Review on NETGEAR WGT624NA Wireless Firewall Router by Joe Meyer

I've had this device for a few months now and it works almost perfectly. It's not a full-featured device, but I don't think you can expect it for the price - it has basic wireless and WAN security, nothing fancy. However, for a home user, this should be enough to keep your network relatively secure. In terms of WiFi, it offers TKIP security, which is nice. Since 802.11 security is a nightmare anyway, it's the best thing you can do with minimal effort. On the WAN side, a basic firewall provides NAT and port forwarding, and the device also logs so you can track activity. Email notifications are also available. There are a few small annoyances I found with this unit, hence the four stars: The "Status" page in the GUI really doesn't show any status at all. This is particularly annoying on the WAN side. It doesn't tell you whether your link is active or not. The old SMC router I had before made this a lot easier and fixes connection issues when they arise. The second problem seems to be food related. There have been a few instances where the device has frozen - usually after a storm. My router is connected to a UPS, so I suspect the problem is caused by fluctuations in the phone line. A restart fixes the problem, but when both issues are considered, it sometimes takes a few minutes to reconnect to the internet after being disconnected. I now have a habit of rebooting both the router and modem when the connection drops. A really nice security feature in the GUI is a list of all clients connected to your router, both wireless and wired. LAN. This is a great tool to determine if someone has hacked into your security system and is using your internet connection. I highly recommend checking this page if you find your internet connection is slow and you can't find any other reason. I also found the WiFi coverage to be very good. I've used several client adapters with it - Cisco, Asante, Linksys - and all with no problems. And since this device lacks antenna diversity, it has surprisingly few dips. Overall I think this is a great device for the home or home office. It is easy to install, configure and maintain. All my complaints are minor and this unit has been running without issue for almost a year.