Review on NETGEAR FVS318 ProSafe Firewall 8 Port by Eric Webb

I bought this router when my old SMC Barricade router/firewall stopped communicating with it after replacing my modem with a Motorola SurfBoard. The SMC was beyond useless when I went to the service center for help as the router was out of warranty (note to self - avoid SMC products in the future). Anyway, I bought this Netgear router because it was the only one with 8 ports and a firewall for a reasonable price. Strangely this segment of the market seems to have gone white since my last purchase 3 years ago, I remember more options. In any case, Netgear did very well. I just plugged it into everything, turned it on and it worked. I needed 8 ports because my house is hardwired with CAT5 cable in every room and I prefer a wired connection whenever possible for security and speed reasons. We don't usually use more than 3 ports at a time, so maybe this isn't the test application, but it worked fine for me. I'm not sure I'm taking full advantage of the firewall as some of these seem to be for advanced users, but it hasn't failed in the 3 weeks it's been working for me. My speed on each channel was tested at 1.5 Mbps, which is probably slightly lower than what my direct modem supports, but is still well above most downloads. I haven't encountered any of the technical issues that some have reported, so it's possible they have been fixed in the latest version. I recommend this router/firewall for a port-heavy home or small business.