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this post was submitted on 29 May 2026
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Privacy
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i'm scrambling to obtain a router before the panopticon ban hits routers.
I love my GL.iNet router. It runs OpenWRT. I swapped to it a few months ago after getting a service upgrade and having my ISP try to force an Eero upon me.
Edit: they sell mobile routers too iirc (saw your other message).
Another recommendation for GL.iNet - been running one for a year and a half or so.
Whole house VPN via Mullvad was extremely easy to configure, for instance. As well as setting up an isolated "guest" network for fussy and sus devices (AKA no VPN for that).
You'll love it!
Seconding this for anyone looking to buy one. Their pre-installed OpenWRT firmware is easy enough to use, and you can also set up AdGuard Home on some models (like a pi-hole but on your router).
I would never, ever use the router or modem an ISP tries to stick you with. They charge you monthly for those, for one thing. I wouldn't be surprised if they had monitoring stuff on them, for another.
I have AdGuard setup on mine! Worth it and dead simple to configure.
thank you for mentioning this. GL.iNet's mobile router didn't show up in my searches and it instantly blows my top contenders out of the water.
No problem! They’ve got quite a few of them, so hopefully something there works.
i wish they that they were american based or at least european or japanese; the money I've ended up flushing down the toilet on chinese mobile devices taught me the hard way that american carriers eventually ban them using technical excuses so counterfactual that the pretext is obvious to anyone who knows the tech.
still, though, i'm highly tempted considering that it both costs less than the nighthawk m7 and has WAY MORE features/capabilities, so i should still get atleast 3-5 years of use out it before it too gets blocked by at&t or t-mobile.
I've had one of GL.inet's routers for over a year now and I'm really happy with it. I surprisingly did not have my ISP barking at me when I replaced my old one with it, which was a relief. I don't use a mobile carrier for my home internet though, so I don't know if they're more picky about what you use.
no one knows how picky they're going to be 5-ish years from now because the borders of our self-imposed & AI-driven panopticon are going to be in a state of flux for at least another decade.
did your device come with openwrt?
I hear you about the panopticon - I figured getting a Gl.iNet router is some protection, as I know what's running on it and I can keep all my network traffic behind a VPN with a killswitch. Of course, they could try to make those illegal down the road. Who knows.
GL.iNet's devices come with their own fork of OpenWRT pre-installed. The UI is easy to navigate and it does everything I need it to, so I haven't felt any need to install OpenWRT proper, but if you want to, I believe you can easily find instructions to do so online.
Saying from experience, but if you work from home you may get flagged by shoddy IT rules for using a Gl.iNet device since their routers are regularly used for residential proxies, and they also sell IP-KVMs that IT doesn't like.
I haven’t encountered any issues with work IT yet. Our IT team is pretty on point, so it wouldn’t surprise me if I wasn’t the only one that owned a GL.iNet. In fact, someone at work may have recommended them to me lmao.
make sure to get an openwrt compatible one. you are not gonna regret it.
i should i specified a mobile router. the prices on used/refurbished mobile routers are starting to rival brand new as inventories are starting to vanish because of the ban and i'm getting sick of my chinese phones getting blocked by american carriers.
i'm planning on doing openwrt/tomato/etc. too and the homework i've done so far suggests that supportable routers are a bit older so i suspect that i'll have more leeway when it comes to the ban.
sad to hear you guys are blocking vendors entirely now. huaweis used to have imei spoofing options, and some fuckery to allow regular play store and play services to work (not that you should want it)
dunno how it is now with open fascism and play integrity going on. and i imagine you already explored these options but it doesn't hurt to mention them.
not blocking vendors wholesale; rather more like blocking "non-compliant" devices that dis proportionally affect certain vendors.
and the privacy community is probably the best source for these options.