Review: The Tomato Router [WRT54G]
I’ve been meaning to go wireless for some time and after finding out about the various mods people have done to Linksys wireless routers (specifically the WRT54G family) I’ve been on the lookout to get one. After finding one on ebay going for well under the RRP (£25 instead of £40+) I snapped it up and it was delivered a few days ago.
After testing everything worked, I set to work installing Tomato firmware version 1.23 which didn’t take much. Just downloading the .7z file, making sure to read the readme (if you don’t, you could brick the router) then connecting the router with a LAN cable (flashing via wireless is not a good idea) and setting it to install while I went and got a drink so that I wouldn’t get impatient and bork the whole thing.
A quick rundown of things that stood out:
- Interface - Everything is very easy to navigate and the AJAX interface looks very good. Can also be reskinned.
- Performance – While not as fast as wired, I have had little trouble streaming video from the server. Backups may be a problem though.
- Custom DNS – works like a hosts file but across the entire network. Now instead of typing 192.168.1.2, I just type “router” into firefox and I’m instantly taken to the router page.
- Bandwidth monitoring – This is going to be fun to look at. I will mostly be using the longer term measurements to work out how much I’m using in an average month.
- Static DHCP – This is an interesting alternative to static IP addresses, I can assign an IP to a MAC address at the router’s end so that whenever that MAC address applies for an IP it will be given the same one, just saves me having to switch to DHCP and back when I go to other networks.
- QoS Management – While I’m going to have to look up how to work this properly, in theory, it should let me give priority to programs like Skype over things like big file transfers.
A couple of features I thought were interesting but I personally don’t use:
- Access restrictions – You can effectively turn off the internet for certain computers depending on time of day and/or day of the week or temporarily disable the entire wireless network.
- External access – using features like Wake-on-LAN, DDNS and VPN should let me get back into my network from anywhere, even turning on computers and the like.
To conclude:
If you’re just looking to connect your computers to the internet then a stock router should do you fine. If you want to make it easier to connect within your network, use any of the above features or just want to geek around with your router, a Tomato (or DD-WRT) flashed router is just what the doctor ordered. Especially useful if you have a home server.
