I'm looking at the latest DLink Wireless G Router as it apparently has a pretty nice firewall and parental control set, along with support for mixed wireless environments (B/G). (
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_in...01855&pfp=srch1 )
I currently have a Linksys Wireless B Router and I'm not very happy with it. Two to three times per day, I have to restart the router by hand when my internet connection becomes laggy and packetloss becomes high. As soon as I manually restart the router, my connection woes abate.(
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_in...82388&pfp=srch1 )
My new Dell laptop will support Wireless G through the Intel Wireless 2200 chipset (A/G). There will be 2 PCs still using wireless B in my household, so I need a router that can handle a mixed environment (granted, there will be a drop in performance, but I can accept that).
I'm also interested in having firewall support to block P2P connections and my sisters webcam (which she insists that she doesn't use it anymore, but my Linksys connection & bandwidth consumption logs say otherwise). KaZaA and Morpheus are also a problem (she brought home a host of viruses from these systems). Against, she insists that she's no longer using these programs, but I know otherwise. I figure that if she doesn't have the webcam or P2P-programs, then she won't mind if I block the outgoing connections.
[Before anyone suggests that the webcam & P2P connections belong to a wireless bandwidth thief, I'd like to say that I've already checked that and the connection originates from her MAC address -- its eating up nearly 100% of my 3MB connection through Comcast when she uses the webcam and KaZaA is a security problem (viruses). With my father, mother and myself also depending on the Internet connection, you can see that I have a need to cut out my sister's selfish behavior. She's using YIM and AOL to make the connections, so I cannot port block them. YIM & AOL suck for that.]
Does anyone have any suggestions? The D-Link appears to offer the featuresets that I'm in the market for, but I'd like to hear some more feedback first. If I can block the outgoing connections to a URL, then I can pretty much have my internet connection under control (I can DMZ my PC and remove myself from the restrictions).
Sorry if I've gotten off topic. I need some suggestions for consumer router hardware. Now you know why too.