• 7 Posts
  • 31 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • To be clear, I’m only suggesting that Mango router if (a) OP is nervous about installing OpenWRT without a backup device and (b) he can’t find some secondhand compatible device even cheaper.

    Don’t get me wrong, I also have a Mango router that I bought on a whim years ago on sale for maybe $10, and it’s fine for what it is, but paying $30 for it today should only be a last resort. OP doesn’t need anything beyond the (presumably compatible) TP-Link device he already has.



  • It’s brilliant but you do need to know what you’re doing.

    I feel like that’s only a little more true for OpenWRT than it is for stock proprietary firmware. You need a bit of competence to get it installed, but once you’re using it LuCI is more-or-less just as easy to use for normal, basic tasks. It can do other fancy stuff that stock firmwares can’t do at all, but that shouldn’t count against it since you don’t have to do those advanced things.


  • I use OpenWRT on a TP-Link router (an Archer C7, circa 2013). I can’t say if it’s difficult to revert because I’ve never wanted to (which should tell you all you need to know).

    If you’re nervous, get a second router as a backup device. OpenWRT runs on all sorts of things, including some which are extremely cheap. If finding some old used router is too much of a hassle, this thing is $30 brand new and runs OpenWRT from the factory.