I’ve decided to make a short list of network gateways that home / small business users can use on their network.
http://www.untangle.com Untangle (I use it on both of my school networks. love it!)
http://m0n0.ch/wall/ M0n0wall
http://www.astaro.com/our_products/product_overview/landing_pages/free_home_edition Astaro
http://www.ipcop.org/ IPCop
http://www.devil-linux.org/home/index.php Devil-Linux
http://www.clarkconnect.com/ Clarkconnect
http://www.pfsense.org/ pfsense
and of course, there are MANY more. You can also run the linux distro of your choice, and just run IPTables on it. Let me remind everyone that if they are just on a small home network, without a BUNCH of computers / servers / appliances running, all of these firewalls can be a little over-the-top.
Besides the fact that you’ll probably be just using some old junky, clunky, ugly computer for this task, which has an obvious waste of good floor space, you’ll also be wasting a lot more energy than a standard off the shelf router. I know, I know, it’s hard to be green and a geek at the same time!
Because of that, I’ll list some favorite aftermarket router software (firmware) that you can load on your home router to make it a little better than what Linksys or D-Link or whoever ships their products out with.
http://www.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv3/index.php DD-WRT (the software that I’m using now)
http://www.polarcloud.com/tomato tomato
http://www.freewrt.org/ freewrt
http://www.openwrt.org/ openwrt
http://tarifa.sourceforge.net/ tarifa
http://x-wrt.org/ x-wrt
… and again, there are many more.
The thing about these is that you can buy a $50 router, add the above firmware, and you’re practically injecting it with steroids, making it comparable to a much more expensive router. You’re likely to get better speed, reliability, and of course, more FEATURES!
It’s really worth taking a look at.
Oh, and I just saw this online while browsing around a bit. Looks pretty interesting…
It has these features:
WIRELESS NETWORK ACCESS
Hook up hard drives and access them and other home network devices via WiFi.
INDEPENDENT DOWNLOADER
Download* torrents, movies and TV series with your computer shut down.
INDEPENDENT UPLOADER
Upload directly to YouTube, Facebook, Picasa and Flickr from your USB device or camera with your computer shut down
GREEN ON THE INSIDE
Save money on energy and reduce your CO2 output by turning off your PC.
CUSTOMIZABLE AND OPEN SOURCE
Add new features with a single click or create your own apps.
FREE WIFI
Of course! Access FON Spots for free worldwide.
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