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Supercharge Your Router

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Written by Rick Winkler   
Saturday, 29 March 2008
Many consumer grade wireless routers and access point have hidden potential waiting to be uncovered, they just need to right piece of software to bring them to life. The software that powers these devices is called firmware. Unfortunately, the manufacturer provided firmware can be buggy and unstable.

This list is a collection of third party firmware that is usually much better than the ones provided by the manufacturer. Not only do these packages have more features, but they typically are more stable and can yield better performance for your device.

  • DD-WRT (Supported Devices) – DD-WRT started as a simple modification for Linksys devices. It has since grown to include a large number of features and many supported devices. This happens to be my personal favorite.
  • Tomato (Supported Devices) – Tomato is a lean firmware for Broadcom based devices. This remains a popular choice.
  • OpenWrt (Supported Devices) – Instead of trying to create a single, static firmware, OpenWrt provides a fully writable filesystem with package management.
  • FreeWRT (Supported Devices) – FreeWRT is a meta GNU/Linux distribution for embedded systems.
  • Tarifa – Tarifa is a replacement firmware for the Linksys WRT54GL router.

Any of these packages can breathe new life into your device. I have installed DD-WRT on dozens of devices successfully. It should be noted that using these packages is not supported by the manufacturer, so use at your own risk. Check to make sure your device is supported and read through the documentation before you begin.
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