Re: Since we're kicking Netgear
some of the gripes I've had over Netgear in the past, are their ridiculous wifi G solutions with multiple antennae. OK I worked for an antenna company that helped to produce the Siemens SE568, which did REAL antenna steering for 2.4Ghz G wifi back in the day, but I still remember all of the crap performance that was MEASURED by the techs at Airgain, which slapped in the face of Netgear's ridiculous claims. They even claimed 'MIMO' for their "solution", before the pre-N spec even. what a crock! And I never liked the way their cardbus software worked on windows boxen. It was always a bit of a pain to set up a netgear client on a windows laptop, and their access point configuration wasn't much better [as I recall].
One of the Netgear devices (from the late noughties) actually sent most of the signal STRAIGHT UP, due to its overall shape. Antenna pattern basically STANK. And that was MEASURED in an anechoic antenna chamber designed specifically to measure radiation patterns. It looked like an oversized chip clip. Yeah, THAT one.
Some of the easiest things to set up: DLink. Linksys installs their crapware and it "takes over" too much. Netgear is difficult to work with, and doesn't [or didn't] play well with others [i.e. don't install another Atheros-based card in the computer, or driver conflict may ensue]. Admittedly, however, if you didn't use THEIR DRIVERS you'd be ok [and that includes Linux or FreeBSD].
But the DLink was usually one of the easier ones to deal with. /me has an older DLink wifi router that I bought for cheap online and it's still working. Has its bugs but they've been dealt with. If it angers me, at some point I'll just put OpenWRT on it or something.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
