NETGEAR FVS318N-100NAS ProSafe Wireless-N 8-port Gigabit VPN Firewall 6000 Simultaneous Sessions 95 Mbps

Pros: The price/performance on this firewall is excellent. Extremely well built with metal case and included wall mount slots on the bottom. Unit does not run hot at all.

Throughput of over 95Mbps with SPI. 1000BaseT (GigE) everywhere! Multiple options for VPN clients (i.e., IPsec, L2TP, SSL, etc.). Support for multiple VLAN's (up to 64) for segregating LAN traffic. Standard Netgear ProSafe lifetime warranty. This is a more than worthy replacement for the old FVS318G product.

Cons: SSL-VPN looks better on paper than it ends up being in real life. Nowadays with Shrew Soft, IPsec is just as fast and easy.

Not a "con" per se, but since the 4.3.0-19 firmware update the WAN port takes forever to go active after a reboot. From power up to passing traffic easily takes 7 - 10 minutes, so be advised.

Other Thoughts: Do I need to say update the firmware right out of the box? Apparently I do, as many reviewers below have given bad marks for old, outdated 2.x.x & 3.x.x firmware.

Be advised, Netgear Tech Support STRONGLY recommends doing a factory reset both before AND after upgrading to new firmware. Further, NEVER upgrade over a wireless link. IMHO, some of the complainers either didn't reset before and after or didn't correctly upgrade their firmware.

Since the 4.x.x platform has been released most of the previous complaints and issues have been addressed and fixed. This unit is rock solid on 4.3.0-19 firmware. If a slightly slower boot time is all it takes to make this unit stable I'm happy to wait.

I have several of these deployed at various client sites with no complaints, no problems, no issues!

You do need to have a firm grasp of IP routing and networking to get all the VLAN options and features enabled successfully. I like the ability to have a separate VLAN for Guest WiFi access that technically never leaves the box (per se). True, isolated guest WiFi access.

I've used LOTS of wireless firewalls from various manufacturers such as Linksys/Cisco & SonicWALL for over 15 years. This is rapidly becoming my favorite wireless VPN firewall. Fast & flexible!

Pros: Easy to set up

Cons: Very slow - we are returning it.

Other Thoughts: The non-wireless version worked better.

Pros: this router has so many pros. from the multiple connections to the wireless settings you can have more than enough users on at the same time. with the firm update drop signal s are a thing of the past.

Cons: wish it had dual band which would have made it future proof

Pros: On paper, this router is worth twice the price.

Cons: This thing was my worst nightmare for almost a year. Sometimes it wouldn't broadcast SSID. Sometimes it wouldn't broadcast wireless at all. Resetting would help for a day at first, then just a few hours. A few months in, the wired network stopped acting normal. DHCP would just not respond for 20 minutes unless I restarted. I couldn't do network backups because the network wouldn't stay up long enough to finish them. Firmware updates didn't help. I was resetting it 2 or 3 times a day when I finally replaced it with a Zywall.

Other Thoughts: If you buy this, budget a few hundred dollars for asprin.

Pros: at the time best gigabit / wireless router to buy
lots of configurations

Cons: right away noticed that it would drop out the wireless
then latter it all would drop out none of their firmware revisions and even come close to fixing these issues
I am very nervous of buying another firewall router from them again

Pros: NONE,

Cons: Item didn't work straight out of box, certificates are invalid, absolutely no help from Netgear

Other Thoughts: DO NOT BUY THIS UNIT! AND EVEN THOUGH ITEM WAS DEFECTIVE, NEWEGG CHARGES TO RETURN AND THEY TAKE 5-7 BUSINESS DAYS TO REFUND, ACCORDING TO THEIR OWN RMA STATEMENT. SO DONT GET ATKEN

Pros: Gb bandwidth, wired & wireless, small footprint, trusted brand

Cons: Wireless feature is worthless. This is a great wired router, but you can absolutely forget about using it wirelessly. I've had 3 units, all with factory defects. As an IT pro, it seems very obvious to me that this product did not undergo proper beta testing prior to being released. Netgear engineers can't figure it out so they just keep sending me more of the same garbage. Shame on you, Netgear!

Other Thoughts: Been working with Cisco & Netgear routers for over 15 years. My preference, up until now, has been Netgear products. Not anymore. I am the product specialist in charge of vendor selection at my company, and I have decided that on Monday we will be switching from Netgear switches and routers to Cisco products. And since we spend tens of thousands of dollars each year to install these products for our customers around the country, perhaps this will get Netgear's attention.

Pros: many available ports to accommodate just about any connections possible. easy to setup and use.

Cons: after 4 months of usage I am constantly losing my wireless settings. after installing the latest firmware I thought that would solve the problem, guess what? It worked for 3 days and then back to the dropped signal. I called Netgear and spoke to one of the tech guys. After giving him the serial number he informed me that my 90 free tech support has expired and he proceeded to connect me to someone that can quote me rates for tech support. needless to say this router is awesome with the multiple ports but a disgrace when you update the firmware and still get drop signals every day and have to reboot.

Other Thoughts: not worth the price for something that will drop your wireless signal and when you call support they want to connect you to their financial support to get you to pay for tech support

Pros: One of the few 8 LAN ports wireless routers out there

Cons: * A pain to install
* Unreliable wireless service
* Unreliable wired service

Other Thoughts: I bought this one on October of 2012. Even with the newest firmware currently available, the device worked very poorly.

After going through the ordeal of installing and finding the latest firmware on the cryptic Netgear website (You will have better luck googling for the firmware rather than searching for it on Netgear's website) I still didn't get it to work reliably.

I returned this one, and got a D-Link DIR-655 wireless router and a D-Link DGS-1008G 8-Port Switch. Buying a wireless router today is like a shot in the dark. There is no company out there that has a clean track record when it comes to product reliability and good technical support.

I hope to get better luck this time around.

Pros: VLAN support!!
Multiple SSID's with VLAN support
IPsec VPN capable
Fully Gigabit
Cheap for all of the features

Cons: Interface is a little slow

Other Thoughts: This is a great firewall. Being a MSP, I've been waiting and waiting for a firewall company to made a device that does higher level routing, but in a simple interface. This unit is it.

The VLAN support is why I got it. This unit supports 64 separate networks.

I don't know what all of your haters are smoking, because this is a great unit. I understand if some of you had defective units, but the rest of you obviously don't know how to configure this device, so you give it a bad review.

I've been configuring these Netgear firewalls for 3 years and they are very simple to configure if you take the time to learn. If you think these are complicated, don't touch a Cisco then. Great job Netgear!