building a SAFER router / is it doable?

[TheGuy 5]

With everything I am ready these days on commercial home routers being hacked and how easy they can be broken into; I am wondering if maybe one can build their own router using a PC board, some operating system, and open source code?  is there something out there that can be used instead of the traditional Cisco, Linksys, DLink, etc...

 

if so, what would be the ingredients required to cook something up?  and would it be secure?

 

Thank you for the info.

[cskenney 150]

You mean like https://www.pfsense.org/ or http://www.untangle.com/

 

Or you could take a off the shelf router and install http://www.polarcloud.com/tomato or http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/index

 

There is plenty of info in our forums on pfsense and untangle.

[Jason 73]

Or www.sophos.com UTM Home Edition.

[ikon 438]

Most of these UTMs don't require all that much, hardware-wise. Many people, including me, repurpose an old desktop PC to be their 'new' router/UTM. One thing they do require for sure is at least 2 Ethernet NICs: one for the Internet link, and one for the LAN link.

[Jason 73]

To ikon's point, it's also recommended those 2 required NICs at a min are Intel chipset.

[Drashna Jaelre 157]

Or at least are NOT realtek or atheros chipsets.

[ikon 438]

I have to admit, the WAN NIC in my Untangle box is a RealTek. I'm not a big fan of RealTek NICs but, in this case, I figured it was OK because the fastest my internet connection can go is 25 Mbit. The other factor is that Untangle picked it up automatically, so I didn't have to custom load any drivers.

 

You have to excuse me now; I have to go whip myself in penance.....

[thego2guy 0]

Or www.sophos.com UTM Home Edition.

I second the Sophos Home UTM, the only downside for me is with an 80Mb down & 20Mb up connection the hardware has to have a bit of umphhh. It does come in useful however when someone decides to have a poke at my WHS box from China

[Jason 73]

I need to enable country block. I currently have it disabled.

[ikon 438]

I need to enable country block. I currently have it disabled.

 

Going to block the USA??