Update asuswrt worth it ?

[fabiano]

Since we just moved from a flat with paper Walls into a house with concrete Walls i just diged out my old r7000 router to cover the whole house with wifi wich my huawai 4g router cant .

I just noticed i run a pretty old Firmware on it .
Are there any performance gains from updating it or just security fixes ,

 

[Kees17760]

Since we just moved from a flat with paper Walls into a house with concrete Walls i just diged out my old r7000 router to cover the whole house with wifi wich my huawai 4g router cant .

I just noticed i run a pretty old Firmware on it .
Are there any performance gains from updating it or just security fixes ,

It's a Netgear R7000 (from what i can see), which is an excellent but elderly router. If so have a look over here http://xvtx.ru/xwrt/ There's tons of info over there.

 

[egc]

Unfortunately no AsusWRT for Netgear routers.
As this router is behind your Huawei router security should not be a big issue but I would update nonetheless.
If you do not want stock firmware there are third party alternatives , I use DDWRT on my R7000 and running the latest build 50963 without problems, FreshTomato is also an alternative.

 

[iJorgen]

Are there any performance gains from updating it or just security fixes ,

...it's also illegal as posted here: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/a...d-forks-on-non-asus-devices-is-illegal.44636/

 

[JWoo]

...it's also illegal as posted here: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/a...d-forks-on-non-asus-devices-is-illegal.44636/

In the early 2000s, HyperWRT, OpenWRT, and Tomato were all distributions mainly targeting the Linksys WRT54G series of WIFI routers. Most likely, the "WRT" in AsusWRT is a legacy designation from those old Linksys WRT54G routers in the early 2000s. As is done today, those distributions used many open-source elements such as BusyBox, Linux kernel and dnsmasq. Mostly, the terms of use are under the GNU General Public License (v2 or v3) although there could be some elements in this soup that have different licenses altogether.

AsusWRT itself is originally based on Tomato (Tomato + an Asus created user interface). AsusWRT has a cornucopia of open-source and closed source elements. A lot of the security patches are written by universities and private researchers around the globe. The file system used now is UBIFS which was originally developed by Nokia and University of Szeged, Hungary. So we can probably all agree that you'd need a pretty good IPR lawyer to figure out what is legal or illegal (which also varies greatly by country). And we can probably all agree that Asus as well as other router manufacturers benefit greatly from the use of open-source elements which would be too costly to develop and maintain on their own. By using those open-source elements, manufacturers like Asus agree to abide by all those licenses.

So if someone ports AsusWRT to another make of router is that illegal? It may or may not be based on where they are located and how it was done. Does it show good faith toward Asus? Probably not.

 

[RMerlin]

So if someone ports AsusWRT to another make of router is that illegal?

The explanation is in the link that was provided. Asuswrt is not 100% open source, it contains a large amount of proprietary and licensed technologies. These have not be licensed for use on non-Asus devices.

 

[JWoo]

The explanation is in the link that was provided. Asuswrt is not 100% open source, it contains a large amount of proprietary and licensed technologies. These have not be licensed for use on non-Asus devices.

Agree with you that AsusWRT is not 100% open source. While I am not endorsing XWRT-Vortex, are they violating any license if they for example include Trend Micro in their builds? Asus states "You also acknowledge and agree that ASUS is not responsible for neither the agreement between you and Trend Micro nor any content of the service provided by Trend Micro." So Asus is basically saying that if you use AI Protection that they have nothing to do with it except facilitation by including it on the router. The EULA that Asus provides for AI Protection (attached) is a generic Trend Micro EULA that would apply to anyone using the software. So if there is some license lurking out there that would prevent someone from including Trend Micro on a Brand X router I cannot find it.

 

[Tech9]

There is nothing "illegal" here. Someone made it work - the guy installed it on hardware he owns. I'm pretty sure everyone around has not very "legal" bits if software and digital media on their phones and computers. We don't discuss Asuswrt on non-Asus hardware in hope to protect Asuswrt-Merlin project. Asus may pull the trigger at any moment if they feel like it. Run whatever you want - just don't ask questions here. We openly discuss torrent downloaders and VPNs here. Like we don't know what they are mostly used for.

 

[RMerlin]

So if there is some license lurking out there that would prevent someone from including Trend Micro on a Brand X router I cannot find it.

I'm not a lawyer, so it's not me who's going to give you any in-depth analysis of how licensing works and how it's enforced. The only part I'm able to bring here is the fact that Xvortex, among other, is in violation of my own GPL licensing terms, in addition to Asus' own GPL licensing terms. Source code for the GPL portions is NOT made available.

But what I can tell you for a fact is that a few years ago, one of these licensor filed a complain to Asus regarding the use of their product in these unlicensed forks. And the end result of that complain was going to initially force me to discontinue the Asuswrt-Merlin project, because their requirement would have prevented Asus from even allowing me to use these components. Thankfully Asus were able to convince them to tone down their initial request, and so I was able to continue.

But yes, this licensing situation brought us very close to the end of the Asuswrt-Merlin project. And therefore I'm never going to try defending these in any way.

There are copyrighted components within the firmware, which are used by Asus under a license agreement they have with the copyright holders. Nobody has a license to run these copyrighted components on non-licensed hardware. If the lcenser complains to Asus, Asus will be forced then to take steps to ensure that these components aren`t used on unlicensed hardrware. And the copyright holder could also go directly at those who redistribute these components without their permission.

 

[JWoo]

Absolutely right regarding the source code/GPL violation for XWRT. Those things can be hard to defend though due to differing regulations in countries. I appreciate you sharing the business perspective of this, which is pretty interesting.