OpenWRT Firmware

Just an appreciation post for the OpenWrt project.

I recently bought an ASUS router. It was good for it's price. However when I enabled IPv6 on the router, it could not handle it. It made my networking terribly slow. It could be a bug in the firmware or missing IPv6 specification or incompatibility with my ISP. Anyway I debugged for a week and eventually gave up.

I asked ASUS support for a solution. However they asked me to take it to a service center. The service center guys had no clue about IPv6.

Finally I tried to purchase an expensive Netgear router. Then at last minute I recalled about OpenWrt read in newsletters or heard somewhere in Linux Podcasts.

I went through the documentation and flashed it (It was super simple). It's fantastic. All my problems went away. IPv6 works like charm. It can handle SLAAC, DHCPv6 and all IPv6 specifications correctly and by default. I could also enable DoH, adblocking etc.

Learning curve is little higher with it's LuCI UI, but it was worth it. Not only did I save my money, but my router is also more secure now.

Thanks to all the developers who put their hard labour with no expectation in return.