Wireless Router Advice

So my wife just told me here work is giving her a laptop. I already have one. Since our desktop is near the kids room's, we avoid using it at night so as not to disturb them. But I have been itching to go wireless as it would be a vast help in writing my lectures to have internet access. It would also now benefit my wife with the new laptop.

So what kind of router should we buy?
What other advice do you have, especially about configuring it to be a secure network.

We have a cable modem now and are used to that speed, will a wireless provide a comprable speed?

Any specific suggestions? Obviously we don't want o spend a huge amount, but are willing to get something that meets our needs.

We will be doing mostly work related things (writing lessons and lectures, answering email etc. oh and of course surfing ENWorld ) on them and we know not to put out personal information. Now will the main (desktop) computer still be safe to do on-line banking and what not since it will be "directly" connected?

Thanks to all in advance for your help.

Ok.
I am not a wireless router expert.
but i've used for several years, owned several totally blankey-blank ones and I'm here to say that the kind you buy matters immensly.

If you get a defective one (and the default state of the industry is defective) it's a nightmare to straighten out. You want to throttle people, your wife is wondering why you're running ethernet cables around the house when you have wireless. You spend hours updating firmware, it never works. etc. etc.

Then, after a lot of stressing you get on boards and find a specific model that works consistently and well and buy it and everything is fine (long, boring suggestion and process follows).

The process I suggest:
1. You go to the store, you find out a bunch of different models in your price range (brand and what's on the front of the box don't matter too much in my experience). In particular You get all the little tichy model codes from the back written down (you may need to get them to open the box for you).
2. Go to an internet cafe (or back home) and google. You'll find lots of posts about people complaining or raving about how it works (look, in particular, for posts by moders who do weird stuff like try to turn them into linux boxes; if they're keen on it it'll probably work well).
3. Buy the ones you've found raves for. Buy only that one. Check the number twice. Open the box, check the little lables near the S/N.

Personally (and I should stress this is like my 4th wirelss router and the first one that worked consistently) I use linksys model WRT54G v4.
But I deviated from the process and wasted time and effort.

I'd mostly learned my lesson in prior times and I knew that routers are, by default, cheap pieces of **** that don't work. I wanted to get one that did. So I started at step 2 (this would have been a waste if the store hadn't had the one that I wanted).

The boards all said that the (linksys) WRT54G was great, it has double the ram (or something) compared to the industry standard and uses some kind of 'better' operating system.
Linux people had a whole project around doing something (weird involving servers) with it.

So I went to the store and bought it.
In principal I'd seen a post about a new verison that supposedly sucked. But I couldn't really remember which verison it was and it didn't say anywhere on the box (it said WRTG54... I mean that's long enough to identify something, right?) and the guy at the store was like "this is a great router" and it was covered in other advertising **** (2.4 ghz!! Secure Easy Setup (tm)!! blah blah blah) and I said "it'll probably be fine".
Lesson: Never skip step 3.

I get home and it's just like prior (terrible routers) you spend hours updating the fireware and ajusting the position and checking the company site and it still just doesn't work, or needs to be turned off and on (read unpluged and plugged back in) every five minutes and it's total ****.

So I go back to the post about "new verison of WRTG bad" and check. They've apparently switched to the industry standard (i.e. total ****) chips which have the memory and use some sort of (****) system that's hardwired into the chips.
And it's called WRTG54 v5 and they're making an extra couple of bucks off of using this supercheap chips.

I look for this v5 thing but it's not on the box. So I flip over the router and, on a little sticker next to the S/N sure enough there's a little lable that says WRTG54 v5.

I go back to the store and the guy's like "yeah, we've had ten returned this week. we got their permission to just swap them out with the older model with the better* chip."
* here better = not totally broken

So I got my WRTG54 v4. And it's brilliant (like once every 3 months it likes to be unpliugged and then plugged back in). If you can find them in the states then I (and at least two dozen rabid linux modders) recommend it.

[edited to be a (little bit) easier to read/understand]

I should probably also say: I generally buy the cheaper verisons of stuff. At any tech store there are usually like three or four of anything and some are more expensive. If you want to avoid the hassle you could just buy the more expensive one on the theory that it'll probably actually work.
(I don't because I don't think they market based on actual quality, so much as deceiving their customers)

Your question about security:
There are lots ways to get routers secure. Personally I think the best/easiest one is to just tell your router to -only- accept communications from certain MAC addresses.
If I understand correct it each wireless componet produced has a unique MAC address. (so my computer's card has one, another computer with the same model card will have a different MAC number, etc)

Then make sure that encryption with the highest number is "on" and you're set (at this point once you've got them talking and you've told the router that the computer is OK it'll work with the wireless card to finesse the encryption). If a buddy comes over and wants to use your wireless you have to put in the MAC address; but I feel like it's a lot easier that the alternative of having passwords for your network.
(either they're specific to the network, and you don't remember them, or you use a password you use a lot and somebody who hacks your network also theoretically has access to your mail account etc)

I would also set your computers so that they don't "broadcast" (i.e. they don't identify themselves to computers they don't know over the network, just to the networks you identify).
I've only had to deal with it on the (Apple Computer) Mac but it's good because
1. Nobody can pull the MAC addresses for the individual systems
2. This mac guy I didn't even know seemed to think that it was an essential part of basic computer security and basically wrenched the Ibook from my hands to show/do it for me.
(I trust obessive geek types on certain things).

I probably have the details wrong for some of this but real techies will probably post to correct my errors.

Wireless is very doable, and once you've gotten on top of it it's great, but there are some parts that are fiddly and can take you by surprise.

Get a Netgear Wireless G Router...
I have had the Linksys Wireless G Router and had nothing but problems with the wireless signal.

Despite the fact that they should all work together, Linksys routers can have problems with Netgear cards, which can also have problems with X routers, which have problems with Y cards, etc.

If you've got preinstalled cards, shouldn't be too big a deal as they're probably Intel (unless you have AMD processors).

Linksys and Netgear are both good products overall. If possible test your cards out with a router before you buy. Also, make sure you buy from somewhere that will let you return it with no hassle if problems crop up 2 months down the line (Best Buy can be a good choice).

Also, if you have problems, play with the channel. There will be a bunch of options but there are only three that make any difference: highest channel, lowest channel, and right in the middle.

As for security, the brand doesn't really matter, but some might be easier to set up properly. Use WPA2 encryption (make sure the cards and router support this, degrade in order to WPA, then WEP). Don't broadcast. Use MAC address filtering (each card will have a MAC address, tell your router to only accept the two MAC addresses of your cards and nothing else). Don't put anything in DMZ. Only do port forwarding (sometimes called applications or gaming in router configs) if you understand why you are doing it. Always ensure you are using an SSL encrypted site when sending sensitive info across the internet.

To be completely honest, you COULD leave your router wide open and just follow that last bit of advice and you'd be protected from eavesdropping. What you wouldn't be protected against is attacks on your machine from random passersby jumping on your LAN.

If you need further information about any of the acronyms I've talked about, just check out Wikipedia. They have good overviews of wireless security. Your specific implementation will vary depending on which brand you go with, but understanding the basics will let you understand how to configure almost any consumer-grade router.

I have a Linksys WRT54GL, and it is very good. It's also fast and easy to administrate.

Before I had a D-Link (non-wireless) and it was terribly slow, when you were accessing the admin panels.

No experience with Netgear.

Bye
Thanee

Graf said:

So I got my WRTG54 v4. And it's brilliant (like once every 3 months it likes to be unpliugged and then plugged back in). If you can find them in the states then I (and at least two dozen rabid linux modders) recommend it.

Click to expand...

A little bit of research (because I was about to get one for myself) showed that the old WRTG54 v4 and this new one:

Thanee said:

I have a Linksys WRT54GL, and it is very good. It's also fast and easy to administrate.

Click to expand...

are the same thing. So that's what I bought. I can't tell you how it works, though; both the laptop with the wireless card and the router/hub are still en route.

I have just bought a replacement D-Link DI-624 (the old one broke when it slipped off the desk and was followed by a 100 spindle of disks, ouch) from Newegg and I can only report good things about it. It was cheap, and the Network Magic software included pretty much made the setup of even my ancient-and-bridged-via-arcane-instructions-I-paid-too-little-attention-to DSL modem without a hitch. Now, I still occasionally have issue with signal fades, but it is apparently some issue with all the crossing corners and electronic interference from all of the other electric devices in the room more than the modem - when I move the wireless computers even just slightly it usually corrects itself.

As for speed, even when the connection strength is very weak I have found that it makes virtually no difference for most web applications. Where it really makes a difference, as far as I can tell, is when you are switching out very large files and directories between computers.

I used a D-Link DI-614+ fpr a long time without any issues, I only replaced it when the power transformer burnt out and I couldn't find a replacement. I bought a DI-524 and it has been fine.

For security, you should ensure that the router handles WPA2, if it doesn't I wouldn't buy it.

No one has mentioned the various bandwidths that are available: 802.11b is the old 11mbps standard, and 802.11g is the newer 54 mbps. 802.11n will be finalised next year, and there are a lot of companies selling Pre-N routers, but I would avoid them as there is no guarantee that they will work with the standard when it is released, regardless of what the salesman tells you!

A number of companies also sell accelerated mode routers. Basically if you buy the same brand of router and wireless card you will get faster speeds. I did this with my original D-Link, and it worked fine, but when I added an iMac to my network, I had to switch the router from accelerated to normal mode in order for the iMac to be able to connect. If you are using built-in wireless in your laptop, then the accelerated mode is probably not worth the extra cost.

You should be able to find a g-speed router for cheap, less than $50 when I bought mine a few months back.

You should download a program called NetStumbler, and install it on your laptop. It sniffs out wireless networks, and will display the channel, level of protection, and other info which is useful when you are troubleshooting network problems. If your neighbours have a wireless connection you will want to set your channel as different as possible.

Good points. In my experience as a tech support agent for a telcom ISP, I must say each brand puts out some crap. Most work okay, but a few can be quite flaky.

I personally use a Zyxel wireless routers. It's been pretty solid most of the time. Lately I have been having some trouble with the wireless portion.

The wireless drops connectivity randomly. The wired portion is rock-solid, so for now I am trying to diagnose the problem from the laptop on.