With all the gov’t attacks on privacy these days I’ve been thinking about getting my own router. I’ve never done it and am pretty new to network stuff overall. I certainly welcome any recommendations for routers but I mainly have a stupid question:

Is it as simple as just swapping out the isp router? I’ve disconnected anything I had exposed to the internet and use LAN only right now so none of my old port forwarding rules are needed.

  • nymnympseudonym@piefed.socialEnglish
    7·
    14 hours ago

    Seriously spend $80 on a supported router like TP-Link and use OpenWRT.

    It’s not super complicated there are good guides and it will vastly improve your defenses

    • FineCoatMummy@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      3·
      13 hours ago

      Man I need to get off my ass and do that. I almost did last year but then some news dropped about firmware backdoors discovered in some routers, and I got scared lol.

      To anyone else like me who wants to do it, there is a big list of supported hw by OpenWRT here. Also you can click around, they have listings for other mfgs.

    • Guy Dudeman@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      14 hours ago

      I’m setting up a self hosted Nextcloud and now I’m realizing I should probably do this while I’m at it.

      • nymnympseudonym@piefed.socialEnglish
        3·
        13 hours ago

        Yes

        And you should set up your home router first IMO. OpenWRT makes it easy to set up VPN, guest network, per-device controls, even NAS (internet-facing or purely LAN)

        I had Claude help me with configuration, troubleshooting and optimization – highly recommend.

        Once your home network is relatively secure you will have a solid base for additional services

        • imminent_nebula@lemmy.caOP
          1·
          13 hours ago

          Ok cool. So if I understand, the isp router is used as a modem, so instead of devices connecting to the isp modem/router, the new router sits between the connection so the isp modem/router goes to the new router, which connects to devices?

          So the main cable goes into the isp router on LAN4, I connect from WAN to my new router, and I assume I also need to swap the cable that goes from the isp router to my ethernet junction from the isp router to my new one, so ethernet also goes through the new one?

          • nymnympseudonym@piefed.socialEnglish
            1·
            10 hours ago

            Correct. The box your ISP gives you almost certainly has both a modem and a wifi router. You put this box in “bridge” mode, which means it’s only serving as a modem/pipe connector. It just hands all the traffic over to your OpenWRT router.

            Internet <->Modem(bridge)<->wifi router(OpenWRT)