Customer Reviews

NETGEAR FVG318 ProSafe 802.11G Wireless VPN Firewall 8

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I too had a poor experience with this device. There are a LOT of updates and fixes available for the problems described by the other reviewer, but unfortunately they are only available for the "V2" device. Amazon shares part of the blame for the problem since I ordered my device WELL after the V2 released but Amazon sent me one of the "old stock" V1 devices.

After performing all possible V1 updates, tuning, tweaks, etc. I was ready to return the device. I decided that I would give the V2 firmware a try (yes, it may void your warranty, but if the device is an absolute piece of trash anyway...)

The "good news" is that the V2 firmware loaded just fine and performs "as advertised" - just no warranty. DDNS actually works for me with the V2 firmware, and all my VPN tunnels also all work without any issues. My device is used in a light business / heavy home user environment with 5 persistent VPN tunnels and I have not noticed any performance related issues, random resets, or dropped connections after the V2 flash upgrade.

Shame on Netgear for not offering an upgrade path from V1 to V2 (partial credit or something).

Shame on Netgear for not supporting the V2 software on the V1 device (since the V2 software is the only thing that makes the device usable).

Shame on Amazon for not returning all their old stock to Netgear and offering their customers the latest version of the product - my main complaint here is that if I purchase a book that has multiple revisions, at least I am told, and therfore able to select which revision of the book I would like to purchase. This was not the case with my purchase of the firewall.

CM

While researching this product, I found many, many negative reviews. But, in the end, being able to get a Netgear VPN, firewall, router and wireless capability for 100 dollars less than buying the VPN and wireless access point separately was too much to pass up. As I have often found with networking (especially wireless) products, the underlying issue of the large number of negative reviews is people's lack of understanding of networking and/or inability to properly configure the device. In the case of this device, the configuration issue did turn out to be quite a headache, but the persistence was well worth it. If you are having trouble getting it configured, especially the part of upgrading the firmware, check out some of the reviews on NewEgg-- it made the difference for me. Once I got the firmware upgraded, the rest of the configuration was very similar to all the other Netgear products I own, and it has been a very solid performer for over a month now.

I retruned the product to Amazon and have not yet received my credit for the return.

The product did not work as advertised. Would not retain configuration across cold boots of the device. When ever there was a power failure I had to reconfigure the device. I had purchased two of them and both of them had the problem.

The DDNS does not work. Netgear acknowedgeds the problem, however, they are not willing to put out a firmware release to fix it. Instead they suggested I purchase another one of their products which was less secure, but has DDNS that worked. This after nearly two weeks of dealing with technical support with speech that I could hardly understand and that did not even know about the DDNS feature.

Poor experience with this product - it proved to be extremely unreliable.

Setup was quick with the documentation provided including handling fixed IP addresses and the wireless setup including security was painless. However in operation it was dropping connectivity within a couple of hours requiring a power off and power on cycle. Sometime the wired access would drop and other times the wireless, often both. I spent three + hours on the phone with Netgear technical "pro" support which included shutting off all machines except one and upgrading to the latest firmware with no material improvement after two days of operation. The next step was an RMA and the replacement unit arrived in a couple of days with the same result.

As this box could not deliver a reliable connection for the 5 laptops, 1 desktop, 1 server, Airtunes and a Print Server - I replaced it with the following setup.

(1) a Linksys BEF SR41 for the Router and (2) a Linksys WAP 54G for the wireless access point

The setup experience was straightforward and the operation since then has been flawless - not a single drop and no re-boots.

This product has great features and easy setup, along with plenty of ports to connect to (8) which is especially good for a home network with lots of connections. Problem is that the interface seems buggy and sometimes the system does not respond to changes (i.e. mac address access list additions) without rebooting. Sometimes the wireless network drops out entirely. Not too often, but often enough for me to look for another more stable solution. I'm doing web development from home and have vonage ip phone where a stable internet connection is a must.

This review is based on the v2 version of the product.

This is a fine wireless router, well above average. It has a few shortcomings that I'll get to in a moment.

The good stuff: It's got lots of features -- wired ports, WiFi, VPN. It's pretty easy to configure, especially if you're familiar with networking.
The not-so-good stuff: The Web-based configuration utility is fine, but somewhat strangely laid out, especially for content filtering. The screens all work, but they are somewhat confusing. The content filtering works well, but it's not as flexible as I had hoped.

I bought this to keep the kids away from video games. The content filtering is sort of ok for that, but it's inflexible. You can permit access by time of day, and you can deny access to certain Web sites, but you can't deny access to certain sites at specific times of day. It's all or nothing. The content filtering works well, but if you have more than a few words you're trying to filter out, you'll find that Web pages load more slowly because the router has to scan them for your blocked words.

So in summary, for the price paid I'm happy. I wish it did a bit more for content filtering, but for the price this is a pretty good deal.

Basically stops responding, oh, whenever it feels like it. Sometimes after a day, sometimes after a minute. Lights are still on, nobody home. reboot router.

After jumping through major hoops to just get *access* to the support forumns (which, by the way, are community run, not official support), I saw the several threads about this issue. My old Netgear router (non VPN) worked fine. This one, not so much.

(yes I'm patched up to the latest firmware)

Bought this in the summer of 2008 for use in a home office network environment. Most of the poor reviews here relate to the setup and use of VPN; I just wanted a hardware firewall with an 8 port wireless router, and I didn't want to pay a lot. As an 8 port wireless router, this device rocks. It was a cinch to set up and configure, and it does exactly what I want it to do.

Today the router stopped working. No power. I called Netgear, and in less than 15 minutes, I had a replacement on its way for just the price of shipping. No faxing in receipts, no waiting for hours online. The power supply was initially suspect, but it tested fine with a voltmeter. It has a 3 year warranty, whereas the router itself has a lifetime warranty. YEAH! In this age of throwaway products, it is nice to see such a great warranty and service on a product that sold for $150.

If I was setting up a VPN, I might be as cranky as some of the other folks here. My only complaint was the wireless strength: with the stock antennae, my reception in the house was poor, half of what the consumer-grade Netgear router provided. (BTW, nice to have the consumer router as a backup while I wait for the replacement). But I purchased one of those booster antennaes that looks like an upturned soda can, for about $25, and it tripled the signal strength. Now I get wifi all over the house.

before I start- let me say that all other componets of my home network are working 100%.

This router resets the WAN connection every 30mins to an hour making it worthless to have a VPN connection to my office. Bottom line- worthless to me.

This router worked for a few months, then started crashing every few minutes, losing its configuration every time. From the other reviews, it looks like this is a common problem that Netgear refuses to address.