pcWRT Secure WiFi Router

Security on WiFi routers is often ignored, but mostly misunderstood. Not only by the average home user, but also by self-proclaimed "experts" in mass media. To illustrate the point, this is how a popular tech review site evaluated the products on their "best secure" WiFi router list: ❝When evaluating the best secure routers, we looked at various features, like their speeds, communication bands, coverage area, companion apps, and router type.❞ With this note, I'll bring light to the issues at stake, and show how the pcWRT router helps address those issues. 🔑 Security Concerns There are three major security concerns in a home WiFi network setup: ⚡ WiFi security, ⚡ network security and ⚡ content security. ⚡ WiFi security In general, do not use Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS). There are many security issues with WPS. In our view, the convenience gained is not worth the security risks it brings. 👉The pcWRT router does not support WPS. Other than that, if you set up your WiFi with WPA2 or WPA3 with a good password, your WiFi network is secure enough. Techniques such as disabling SSID broadcast or black/white listing MAC addresses do not bring real security benefits. They are just minor annoyances in the eyes of a knowledgeable hacker. ⚡ Network security If anything, network security should be given more importance over WiFi security. Whereas WiFi hacks can only be carried out in close vicinity to your house, network vulnerabilities can be exploited from anywhere in the world. Every WiFi router has a firewall that blocks incoming requests from the Internet. However, some firewalls are less trustworthy than others. ISP provided routers usually comes with a backdoor for the ISP to login, and that opens doors for unauthorized access. A good practice is to scan your router for any open ports. 👉 The pcWRT router blocks all Internet facing ports by default. Moreover, a firewall alone is not enough. For example, an app you installed on your smart TV might bring in a virus, which would expose your whole network to the threat. Since the threat comes from inside your network, there's nothing the router firewall can do to block the threat. IoT devices such as smart TVs, set-top boxes, door bells, connected toys etc., are notoriously bad for security. You need to isolate them from your main network. That's where VLAN comes in. 👉 The pcWRT router comes with 5 preconfigured VLANs, which makes it easy to isolate vulnerable devices such as smart TVs. Think of the isolation as an additional firewall within your home network. The pcWRT router is the only consumer router that makes VLAN easy enough to manage by the average home user. ⚡ Content security Your router should block harmful content from the Internet, i.e., block sites that host malware and protect children from adult contents. 👉 The pcWRT router comes with preconfigured DNS filters such as OpenDNS, CleanBrowsing, Cloudflare, AdGuard etc. 👉 The pcWRT router provides multitude of options to configure parental controls, including block/allow lists, safe search, Internet access calendars, bandwidth throttling, one-click pausing etc. And it has builtin defense against bypassing techniques such as DNS override, DoT/DoH, proxies, VPN etc. 👉 There's no monthly fee to use any of the features built in the pcWRT router. 🔑 Privacy Concerns There are three areas of privacy concerns: ⚡ Router manufacturer exfiltrating your data, ⚡ ISPs spying on you, ⚡ Tracking cookies/pixels follow you around the Internet. ⚡ Router manufacturer exfiltrating your data Router manufacturers send your data back home or to third parties for various reasons. It is not clear how the data is used, stored or shared with third parties. In a recent CNET article, it was stated that: ❝Every major manufacturer I looked into discloses that it collects some form of user data for the purpose of marketing -- but almost none of the policies I read included any language that explicitly answered the question of whether or not a user should expect their web history to be logged or recorded.❞ They are also asking users to sign up for online accounts and install apps in order to use their router products. With your email address out there, your data is no longer anonymous. In our opinion, your browsing data belongs to you. And your local network activities belong local. The best privacy policy for data is never to generate it in the first place, and if data has to be generated, make sure it doesn't travel out of your network. 👉 The pcWRT router does not send data back home or to any third parties. You don't need to create an account with us to use the pcWRT router. And you don't need to install an app. ⚡ ISPs spying on you A 2021 Reuters article reported that Internet service providers (ISPs) collect a "staggering" amount of detailed data on consumers. Since all of your data travel through their networks, it's easy for the ISPs to track your every move online. With ISPs, everything can be associated with your true identity. A VPN helps you hide your Internet activities from ISPs. When a VPN connection is established, the ISP only sees a single connection to the VPN server. They can't see the websites you visit because all traffic is encrypted inside a VPN tunnel. By running a VPN on your router, all traffic out of your home network is protected. 👉 The pcWRT router supports three modern VPN protocols with strong encryption support: OpenVPN, IKEv2 and WireGuard. It supports both client and server for all three protocols. Sometimes websites/apps don't work when you are on a VPN. For example, Netflix or your bank. In this case, you'll have to use your raw ISP connection. 👉 When you have to fallback to the ISP connection, the pcWRT router provides DNS over HTTPS, which enables you to hide all your DNS traffic from your ISP. 👉 The pcWRT router also supports concurrent ISP and VPN connections. For example, you can set up two SSIDs on the router and tie one SSID to a VPN connection, leave the other on the ISP. Effectively you can switch VPN on and off by simply switching the SSID your device connects to. ⚡ Tracking cookies/pixels Have you ever had the experience where you just browsed a pair of shoes on a shopping site, then you hop on a news site and found that it's recommending a pair of shoes to you? How did the news site knew that you were looking for a pair of shoes? The trick is tracking cookies (sometimes pixels). Both sites embedded some hidden code from a common tracking domain. When you're hopping from site to site, the tracking domain follows you around. That is why you want to block ads not only because they are annoying, but also for the sake of privacy. 👉 The pcWRT router comes with a networkwide ad blocker that can be enabled with a single click. 👉 As is true with any ad blocker, some sites or apps won't work with ad blocking turned on. To handle these situations, the pcWRT router allows you to pause ad blocking with a single click. 🤗 There are many other details I did not mention here. If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

Not the type of product you see everyday here on PH, but looks like something that will give people a peace of mind. Grats on your launch, Xiaodong!

Cheers to the pcWRT team for a successful launch on Product Hunt! Exciting times ahead for enhanced home network security!