lives up to its billing. Linksys has recently built a well deserved reputation for cutting corners and building inferior routers. Often features do not work as advertised or at all. I have a number of them installed at client locations to create site to site VPNs and they just work. Setup of the router is easy, as is setup of the site to site VPN.If you need to connect two separate physical locations, this is the right router for the job.
I was a little hesitant after reading all the negative reviews here, but knowing that most people are just plain lame when it comes to tech issues, [.]. As I turned on the rest of the pc's and laptop, they all connected to the internet immediately. I followed the instructions all the way up through plugging in the power adapter. At that point, I didn't have to do anything else, my network was now connected. My home wired network consists of 3 pc's and a laptop, all running XP. BTW, after installing this router (my previous router was a Netgear wireless router, that gave me intermittent connection problems), my measured download speed increased 33%, to 8096 kbps.
The Linksys BEFVP41 is perfect for remotely accessing a small home network with a static IP address. The connections are secure and the setup is extremely easy. Using tools such as the LinSys IPSec Tool, accessing one's home network is extremely easy. I recommend this product to any small- or even medium-sized office that wishes to connect multiple locations or support remote/roaming users.
This has to be one of the worst routers I've used. Forwarded ports only work some of the time, and the only thing I have been able to reliably connect is internet to 3 computers. First, it gives me a ping reply only about 10% of the time and I have to hard reboot it to be able to log in and configure it. This results in me rebooting it about once every 2 days. MY HTTP SERVER CANNOT CONNECT TO THE INTERNET EVEN THOUGH THE SERVER ITSELF CAN BE ACCESSED FROM THE WAN FREELY. HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE.Terrible.
Most clients & endpoints provide you with the capability to configure ID info for local & remote.this is glaringly absent on this unit and has caused me many a fit when trying to setup connections from higher end units like the Zyxel Zywall 50 that I'm in the process of replacing the Linksys with. Sometimes it will also fail to run the full process for creating a tunnel and I'll either have to keep hitting the connect button or power-cycle the unit.
I've been using a V1 release of this unit for about 3 1/2 years now. As a router, it's been pretty solid (albeit a bit slow, especially with the 10mb/half-duplex WAN port) and I have to reset (power-cycle) it maybe 3-4 times a year.
In typical Linksys fashion, the firmware is the achilles heal.they just don't seem to be able to release a stable, reliable firmware for any of their devices and seem to just give up on ever fixing some of them. Sometimes I can get it back by disconnecting & reconnecting the tunnel I was using when it froze, other times I have to power-cycle the router.
VPN setup is fairly straightforward (if you're using this as an endpoint with incoming tunnels and don't have a static IP, then you *must* use a dynamic DNS service), however this is where the unit stumbles. I have VPN's setup at client offices & home offices (about 15 tunnels total) and if I'm making a round-robin accessing different sites to do updates, etc, or I'm doing large data transfers over a tunnel, the VPN portion of the router will become unresponsive.
My other gripe is the 'dumbed down' VPN interface. I do have one client running one of these at their main office with a BEFSX41 tunneling to it full-time from a remote/occasional use office and they've been running on it for about 3 years using cable internet & dynamic DNS and they have to reset their unit every other month or so.I think they're finally get tired enough of it to ante up the cash for a better box.
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