VPN Capable Router

Hi all ... looking for recommendations for a cheap (less than £50) VPN capable ADSL2+ router.

I'm not overly bothered about the latest high speed wifi standards but need reliable hardware that can connect to a VPN and preferably has a kill switch capability. Happy to flash a stock router with DD-WRT or Tomato if needs be as opposed to buying one already flashed....

So what makes and models can you recommend that fit the price bracket please?

Many thanks in advance....

What do you mean by kill switch?

It's a function offered by a number of VPN suppliers to kill the internet connection if the VPN drops. I've no idea if that would work when using a hardware device establishing the VPN though so thus my "preferable" line.

Thanks.

Can you just setup openVPN or something similar on a system in your home? If you have a system laying around you could make it a server of some sorts, have it a VPN, maybe a NAS kinda device, etc.

Alternatively quite a few netgear routers around £80 support VPN.

No idea re the "kill switch."

In reply to a post by stubbyd:

Hi all ... looking for recommendations for a cheap (less than £50) VPN capable ADSL2+ router.

I'm not overly bothered about the latest high speed wifi standards but need reliable hardware that can connect to a VPN and preferably has a kill switch capability. Happy to flash a stock router with DD-WRT or Tomato if needs be as opposed to buying one already flashed....

Why do you want a router that will connect to a VPN, and what VPN do you wish to connect to?

What type of VPN do you want to use? OpenVPN is the most secure but not widely available.

I have not had a problem establishing OpenVPN connections from my laptop at various locations.

This list may help.

Still cannot answer, most broadband routers are happy with outgoing VPN, where the PC is doing all the control work, and if you need every device on the connection to be using the VPN then consider possibly some of the business vigor units. Otherwise the open source DDWRT variations are your best bet.

pre used draytek off ebay; I picked one up for £25.

Cheers Michael - appreciate the link to the list but they are a bit outside my current budget. Maybe save up for a few more days.

There are many reasons I want a VPN to run form my router but primary amongst them is privacy from a snooping government.

You're right of course - I could do that but I want to protect my non tech aware family from the get go and the simplest way of doing that would be (as I see it) a VPN capable of connecting to my chosen VPN provider.

Thank you again for the reply ... I have no issue with finding a router capable of doing this it's just trying to find one within budget. Which probably means not the most recent.

That's a good shout - thank you.

What is the need for this VPN in the first instance? You mention security, what are you trying to secure? If they're just browsing Facebook or whatever you're probably over engineering things.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

What is the need for this VPN in the first instance? You mention security, what are you trying to secure? If they're just browsing Facebook or whatever you're probably over engineering things.

Not really, VPNs should be the norm with all the government snooping included in the IP act.

By having a deadbolt on my front door I'm probably overengineering things, surely nobody would try to break in....

That said, I gave up on using VPN for everything from home, too many forums etc block VPN and Hosting IP ranges, and none of the VPN providers can sustain decent throughput, I've yet to try one that will give me over about 60mbit.

And if the VPN drops out outside the UK then access to online services like iPlayer, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, etc could be a problem.

Personally I have no thought that the government would find anything interesting about me and if they are that bored they want to look at what I am doing online then good luck to them.

I really don't see why my reasons are important here.

The bottom line is are you able to suggest a something that would fit my needs or not?

To get the VPN kill switch feature you will need to install DD-WRT or Merlin firmware on a router and AFAIK combined modem/routers cannot have 3rd party fw installed on them - you will need to buy a standalone router, flash it with 3rd party fw and piggy back that onto your existing router or modem.

I would recommend something like the Asus RT-N66U which can have either DD-WRT or Merlin fw installed on it and is supposed to be rock solid. A few second hand RT-N66s going for less that 50 notes on fleabay:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/162441166306
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/232278430653
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/322463712568

In reply to a post by nemeth782:

none of the VPN providers can sustain decent throughput, I've yet to try one that will give me over about 60mbit.

a) You need a high quality VPN provider such as vpn.ac or airvpn.org. Forget about the likes of tunnelbear, nordvpn, private internet access et al.

b) Most consumer routers don't have the processing power to run anything > 30 mbps on an OpenVPN connection which is generally regarded as having the best encryption.

Using vpn.ac on my Netgear R9000 (with a quadcore Annapurna CPU) gives me Openvpn speeds of ~65mbps on my 80/20 vdsl2 connection.

Edited by deleted (Sun 26-Mar-17 14:43:57)

Pfsense is a free software firewall you can install on an old desktop PC. Does everything you could ask.

You will need to get your hands dirty mind you.

I run OpenVPN on it and direct whatever traffic\devices I want down it. Has no issue at 56Mbps. Doesn't even hit 20% CPU

In reply to a post by stubbyd:

I really don't see why my reasons are important here.

The bottom line is are you able to suggest a something that would fit my needs or not?

Given you haven't explained what you are needing it for, hard for me to fit the bill.

I know certain VPNs are much better for handling video traffic than others, certainly some routers I've tried out can't sustain a simple Netflix stream over their VPN despite 20Mbps upload.

I use private internet access and can hit about 200mbps no problem downloads peak at around 21MB/s
Although I connect via VPN on a per device basis not through the router due to being a gamer and not wanting to up my ping

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

I would recommend something like the Asus RT-N66U which can have either DD-WRT or Merlin fw installed on it and is supposed to be rock solid. A few second hand RT-N66s going for less that 50 notes on fleabay:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/162441166306
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/232278430653
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/322463712568

Don't know Merlin but have played with DD-WRT in the past. Many thanks for eh recommendation and the links.

In reply to a post by drummerjohn:

Pfsense is a free software firewall you can install on an old desktop PC. Does everything you could ask.

You will need to get your hands dirty mind you.

I run OpenVPN on it and direct whatever traffic\devices I want down it. Has no issue at 56Mbps. Doesn't even hit 20% CPU

No problems with getting my hands dirty but not looking to add to my electricity bill either but if it comes to that I do have an old PC and happy to re-direct its use. Thank you.

In reply to a post by deviousiphone:

I use private internet access and can hit about 200mbps no problem downloads peak at around 21MB/s
Although I connect via VPN on a per device basis not through the router due to being a gamer and not wanting to up my ping

Good to know - thank you.