Customer Reviews

D-Link DI-701 Ishare Cable/DSL Internet Sharing Router

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I bought the first DI 701 for testing on my office LAN, and had it up and running in 10 minutes. I was so impressed with it, that I bought one for home, then three more for remote sites.

It works very well with all applications, is very fast, and is extremely secure vs. a basic software firewall. I have done extensive testing, and I was unable to gain access to a LAN secured with this product, using multiple security auditing tools (Network security is my speciality).

Troy Harnish, MCSE, CNA, A+

After reading some of the reviews here, I thought I should get my own 2 cents in here. It seems that some people have forgotten that this product is marketed toward the owner of a simple peer-to-peer network. If you want to get complicated, you should never expect this thing to work perfectly. Simply put, it was marketed for simple applications so that the unit itself would be simple and easy-to-use. I installed it in my home network with absolutely no problems at all. It took me about 30 minutes to configure 2 computers and both now work perfectly. This thing really beats using ICS to proxy my connection. I found that my ICS client computer went much faster with the D-LINK ICSHARE than with ICS. Plus, now I don't have to leave the computer on all the time to keep my internet access alive. I highly recommend this to anyone running a simple home network. If you want to complicate things with your own DHCP server, etc., this might not be the right product for you.

This product was to replace our older software sharing product, but alas it has some SERIOUS flaws. There seems to be no way to allow IRC file transfers to pass, the hardware firewall blocks even the good traffic which you WANT to pass. Despite repeated appeals for help from MIRC, from D-Link, and from other sources, it looks like it may have to be returned. Too bad, cause I like the look, the increase in performance over the software sharing, and in the easy configuration.

I'm running it for 3 computers on a DSL router, works great! I really pounded it, and it keeps coming back for more. I'm not sure what difficulties the first guy ran into, but it is very secure out of the box, sets up quick, and can be configured for anything... You can re- direct incoming port requests to a specific IP and port inside your LAN, block specific traffic, or allow others. Very easy. I understand that the first reviewer had a difficult time with blocked traffic, but if you want security, you HAVE to block certain types of traffic (I.E. ICMP packets). Most users will NEVER notice the difference.

I've had the DI-701 for about six months and when it works, it's great. It took forever to get PPPoE support, and all the bios updates have been "beta" -- read "unsupported." I have a lot of trouble with ftp and e-mail -- can't send long e-mails or ftp send file (yes, even in PASV mode, d-link). It also seems that every time I flash the bios (had to do it about 10 times so far), it takes an inordinate amount of restarting my dsl modem and the di-701 to get them to talk. The telnet configuration does not match the gui configuration (if you do a "renew" from telnet, it tells you you're not set up to get your dhcp configuration from your ISP. Sweet!) In short, I'm dumping this and getting the Linksys 1-port DSL router; I'll post a comparative review in a few months over there. Should that fail, I'm going to turn an old P-75 into a Coyote Linux box and do it myself.

I have 4 computers in my network and they all share the internet through D-Link's DI-701. This product is great because not only can I share one IP address, this unit also serves as a firewall protector all at once. The D-Link DI-701 is an excellent product with a low price.

I had one of these (D-Link DI-701) and had endless intermittent problems with it... the connection was just flakey, is the best way to describe it.

Also, there was a big security hole (perhaps fixed by now) in that its admin telnet port was fixed (at 333), visible from outside the firewall, and vulnerable to a brute-force attack (as there was no delay in password guess attempts, no login username required, and the password was limited to 6 characters). These are "rookie mistakes" and disqualify D-Link from serious consideration as a network vendor. The stuff is just too complicated to trust someone who doesn't really know what they're doing.

I ended up sending the thing back (not to Amazon, another vendor) and buying the Linksys Etherfast unit, which costs a bit more but is rock solid (and includes a couple of switched Ethernet ports, to boot). Several of my friends use that with success. Save yourself some time, and buy the right thing in the first place.

I have been using my D-Link DI-701 for about 5 months now and absolutely love it. I work for an ISP doing technical support for our DSL customers, and am quite familiar with much more expensive and advanced routers that provide the same basic services as the D-Link. I choose the D-Link because of the price mostly but also because of the simplistic nature and the dependability of D-Link products.

My primary use consists of sharing my cable modem with 4 other computers, and running a web/email/ftp/dns server on it. The interface is simple, even using telnet! Port mapping is easy and NAT (Network Address Translation) works like a champ. Sure there are some more advanced things the D-Link can't do, but the average end user will never need that.

Simply put, the D-Link DI-701 is simple, safe, fast, and reliable. And for the price, you can't go wrong.

D-Link honors their warranty if you keep after them. The first one of these I purchased worked for about 5 months and then just stopped working. Sent back for repair under warranty and it eventually was returned after several phone calls and about 6 weeks. In the meantime I bought a second DI-701 (my wife kept pestering me about getting back on the Internet via our network) and installed it. Sure enough after about 5 months the 2nd unit just stopped working. Put the 1st unit back in place and was up again immediately. Sent 2nd unit back for repair under warranty with same eventual replacement after several phone calls to follow up. With my "hot" spare available the DI-701 seems to work just fine for me - set up is easy and it just works; as for real security this probably isn't it but then do you really know how to change the settings to make it really secure and still be able to surf the net? Average user - probably not. Better than no firewall certainly and makes it easy to share your connection - at half the price of most other gateways. You could do worse!

I owned a DI-701 briefly. The DHCP function worked fine, and it seemed relatively reliable.

But my primary need was for the firewall function. I wanted to protect an HTTP server, so I set up the DI-701 to pass port 80 requests to my web server.

That worked fine, too, until I realized that the DI-701's settings are easily hacked from outside the firewall. That's because the DI-701 may be configured via telnet from outside the firewall, and its password is inherently insecure. Get this: The password is limited to six characters, it's transmitted in the clear, and the DI-701 allows unlimited attempts with the wrong password, without even a delay between attempts.

That means the most simple-minded script kiddie can just run through hundreds of thousands of passwords until he gets in, and then he can give himself (and the rest of the world) unlimited access to your LAN.

A secondary concern is that computers inside the firewall can't connect to computers outside the firewall via Microsoft's "VPN" (PPTP) protocol. I need that, too. Purportedly the competing Linksys device works with PPTP, and it's only a bit more expensive.

The DI-701 is cheap. If you don't need its firewall features or PPTP, go for it.