Current third party router recommendations for FTTP?

[DanTup]

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@Chrisee wrote:

Most router  makers are switching to app control to avoid issues modern browsers have with the web interfaces the do not offer https certification and becausecmany5 customers don't like web interfaces - its called progress. 

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I'm not complaining that they have an app. I'm complaining that they are trying to force the app by "hiding" the option of using the web app. If the button at the bottom of the page to skip to the web app was still there, I would have no problems - but as it is, it feels like someone trying to get an app onto my phone that has way more permissions and access than something I can run in the browser. Hiding an option that exists is not progress.

I understand the HTTPS issues of local hosting, and they already showed a page explaining this. Another option is also doing what Sky does and using a real public hostname - however I don't believe that either Sy's option or using an app adds any security. If they're using a self-signed cert that exists on the box and then just trusting that from the app, I'm pretty sure you could extract that certificate from the firmware and MITM it. It seems like both are just hiding the warnings of it being insecure, not actually making it any more secure. I think I'd rather see the warning than not if that's the case.

But even without that, the software was awful. I was just watching some reviews of Gl inet devices which seem to have a really nice web UI, have the option to access the native openwrt interface, and seem to have fairly limited cloud **bleep** (which appears to be optional). I'll have to watch some more reviews, but probably I'll go that route because the more I see of the big names, the more infuriating their routers seem 😄

[DanTup]

So, the gl.inet Flint 3E arrived today. I plugged it in and it failed to get an IP address. Turns out, we do need Option 61.. I can't explain why the Linksys MX5500 seemed to work (at least for IPv4).

Anyway, because the Flint 3E is OpenWRT and exposes the OpenWRT UI, it was trivial to go into that UI, find the WAN interface, and just add the hex version of "anything@skydsl|anything" to the Client ID field, and then suddenly we got an IP and everything worked.

I'm impressed with the router - all the settings I wanted are there, and more. We've got separate main/guest/iot networks, and it does DNS-over-TLS(or HTTPS) out of the box, so I have Pihole handed out via DHCP, and the router as Pihole's upstream DNS, which is then going over TLS to Cloudflare. It's eliminated a bunch of complexity I had before, got me Pihole, removed the need for my own tunnel for secure DNS, and the web UI is nice to use without a load of upsells or trying to ram an app down my throat.

gl.inet is a new name to me, so I don't know how reputable they are, but from the reviews I saw and my initial experience, I'm (so far) very happy with this 🙂